Billy Topsail, M.D.

Below Ha-ha Shallow, where the stream dropped into a deep, long pool, lying between low cliffs, fringed with the spruce of that stunted wilderness, Rattle Water was bridged with ice. There had been flood water in the early spring break-up – a rush of broken ice, a jam in Black Pool, held by the rocks of its narrow exit; and the ice had been caught and sealed by the frosts of a swift spell of bitter weather.

The subsidence of Rattle Water, when the ice below Black Pool ran off with the current into the open reaches of Skeleton Arm, had left the jam suspended. It was a bridge from shore to shore, lifted a little from the water; but in the sunshine and thaw and warm rain of the subsequent interval it had gone rotten. Its heavy collapse was imminent.

And of this Billy Topsail and Archie had made sure on the way up-stream from the impassable ford to the impassable white water of Ha-ha Shallow. The ice-bridge could not be crossed. It awaited the last straw – a rain, a squall of wind, another day of sunshine and melting weather. Billy had ventured, on pussy-feet, and had withdrawn, threatened by a crack, his hair on end.

A second trial of the bridge had precisely the same result. Archie cast a stone. It plumped through.

"Soft 's cheese," said Billy.

Another stone was cast.

"Hear that, Billy?"

"Clean through, Archie."

"Yes; clean through. It's all rotten. We can't cross. Give me a hand. I'll try it."

With a hand from Billy Topsail, Archie let himself slip over the edge of the cliff to an anxious footing on the ice.

He waited – expectant.

"Cautious, Archie!" Billy warned.

Nothing happened.

"Cautious!" Billy repeated. "You'll drop through, b'y!"

Archie took one step – and dropped, crashing, with a section of the bridge, which momentarily floated his weight. Billy caught his hand, as the ice disintegrated under his feet, and dragged him ashore.

"It can't be done," said Archie.

"No, b'y; it can't."

"We'll try Ha-ha Shallow again. We've got to get across."

A moment, however, Archie paused. A startling possibility possessed his imagination. It was nothing remote, nothing vague; it was real, concrete, imminent. Standing on the brink of the rock at the point where the ice-bridge began, he contemplated the chances of Rattle Water. With a crossing of Ha-ha Shallow immediately in prospect, there was something for affrighted reflection in the current below. And the suggestion was vivid and ugly.

There the water was flowing black, spread with creamy puffs of foam; and it ran swift and deep, in strong, straight lines, as it approached the Black Pool ice and vanished beneath. There was a space between the ice and the fallen current – not much: two feet, perhaps; but it occurred to Archie, with sudden, shocking force, that two feet were too much. And the deep, oily, adherent flow of the current, and the space between the ice and the water, and the cavernous shadow beneath the ice, and the gurgle and lapping of the pool, made the flesh of his back uneasy.

"A nasty fix," he observed.

"What's that, Archie?"

"If a man lost his feet in the current."

"He'd come down like a chip."

"He would. And he'd slip under the ice. Watch these puffs of foam. What would happen to a man under there, Billy?"

"He'd drown in the pool. He couldn't get out."

"Right, Billy," Archie agreed, shortly. "He'd drown in the pool. He couldn't get out. The current would hold him in there. Come along."

"Shall we try it, Archie?"

"We'll look it over."

"An' if we think – "

"Then we'll do it!"

Billy laughed.

"Archie," said he, "I – I – I likes you!"

"Shucks!" said Archie.

Archie walked the length of Ha-ha Shallow, from the swift water above Black Pool to Loon Lake, and returned, still searching the rapid for a good crossing, to a point near the Black Pool ice, where a choppy ripple promised a shallow, gravelled bottom. The stream was wide, shelving slowly from the shore – it was prattling water; but there was a fearsomely brief leeway of distance between the stretch of choppy ripple and the deep rush of the current as it swept into the shadows under the Black Pool ice.

Directly below the ripple, Rattle Water narrowed and deepened; nearing Black Pool, the banks were steep, and above the rising gorge, which the banks formed, and running the length of it, the current swelled over a scattering of slimy boulders and swirled around them. It was a perilous place to be caught. In the gravel-bottomed ripple, the water was too swift, too deep, for an overbalanced boy to regain his feet; and in the foaming, hurrying, deeper water below, the rough drift to Black Pool was inevitable: for the boulders were water-worn and round, and the surface was as slippery as grease with slime.

Having stared long enough at the alluring stretch of choppy ripple, Archie Armstrong came to a conclusion.

CHAPTER XXXV

In Which Billy Topsail Takes His Life in His Hands and Ha-Ha Shallow Lays Hold of It With the Object of Snatching It Away

"Well," said Archie, "I'll try it."

"You won't!" said Billy.

"I will!"

"You won't!"

Archie looked Billy in the eye.

"Why not?" he inquired.

"I'm goin' t' try it myself."

"You're not!"

"I am!"

Both boys burst into a laugh. It was an amiable thing to do. And there could have been no better preparation for the work in hand.

"Look here, Billy – " Archie began.