The Ice Queen

by Ernest Ingersoll

  "Just you try it, and see how you like its snugness. Drop me an end of that rope, will you?"

  "Give him the rope's end, Tug; he deserves it in another way, but we haven't time to-day. Now, then—yo-heave-o!" and up came the lost member, not much the worse for his adventure.

  Then began the difficult work of crossing the hummock. In front of the boat lay a steep slope of glassy ice, and beyond and above that a series of steps and jagged points, forming about such a plateau as a big heap of building-stone would make, only here the fragments were larger.

  All four, going to the top of the first slope, pulled the boat upward until the forward runners were just balanced on the crest. Then a hook on one of the ropes came loose; four young people fell sprawling; and the boat dropped backward with a rush to the very bottom of the ridge, where it upset.

  "Now," said Aleck, when they had set the boat upright again, and found nothing broken; "now let us take out all the loose stuff, and so lighten her as much as we can."

  This was done.

  "We three fellows," was the Captain's next order, "will drag her up again, and Katy must go behind with the boat-hook, and stick it into the ice behind the boat, to hold it, like a chock-block under a wagon wheel, whenever it shows any signs of slipping back. Now, everybody be careful."

  The steady pulling, with Katy's pushing and guiding, got the front runners safely over the edge of the sloping side, and gave them a chance to rest. But when they tried to move it forward enough to bring the stern up, the boat couldn't be budged, because the ice in front was so full of ruts and ridges.

  * * *

  Chapter VIII.

  JIM'S REBELLION.

  "I tell you what, boys," Tug cried, after a great effort, "there's no use trying any more till we have smoothed a road, and I think, Captain, you'd better set all hands at that."

  "I'm afraid that is so. Jim, please go back and get the axe, the hatchet, and the shovel. Now, while Tug and I dig at this road, you and Jim, Katy, can bring some of the freight up here, or perhaps take it clear across, and so save time. The small sled will help you."

  It was tedious labor all around, and the wind began to blow in a way they would have thought very cold had they not been so warm and busy with work. As fast as a rod or two of road was cleared, the four took hold and dragged the boat ahead. These slow advances used up so much time that when the plateau had been crossed, the sun, peering through dark clouds, was almost level with the horizon. It now remained to get down the sudden pitch and rough slope on the farther side. But this was a task of no small importance, and Aleck called a council on the subject.

  CROSSING THE HUMMOCK.

  "My lambs," he began (the funny word took the edge off the unfortunate look of affairs, as it was intended to do)—"my lambs, it is growing late, and it's doubtful if we can get this big boat down that pair of stairs before dark. Don't you think I'd better order Jim and Katy to pack up the small sled with tent and bedding and kitchen-stuff?"

  "'Twon't hold it all!" interrupted Jim.

  "Then, Youngster, you can come back after the bedding. Take the cooking things first, and you and Katy go back to the island where we lunched, and make a fire. Tug and I—eh, Tug?—will stay here and chop away till dark, and then we'll go back to camp with you when you come after the blankets, and help you carry the tent."

  "Are you going to leave the boat here all night?" asked Jim, in alarm.

  "Why, of course; what'll harm it? Now be off, and make a big fire."

  So the younger ones departed, and by and by Jim returned for a second load. He found the two older boys cutting a sloping path through the little ice bluff on the farther side of the hummock, and pretty tired of it. They were not yet done—the shovel not being of much service in working the hard blue ice—but it was now getting too dark to do more, so they piled the snug bundles of blankets into Jim's sled box, and gave him the rope, while Tug and Aleck put their shoulders under opposite ends of the tent roll. Then together they all skated away through the thickening windy twilight, and over the ashy-gray plain of ice, towards where Katy's fire glowed like a red spark on the distant shore.

  It was a weary but not at all disheartened party that lounged in the open door of the tent that night, while a big fire blazed in front, and supper was cooking. This was the first time the sail had been spread as a tent, and it answered the purpose nicely, giving plenty of room. The straw Katy had been so anxious about had to be left in the boat, so that they got no good of it. Jim chaffed his sister a good deal about this, and Tug rather encouraged him, thinking it was a fair chance for fun at Katy's expense; but when he saw that Katy really was feeling badly, not at Jim's teasing words, but for fear she had made the boys useless trouble, Aleck came to the rescue. Seizing The Youngster by the shoulder, he spun him round like a teetotum, and was going to box his ears, when Katy cried out, "Oh, don't!" and saved that young gentleman's skin for the present.

  "Then I'll punish you in another way. Take your knife, go over there to the marsh"—it was perhaps a hundred yards away—"and cut as many rushes as you can carry."

  The Youngster never moved.

  "I don't want the rushes," said Katy, trying to keep the peace, but her brother paid no heed.

  "Did you hear what I said?" he asked again of Jim.

  "Yes, I did."

  "Well, that was a Captain's Order, and I advise you to obey."

  "Do it yourself!" shouted the angry Jim, sitting down by the fire.

  Aleck looked at him an instant, saw his sulky, set lips, and then walked over to a willow bush near by. From the centre of this bush he cut a thriving switch, and carefully trimmed off all the twigs and crumpled leaves. It was as pliant and elastic as whalebone. It whistled through the air, when it was waved, like a wire or a thin lash. It would hug the skin it was laid upon, and wrap tightly around a boy's legs, and sting at the tip like a hornet. It wouldn't raise a welt upon the skin, as an iron rod or a rawhide might do, but it would hurt just as bad while it was touching you.

  Jim knew all this, and it flashed through his brain, every bit of it, as he saw Aleck trim the switch.

  "Better scoot, Youngster," Tug advised, with a grin that was meant kindly, but made Jim madder than ever.

  "Please get the rushes," coaxed Katy.

  But when Aleck came back the boy still sat there, defiant of orders.

  "Now, James," he said, as he stood over him, "you have been ordered by your Captain to go and get some rushes. You refuse. You are insubordinate. I'll give you just one minute to make up your mind what you will do."

  Jim glanced up, saw the determined face and stalwart form of his brother; saw Tug keeping quiet and showing no intention of interfering; saw the awful willow. He rose quickly from his seat, and darted away into the scrub alders and willows as hard as he could run, but not towards the rushes.

  Aleck didn't follow him. "Never mind," he said. "Go on with your supper, Katy. That boy gets those rushes before he has any grub to eat or blankets to lie in, unless you both vote against it, and I don't think you will, for it was a reasonable order."

  "Well, Captain," said Tug, "I think we might ease up on it a little. It was a little rough on The Youngster sending him alone in the dark to get the stuff. If you had sent me with him, I suppose he'd have gone fast enough. If you'll say so now, I allow he'll surrender and save his hide. For that matter, I don't mind getting 'em alone if you'll let the kid go. I was going to propose it myself just as you gave the order."

  "That's very kind of you, Tug; but I couldn't allow you to get them alone. You may help if you want to."

  "May I tell him so?" Katy asked, eagerly.

  "Yes, if you can find him."

  "I'll find him—look out for the bacon;" and the girl went off into the gloom and the bushes, calling, "Jim! Jim!"

  It was a good while before she came back, and the boys, tired of waiting, had forked out the bacon, and were eating their meal, which was what the poets call "frugal," but immensely relished all the s
ame.

  Suddenly Katy and the culprit stalked out of the ring of shadows that encircled the fire, bearing huge bundles of yellow rushes.

  "That ain't fair!" cried Tug. "You ought to have let me gone, Katy."

  "Oh, I didn't mind, and I wanted Jim to hurry back."

  "I didn't want her to carry none," said Jim, more eager about self-defense than grammar. "If I give up, I want to give up all over, and not half-way."

  "Good for you, Youngster," Aleck shouted, leaping up. "Give us your hand!"

  Thus peace was restored, and the boy sat down happily to his well-earned supper, while the older ones spread the crisp reed-straw. Finding there wasn't quite enough, they went off to the marshes and brought two more armfuls, which made a warm and springy couch for the whole party.

  These "rushes" were not rushes, properly speaking, but the wild rice which grows so abundantly on the borders of the great lakes, and throughout the little ponds and shallow sheets of water that are dotted so thickly over Wisconsin and southern Minnesota. It is like a small bamboo jungle, for the close-crowding stiff reeds often stand ten feet or more above the water. They bear upon the upper part of their stalks a few ribbon-like leaves, and each reed carries a plume which in autumn contains the seeds, or the "rice."

  The botanical name of the plant is Zizania aquatica; and among it flourish not only the common white and yellow water-lilies, but that splendid one, the Nelumbium luteum, which Western people call the lotus.

  This rice formed an important part of the food of the Indians who lived where it grew. In and out of the marshes run narrow canals, kept open by the currents, and through these the Indian women would paddle their canoes, seeking the ripe heads, which they would cut off and take ashore to be threshed out in the wigwam, or else they would shake and rub out the rice into a basket as they went along. At home the rice would be crushed into a coarse flour in their stone mortars, then made into cakes baked on the surface of smooth stones heated in the coals.

  The stalks, round, smooth, and straight, were of service to the Indians also. Out of them they made mats and thatching for their lodges, and they served as excellent arrow-shafts, a point of fire-hardened wood, of bone, or of flint having been fixed in the end.

  JIM AND KATY BRINGING THE RUSHES TO CAMP.

  In warm weather these broad, submerged marshes, undulating in color-waves—green in spring, golden-yellow in midsummer, and warm reddish-brown in October—as the breeze swept across the vast extent of pliant reeds, formed the home of a great variety of animals, whose numbers were almost unlimited. There, in the darkly stained water, lurked hosts of small shells and insects—dragon-flies, beetles, and aquatic bugs and flies, whose habits were always a matter for curiosity. Then, where insects and mollusks were so numerous, of course there were plenty of fishes, great and small, the little ones feeding on the bugs and snails, the larger on them, and some giants—like the big pike—on these again. Nor did this end the list. After the big fish came the muskrat; after the muskrat—in the old days, at least—sneaked the wolverine; after the wolverine crept the stealthy panther; and for the panther an Indian lay in wait.

  The marshes were full of birds, too, in the bird-season—small, piping wrens; suspicious sparrows; ducks and rails and gallinules of many kinds and many voices; herons and cranes and hawks; coming and going with the seasons, making the yellow reeds populous with busy lives, and vocal with their merriment. Now, however, all was silent.

  Our travellers would have preferred skating across the marshes rather than outside upon the windy lake, but it was reported that warm springs came out of the ooze in many parts of the rice morass, keeping the ice so weak (though not melting it quite away) as to make skating unsafe. This danger was not so great, perhaps, in a winter so unusually cold as this one was proving itself to be, as it had been shown to be in milder seasons; but they did not want to run risks.

  "How noisy it will be all around this islet in three months from now!" Aleck remarked, as they were preparing for bed. "Then you will hardly be able to hear yourself speak for the frogs."

  "Before there were any lighthouses on the lake," said Tug, "sailing was pretty much guesswork; but my father told me the sailors, when they approached the shore, used to know where they were by listening to the bull-frogs. The bulls would call out the names of their ports, you know: San—dúsk—y! To—l-é-e-e—do! Mon—róe! De—trói-i-i-i—it!"

  * * *

  Chapter IX.

  SKATING BY COMPASS.

  The next day was Sunday. Fortunately, the sacred day had found them in such a position that they could spend it quietly. Katy persuaded Jim and the two young men to listen while she read them some chapters from the little Testament she had carefully packed among her "necessary articles."

  This, together with the work that must be done, took up a good part of the morning, and the afternoon was spent in making a trip to the boat, looking the situation over carefully, and laying plans for a very early start the next day. Supper over, they soon crawled into bed, and woke at day break, ready for work, and all the better for their day of rest.

  After a hasty breakfast camp was broken, and work was resumed at the hummock. All hands labored with such a will that long before noon they had let the boat down to the smooth white plain upon the other side; and though it got away from them at the last minute, and went spinning off on its own account, no harm was done.

  The onward march was then resumed, and splendid headway made. At noon a short halt was called and gladly accepted, all lounging upon the straw and boxes in the boat, munching crackers and cheese, and drinking Katy's cold chocolate. The sun had been out all the morning, and the ice was not only a trifle soft, but frequently rough, which had made the skating and dragging a little harder work than before.

  No land appeared ahead, but Aleck knew the name and position of a lighthouse just visible upon an island at the mouth of a river away off at their right. He therefore took out of his pocket a small map of the western end of the lake, that he had copied from a big chart, and began to study it. He found that it was about fifteen miles across the end of the lake to a certain cape on the southern shore, which lay beyond the great marshy bay into which emptied the river just mentioned. He took the direction of this cape from where they were at present, by compass, and made a note of it in his pocket-book. It was almost exactly southeast. Aleck reckoned on reaching so near there by sundown that the party could go ashore if very hard pushed by any misfortune or bad turn of the weather, though it was too long a march to make unless they were compelled.

  "But supposing we find open water, and have to change our course?" asked Katy.

  "Well, we shall know, at all events, that we mustn't go east of southeast, and must try to keep as close to that direction as possible. I don't like this sunshine and westerly breeze. I'd much rather the weather kept real cold."

  "Why?" said Jim. "It's much nicer when it's warm."

  "I'm afraid of snow and fogs, Youngster. Now let us be off."

  No snow or fog came to bother them, however, and at sunset they were out of sight of any landmark, and travelling by the compass, like a ship at sea.

  You may ask, How could they be sure they were following it truly, since they had no object, like a long bowsprit, to guide the eye in ranging their course into line with the needle point, as the steersman on a ship does when he glances across his binnacle?

  This is the plan they took: The compass was a small one, but it was hung in a box so as always to stand level. It was, in fact, an old boat compass which Mr. Kincaid had had for many years. This was set exactly in the middle of the seat at the stern of the boat, where Katy still skated, with her hands resting upon the stern-board. Here she could keep her eye easily upon the face of the compass, and make a straight line from its pointer through the middle of the boat. When the compass point "southeast" and the stem-post of the yawl were in line, she knew they were going on a straight course. When these were out of line, she knew her team had swerved, and she ca
lled out "Right!" or "Left!" to bring them back to the true course, just as a quartermaster would order "Port!" and "Starboard!" to his helmsman.

  The sun went down slowly at their right hands as they rushed along, and as Jim saw his shadow stretching taller and taller, he found it difficult to keep pace with the older lads. Noting this, the Captain ordered a halt, and put Jim into the boat as a passenger, tying his sled behind.

  "Don't you want to ride also?" asked Tug of Katy, very gallantly.

  Katy was tired, and one of her skate-straps chafed her instep a little, but she didn't propose to give up.

  "Oh, no," she said, cheerily. "I have so much help by resting on the stern of the boat that I can go a long time yet before I give in. Besides, who would steer?"

  So they rushed away again, the clink-clink of their strokes keeping perfect time on the smooth ice. All at once—it was about four o'clock in the afternoon now—a dark line appeared ahead, and in a few moments more they could plainly see open water across their path.

  When they became sure of this they went more slowly, and in about ten minutes had approached as close as they dared to a wide space like a river, beyond which white ice could be seen again. Here all knew they must spend the night, for it would be foolish to attempt to cross before morning.

  "Well," remarked Tug, as they came to a halt, "according to orders, it's my duty to take the axe and cut fuel; so I can loaf, for there's no wood to chop round here that I see;" and he pretended to search in every direction.

  "Loaf? Not a bit of it," shouted Aleck, with a grin. "My order to you is, Unload that tent, and set it up on the ice! Jim will help you. I'll help Katy make a fire."

  "I wish you would," said the girl. "I'm 'fraid I shouldn't make it go very well out here. I have never built a kitchen fire on ice."

  "This is the best way."