“Mon Dieu!  But this is not nice!”

“But magnificent, baron,” Frona teased.  “In the meanwhile you are getting your feet wet.”

He retreated out of the water, and in time, for a small avalanche of cakes rattled down upon the place he had just left.  The rising water had forced the ice up till it stood breast-high above the island like a wall.

“But it will go down soon when the jam breaks.  See, even now it comes up not so swift.  It has broken.”

Frona was watching the barrier.  “No, it hasn’t,” she denied.

“But the water no longer rises like a race-horse.”

“Nor does it stop rising.”

He was puzzled for the nonce.  Then his face brightened.  “Ah!  I have it!  Above, somewhere, there is another jam.  Most excellent, is it not?”

She caught his excited hand in hers and detained him.  “But, listen. 
Suppose the upper jam breaks and the lower jam holds?”

He looked at her steadily till he grasped the full import.  His face flushed, and with a quick intake of the breath he straightened up and threw back his head.  He made a sweeping gesture as though to include the island.  “Then you, and I, the tent, the boats, cabins, trees, everything, and La Bijou!  Pouf! and all are gone, to the devil!”

Frona shook her head.  “It is too bad.”

“Bad?  Pardon.  Magnificent!”

“No, no, baron; not that.  But that you are not an Anglo-Saxon.  The race could well be proud of you.”

“And you, Frona, would you not glorify the French!”

“At it again, eh?  Throwing bouquets at yourselves.”  Del Bishop grinned at them, and made to depart as quickly as he had come.  “But twist yourselves.  Some sick men in a cabin down here.  Got to get ’em out.  You’re needed.  And don’t be all day about it,” he shouted over his shoulder as he disappeared among the trees.

The river was still rising, though more slowly, and as soon as they left the high ground they were splashing along ankle-deep in the water.  Winding in and out among the trees, they came upon a boat which had been hauled out the previous fall.  And three chechaquos, who had managed to get into the country thus far over the ice, had piled themselves into it, also their tent, sleds, and dogs.  But the boat was perilously near the ice-gorge, which growled and wrestled and over-topped it a bare dozen feet away.

“Come!  Get out of this, you fools!” Jacob Welse shouted as he went past.

Del Bishop had told them to “get the hell out of there” when he ran by, and they could not understand.  One of them turned up an unheeding, terrified face.  Another lay prone and listless across the thwarts as though bereft of strength; while the third, with the face of a clerk, rocked back and forth and moaned monotonously, “My God!  My God!”

The baron stopped long enough to shake him.  “Damn!” he cried.  “Your legs, man!—­not God, but your legs!  Ah! ah!—­hump yourself!  Yes, hump!  Get a move on!  Twist!  Get back from the bank!  The woods, the trees, anywhere!”