As they darted across the mouth of the back-channel to Roubeau Island they found themselves heading directly for an opening in the rim-ice.  La Bijou drove into it full tilt, and went half her length out of water on a shelving cake.  The three leaped together, but while the two of them gripped the canoe to run it up, Tommy, in the lead, strove only to save himself.  And he would have succeeded had he not slipped and fallen midway in the climb.  He half arose, slipped, and fell again.  Corliss, hauling on the bow of the canoe, trampled over him.  He reached up and clutched the gunwale.  They did not have the strength, and this clog brought them at once to a standstill.  Corliss looked back and yelled for him to leave go, but he only turned upward a piteous face, like that of a drowning man, and clutched more tightly.  Behind them the ice was thundering.  The first flurry of coming destruction was upon them.  They endeavored desperately to drag up the canoe, but the added burden was too much, and they fell on their knees.  The sick man sat up suddenly and laughed wildly.  “Blood of my soul!” he ejaculated, and laughed again.

Roubeau Island swayed to the first shock, and the ice was rocking under their feet.  Frona seized a paddle and smashed the Scotsman’s knuckles; and the instant he loosed his grip, Corliss carried the canoe up in a mad rush, Frona clinging on and helping from behind.  The rainbow-wall curled up like a scroll, and in the convolutions of the scroll, like a bee in the many folds of a magnificent orchid, Tommy disappeared.

They fell, breathless, on the earth.  But a monstrous cake shoved up from the jam and balanced above them.  Frona tried to struggle to her feet, but sank on her knees; and it remained for Corliss to snatch her and the canoe out from underneath.  Again they fell, this time under the trees, the sun sifting down upon them through the green pine needles, the robins singing overhead, and a colony of crickets chirping in the warmth.

CHAPTER XXVI

Frona woke, slowly, as though from a long dream.  She was lying where she had fallen, across Corliss’s legs, while he, on his back, faced the hot sun without concern.  She crawled up to him.  He was breathing regularly, with closed eyes, which opened to meet hers.  He smiled, and she sank down again.  Then he rolled over on his side, and they looked at each other.

“Vance.”

“Yes.”

She reached out her hand; his closed upon it, and their eyelids fluttered and drooped down.  The river still rumbled en, somewhere in the infinite distance, but it came to them like the murmur of a world forgotten.  A soft languor encompassed them.  The golden sunshine dripped down upon them through the living green, and all the life of the warm earth seemed singing.  And quiet was very good.  Fifteen long minutes they drowsed, and woke again.