Mellen whirled at the cry and made after her, but he might as well have tried to catch the wind.  As she ran she heard her brother shout in sudden alarm and Natalie’s voice raised in entreaty, but she sped on under an impulse as irresistible as panic fear.  Down through the openings beneath her feet she saw, as in a nightmare, the sweeping flood, burdened with plunging ice chunks and flecked with foam.  She seemed to be suspended above it; yet she was running at reckless speed, dimly aware of the consequences of a misjudged footstep, but fearful only of being overtaken.  Suddenly she hated her companions; her mind was in a furious revolt at their cowardice, their indecision, or whatever it was that held them like a group of wooden figures safe on shore while the man whose life was worth all theirs put together exposed himself to needless peril.  That he was really in danger she felt sure.  She knew that Murray was apt to lose himself in his dreams; perhaps some visionary mood had blinded him to the menace of that mounting ice-ridge it front of the glacier, or had he madly chosen to stand or fall with this structure that meant so much to him?  She would make him yield to her own terror, drag him ashore, if necessary, with her own hands.

She stumbled, but saved herself from a fall, then gathered her skirts more closely and rushed on, measuring with instinctive nicety the length of every stride.  It was not an easy path over which she dashed, for the ties were unevenly spaced; gaping apertures gave terrible glimpses of the river below, and across these ghastly abysses she had to leap.

The hoarse bursts of shouting from the shore ceased as the workmen beheld her flitting out along the steel causeway.  They watched her in dumb amazement.

All at once O’Neil saw her and hurried to meet her.

“Eliza!” he cried.  “Be careful!  What possessed you to do this?”

“Come away,” she gasped.  “It’s dangerous.  The jam—­Look!” She pointed down the channel.

He shook his head impatiently.

“Yes!” she pleaded.  “Yes!  Please!  They wouldn’t come to warn you —­they tried to stop me.  You must go ashore.”  The frightened entreaty in her clear, wide-open eyes, the disorder that her haste had made affected O’Neil strangely.  He stared at her, bewildered, doubtful, then steadied her and groped with his free hand for support.  He could feel her trembling wretchedly.

“There’s no danger, none whatever,” he said, soothingly.  “Nothing can happen.”

“You don’t know.  The bridge has never been tried.  The ice is battering at it, and that jam—­if it doesn’t burst—­”

“But it will.  It can’t last much longer.”

“It’s rising—­”

“To be sure, but the river will overflow the bank.”

“Please!” she urged.  “You can do no good here.  I’m afraid.”

He stared at her in the same incredulous bewilderment; some impulse deep within him was struggling for expression, but he could not find words to frame it.  His eyes were oddly bright as he smiled at her.