other villages whose bridges were in less secure position there
was little sleep and much anxiety.

At midnight a cry was heard from the men watching at Milliken's
Mills. The great ice jam had parted from Rolfe's Island and was
swinging out into the open, pushing everything before it. All
the able-bodied men in the village turned out of bed, and with
lanterns in hand began to clear the stores and mills, for it
seemed that everything near the river banks must go before that
avalanche of ice.

Stephen and Rufus were there helping to save the property of
their friends and neighbors; Rose and Mite Shapley had stayed the
night with a friend, and all three girls were shivering with fear
and excitement as they stood near the bridge, watching the
never-to-be-forgtten sight. It is needless to say that the
Crambry family was on hand, for whatever instincts they may have
lacked, the instinct for being on the spot when anything was
happening, was present in them to the most remarkable extent.
The town was supporting them in modest winter quarters somewhat
nearer than Killick to the centre of civilization, and the first
alarm brought them promptly to the scene, Mrs. Crambry remarking
at intervals: "If I'd known there'd be so many out I'd ought to
have worn my bunnit; but I ain't got no bunnit, an' if I had they
say I ain't got no head to wear it on!"

By the time the jam neared the falls it had grown with its
accumulations, until it was made up of tier after tier of huge
ice cakes, piled side by side and one upon another, with heaps of
trees and branches and drifting lumber holding them in place.