he found the town empty, and, looking down a cross street, he saw the
crowds that had gathered on the river-bank, thus learning at last that
something unusual had occurred. Of course he ran to the river to learn
what it was.

When he got there he learned that Noah Martin the fisherman who was
also the ferryman between the village and its neighbor on the other
side of the river, had been drowned during the early morning in a
foolish attempt to row his ferry skiff across the stream. The ice
which had blocked the river for two months, had begun to move on the
day before, and Martin with his wife and baby--a child about a year
old--were on the other side of the river at the time. Early on that
morning there had been a temporary gorging of the ice about a mile
above the town, and, taking advantage of the comparatively free
channel, Martin had tried to cross with his wife and child, in his
boat.

The gorge had broken up almost immediately, as the river was rising
rapidly, and Martin's boat had been caught and crushed in the ice.
Martin had been drowned, but his wife, with her child in her arms, had
clung to the wreck of the skiff, and had been carried by the current
to a little low-lying island just in front of the town.

What had happened was of less importance, however, than what people
saw must happen. The poor woman and baby out there on the island,
drenched as they had been in the icy water, must soon die with cold,
and, moreover, the island was now nearly under water, while the great
stream was rising rapidly. It was evident that within an hour or two
the water would sweep over the whole surface of the island, and the
great fields of ice would of course carry the woman and child to a