Looking across the void of shimmering white, it was difficult to discern a dark object of such size when dimly outlined against an equally dark background of brush and earth. But Frona could make the man out with fair distinctness; and as she grew accustomed to the strain she could distinguish each movement, and especially so when he came to a wind-thrown pine. Sue watched painfully. Twice, after tortuous effort, squirming and twisting, he failed in breasting the big trunk, and on the third attempt, after infinite exertion, he cleared it only to topple helplessly forward and fall on his face in the tangled undergrowth. "It is a man." She turned the glasses over to St. Vincent. "And he is crawling feebly. He fell just then this side of the log." "Does he move?" Jacob Welse asked, and, on a shake of St. Vincent's head, brought his rifle from the tent. He fired six shots skyward in rapid succession. "He moves!" The correspondent followed him closely. "He is crawling to the bank. Ah! . . . No; one moment . . . Yes! He lies on the ground and raises his hat, or something, on a stick. He is waving it." (Jacob Welse fired six more shots.) "He waves again. Now he has dropped it and lies quite still." All three looked inquiringly to Jacob Welse. He shrugged his shoulders. "How should I know? A white man or an Indian; starvation most likely, or else he is injured." "But he may be dying," Frona pleaded, as though her father, who had done most things, could do all things. "We can do nothing." "Ah! Terrible! terrible!" The baron wrung his hands. "Before our very eyes, and we can do nothing! No!" he exclaimed, with swift resolution, "it shall not be! I will cross the ice!" He would have started precipitately down the bank had not Jacob Welse caught his arm. "Not such a rush, baron. Keep your head." "But--" "But nothing. Does the man want food, or medicine, or what? Wait a moment. We will try it together." "Count me in," St. Vincent volunteered promptly, and Frona's eyes sparkled. While she made up a bundle of food in the tent, the men provided and rigged themselves with sixty or seventy feet of light rope. Jacob Welse and St. Vincent made themselves fast to it at either end, and the baron in the middle. He claimed the food as his portion, and strapped it to his broad shoulders. Frona watched their progress from the bank. The first hundred yards were easy going, but she noticed at once the change when they had passed the limit of the fairly solid shore-ice. Her father led sturdily, feeling ahead and to the side with his staff and changing direction continually.