Frona shook her head. "It is too bad." "Bad? Pardon. Magnificent!" "No, no, baron; not that. But that you are not an Anglo-Saxon. The race could well be proud of you." "And you, Frona, would you not glorify the French!" "At it again, eh? Throwing bouquets at yourselves." Del Bishop grinned at them, and made to depart as quickly as he had come. "But twist yourselves. Some sick men in a cabin down here. Got to get 'em out. You're needed. And don't be all day about it," he shouted over his shoulder as he disappeared among the trees. The river was still rising, though more slowly, and as soon as they left the high ground they were splashing along ankle-deep in the water. Winding in and out among the trees, they came upon a boat which had been hauled out the previous fall. And three _chechaquos_, who had managed to get into the country thus far over the ice, had piled themselves into it, also their tent, sleds, and dogs. But the boat was perilously near the ice-gorge, which growled and wrestled and over-topped it a bare dozen feet away. "Come! Get out of this, you fools!" Jacob Welse shouted as he went past. Del Bishop had told them to "get the hell out of there" when he ran by, and they could not understand. One of them turned up an unheeding, terrified face. Another lay prone and listless across the thwarts as though bereft of strength; while the third, with the face of a clerk, rocked back and forth and moaned monotonously, "My God! My God!" The baron stopped long enough to shake him. "Damn!" he cried. "Your legs, man!--not God, but your legs! Ah! ah!--hump yourself! Yes, hump! Get a move on! Twist! Get back from the bank! The woods, the trees, anywhere!" He tried to drag him out, but the man struck at him savagely and held back. "How one collects the vernacular," he confided proudly to Frona as they hurried on. "Twist! It is a strong word, and suitable." "You should travel with Del," she laughed. "He'd increase your stock in no time." "You don't say so." "Yes, but I do." "Ah! Your idioms. I shall never learn." And he shook his head despairingly with both his hands. They came out in a clearing, where a cabin stood close to the river. On its flat earth-roof two sick men, swathed in blankets, were lying, while Bishop, Corliss, and Jacob Welse were splashing about inside the cabin after the clothes-bags and general outfit. The mean depth of the flood was a couple of feet, but the floor of the cabin had been dug out for purposes of warmth, and there the water was to the waist. "Keep the tobacco dry," one of the sick men said feebly from the roof. "Tobacco, hell!" his companion advised. "Look out for the flour. And the sugar," he added, as an afterthought. "That's 'cause Bill he don't smoke, miss," the first man explained. "But keep an eye on it, won't you?" he pleaded. "Here. Now shut up." Del tossed the canister beside him, and the man clutched it as though it were a sack of nuggets.