Launching their canoe, they poled her laboriously against the current, which ran fast between its banks of ice. Andrew was thankful that the snow on the frozen surface threw up a faint light and they could see the glimmer of the floes that drifted down, though it was not always possible to avoid them. Once or twice there was a crash as a heavy mass struck the canoe, which was too lightly built to stand much of this buffeting. Andrew had thick mittens, but they soon got wet and his hands grew numbed. He was not clad for rigorous weather, and his exertions failed to keep him warm. Still, they were making progress, and they met with no serious difficulty until they entered a slacker reach. It had been open when they came down, but now the channel made by the current was glazed with thin ice, through which they could hardly drive the canoe. Indeed, in some places Carnally was forced to break the crust with the pole while Andrew paddled. "If there's much more of this, it will be late to-morrow before we make camp," Andrew remarked. "We'll have to leave the river pretty soon, but we'll stick to it as long as we can," Carnally replied. "It's rough traveling through the bush, and the shore ice is hardly safe yet." They got through the reach, paddled laboriously against a swifter stream, and dragged the canoe over a portage, stumbling among big stones and across frozen pools. During this passage Andrew fell and hurt himself; but stopping was out of the question. Launching the craft on the upper edge of the rapid, they drove her out. For a minute or two they made no progress, and Andrew, straining at his pole, feared that they would be swept down the wild, foaming rush; but they found slacker water and the ominous roar of the rapid died away. Then snow began to fall, making it difficult to see, though they had the faint glimmer of the shore-ice for a guide. In the reach up which they were poling, it did not run out far because the stream was strong, and they had gone some distance when there was a heavy thud and a curious crunch at the bows. "In with her!" cried Carnally. "Head for the slack behind the point!" They ran in through crackling ice and had reached the thicker strip along the bank when Andrew felt his knees grow wet. Feeling with his hand, he found there was an inch or two of water in the bottom of the craft. "Skin's punched through," Carnally explained. "We can't bale her and use the pole. You'll have to get out." Andrew did so hastily, but the ice on which he landed cracked as he moved, and he had gone several yards before it seemed strong enough to bear him. Carnally dragged the canoe out, and then turned cautiously up-stream. "We'll have to chance the ice for the next mile or two," he said. "It's rough country--steep rock and very thick scrub--on this side."