What was that between him and the bridge? A boat? No, it didn’t look like a boat. It was a darkish spot apparently in the water, but surely no one would be silly enough to attempt to swim there! And then he realized. In the middle of the river, turning and dipping, floated an ice-cake and on it, stretched face-downward, was the form of a boy! Hardly crediting his sight, Toby stood and stared. But there was no deception. The ice-cake and its imperiled burden was floating nearer and nearer and the cries, shrill and terror-stricken, came plainly now across the water. Now and then the frail expanse of ice tipped dangerously and Toby could see the boy strive frantically to adjust his body to the slant, to keep the ice-cake from turning over. One hand clutched desperately at an edge and the other was stretched on the slippery surface. Straight for the open water of the Sound it floated, and, as Toby well knew, the boy could never stay on it a moment after it reached the rough water. Toby’s first act was entirely involuntary. He rushed to the edge of the embankment, slipping and tripping on the ice, put his hands to his mouth and sent his voice across the space. “_All right!_” he shouted. “_Hold on! I’m coming!_” But that was easier promised than performed, as he realized the next moment with a sinking heart. At least sixty yards would separate him from the ice-cake when it floated opposite. If he risked it and succeeded, he might crawl out on the stationary ice along the shore and cut that distance down by half, but even then he would be no better off. He had no rope to throw and could not have thrown it so far in any event. To swim would be foolhardy, for even if he managed to make his way through the loose ice as far as the boy he would never be able to bring him ashore. A boat, then, was the only hope, and not a boat was in sight on his side of the river. Nearer and nearer came the ice-cake with its living cargo, colliding with other cakes, swaying and twisting and dipping, every moment threatening to upheave one side or another and drop its burden into the icy waters. Toby thought desperately, looked helplessly about him. And then his gaze fell on the little dismantled ferry house and he raced down the bank toward it, hoping against hope.