The door on the water side was half off, sprawling on its rusted hinges, and at first glance the dim interior seemed empty. But at first glance only, for, as Toby’s eyes became accustomed to the gloom, they descried a boat, tilted on its side, and what looked like the handle of an oar protruding over the edge. How he pulled that skiff from the old ferry house to the landing and then over yards of creaking, swaying ice he never knew. But somehow he did it, and somehow, just as he and the boat sank through yielding ice, he managed to scramble into it, to seize one of the oars and push off. Rowing was out of the question as yet, for his strength was spent and the ice, bobbing about in huge fragments, prevented his dipping the blades in water. But, sobbing for very weariness, he knelt and pushed, prodding at an edge or a crevice, and so at last made his way into clearer water and then looked anxiously upstream. For an instant his heart sank leadenly, for the boy was nowhere in sight. He was too late! But the next moment he saw him, already abreast and moving fast toward the mouth of the river. Toby, with a gasp of relief, fitted the oars to the ancient thole-pins and rowed his hardest. He was a good hand in a boat, was Toby, otherwise he would never have won that race through the ice-floes. The boat leaked like a sieve and he wondered long before he reached his goal whether it would keep afloat long enough to reach shore again. Ice-cakes swept down against the skiff and fairly staggered it. When he saw them in time Toby tried to fend them off with an oar, but rowing was the main necessity, for the boy on the ice-cake was going fast, and he must take his chances with the floes. For many minutes or so it seemed to Toby, the skiff failed to gain, but at last it caught the current in the middle of the stream and then, with Toby pulling as he had never pulled before, it began to gain. The water was already getting rougher and every moment the boy’s predicament became more perilous. Only once did Toby waste precious breath on encouragement. Then he shouted over his shoulder: “_Coming! Hold on a little longer!_” [Illustration: “COMING! HOLD ON A LITTLE LONGER!”] Followed some desperate minutes and then victory! Toby avoided a floe many yards in diameter, letting it pass while he fended the skiff away from it, and then dug the blades of his oars. An instant later the side of the skiff grated against the ice-cake and Toby pushed an oar across its surface. “Catch hold,” he panted, “and pull yourself toward me!” The boy obeyed, but Toby realized the courage required to release the hold of those half-frozen fingers on the cake of ice. The boy grasped the oar and, still face-downwards, moved cautiously, fearfully toward the skiff. As his weight moved toward the edge, the ice-cake, scarcely three yards across at the widest place, began to dip. “_Faster!_” cried Toby. “Grab the side of the boat!”