“Over across the lake on the other side of the mountain”--and the Equine Ox pointed with his tail to the southward. “Just now she is frozen in a glacier.” “Mercy!” said Billy; “and there is no one to help us to get her out.” “Unless you count us,” said the conductor. “But I suppose, of course, you don’t.” He was standing right at Billy’s elbow, and directly behind him was the motorman. “The Equine Ox ran away on us again,” explained the conductor, noticing Billy’s astonishment. “Ran away on you?” inquired Billy. “He means off of them,” said the Equine Ox. “He’s dreadfully ungrammatical.” “Don’t you call me names,” said the conductor threateningly. “Please don’t quarrel,” said Billy. “The Evening Star is in that glacier over yonder, and we must get her out of it or she’ll freeze to death.” “Then let’s,” said the motorman. Billy excitedly hurried to the glacier, and the others followed as fast as they could. It was plain that somebody was confined within its green depths, for a form could be distinctly seen by the whole party, who flattened their noses against the cliff-like side of the glacier and gazed eagerly into it. “I think you had better begin to batter in the ice with your horns,” said the motorman, “and we’ll follow you up and throw out the loose ice.” The Equine Ox, thus addressed, fell energetically to work and soon had broken a fair-sized hole in the ice wall. Into it dashed the conductor and the motorman, and they threw out the fragments of ice broken off by the sharp horns, while Billy, unable to do anything or to find any place to work at all, stood and wrung his hands in impatience. It was a hard task, but the three kept steadily at it, and in a very little while only a thin wall separated them from the object of their search. Suddenly the last film of ice was broken through, and then they all fell back in blank amazement, for it was not the Evening Star at all who came forth, but Jack Frost, looking rather chilly and very much ashamed. “Jack Frost!” cried the Equine Ox. “Jack Frost, by all that’s astonishing!” “Well, I never!” said the conductor. “Me neither,” said the motorman, “and many of ’em.” “How in the world did you get in there, Jack Frost?” asked Billy. “Well, I hate to admit it,” said Jack Frost, “but I froze myself in. It was all a mistake.” “Mistakes will happen,” said the motorman. “The best of us are sure to make ’em at times. I hate to run over dogs, but sometimes I do it.” “You see,” said Jack Frost, “I was in a hurry to rebuild that glacier, and I got so interested I didn’t leave myself any place to get out till it was all done.” “But why didn’t you build it from the outside?” asked Billy. “That’s the way men build things,” said Jack Frost. “It’s different with us Nature people. Did you ever see a tree built from the outside? Or a tomato?” Billy couldn’t remember that he ever had.