All at once the wind had risen from the south, and the ice began drifting into the lake. Already it had parted from the shore streak of ice and left a space of open water now seven feet wide. Jump it they could not, because their clothes were frozen so hard that they could not spring, and, besides, the ice on the other side of the open space was not thick enough to hold one alighting after the jump. Their last hope sank within them. Death stared them in the face; their wives and friends in Canada would see them no more. Every minute added to the width of the gulf of water between them and the shore ice, when up came the sailor with the last laggard, and in an instant threw his board over the open water, and “Now run for your lives,” said he, and they ran across the board, every man feeling this to be his last chance and his last effort. On shore at last! Tears, hot and blinding, ran down their cheeks, while the crowd gathered around them and cheered lustily. The sympathizers on shore conducted them to the bar-room of a hotel, in which was a huge fire-place, with an immense fire of logs blazing for their especial benefit. It seems this bar-room was sunken below the surface of the earth a step, and was floored with bricks. Quickly their icy clothes began to thaw, and in a little time, it is said, the water melted from their clothes actually stood three inches deep over the bar-room floor. We have to add that the little vessel was lost and became a wreck. Well it was that it was lost, for a battery of artillery was stationed at the port whence it sailed, with orders to fire on the vessel and take every man a prisoner when she came back. Had they been taken, without a doubt they would all have been sent to Botany Bay as convicts, for twenty or thirty years each, as many others were, who went away as young men and came back grey-haired, broken-down old men, scarcely knowing their own country after so long an absence. As to the patriots, they were all pardoned and invited to come home, as we all know, which they did, many of them rising to high positions in Canada in after years. That this rebellion did great good to Canada neither Tories nor Reformers now deny, but it does seem hard that so many good and true men men had to suffer so much to have the wrongs righted. To-day Canada is as free as any country under the sun. I leave it to you, reader, to say if there could be a more joyful Christmas at any place in America than the portion of it remaining to those patriots after they got on shore. The _Industry_ is first in line represented in the illustration of the lumber loading, on page 172. The illustration on page 186 will give some idea of the scene of the adventure of the escaping patriots, and the landing at Oswego, N.Y.