Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1901-04-30
CHAPTER XV.-(Continued.)

CHAPTER XV.-(Continued.
The day Waterman of the ferry COM
pany, smoking his pipe on the bank as
John drove down by him, warned him, as
he did all who seemed to be strangers.
''The ice isn't as safe as it has been"
But they are still crossing on it, an
swered John, argumentatively There
is a cutter just starting to come across
from Pittsburg now"
"Oh, yes. They do. And they will,
until somebody breaks through and is
drowned, l suppose, as they do every
winter. | don't say it isn't safe enough
yet, for a single horse and cutter If you
are careful; but you'll have to look out
you don't get off the curving track that
is marked out. There are thin patches
inside the bends, both ways, where it
wouldn't be safe for a man to go afoot,
let alone drive horse"
Thank you heartily for the caution"
replied the young man, gathering up his
reins, ''I'll stick to the road and go fast. )"
That's the safest way"
And fast John did go. Whether the
black horse was inspired by the novelty
of trOtting upon so level a floor, and feel
ing the cutter hardly feathers weight
that there was danger in giving the ice
time to crack under him, none may say,
but whatever the cause, he went across
well inside a three-minute gait. He was
still slowly mounting the steep, deeply
rutted road from the river into the city
when a two-hOrse sleigh, with two men
in it, dashed across the bridge over Saw
Mill Run from Temperanceville into
South Pittsburg and down the slope to
the ferry landing.
There the faithful Waterman halted
them, to repeat the warning he had
given to John Cameron few minutes be-
fore.
You'd better not go out on the ice
with that dOuble-team!" lie cried to them
why not?"
The ice may not hold you. 1t has
been getting weaker for several days
past, and heavy teams don't chance it
any more"
While he was speaking, the cutter john
had remarked starting from Pittsburg
reached the bank and came slowly up.
He seems to have come across all
right" argued Simeon Mulvei, who was
one of the men in the sleigh. jerking his
head toward the man in the cutter.
oh, yes. But there's only one of
him and one horse"
''How's the ice?" shouted Rufus Goidis
to the lonely driver.
Good enough, | guess" the man re-
piled, with an air of Indifference, stop
ping to let his horse rest little.
Did it crack much?'
Not that 1 noticed, only about the
middle where l met a cutter going the
other way. and the double weight made
it boiler some"
did that cutter have a young man
and a girl in it?" demanded Simeon,
eagerly. p,
Yes"
With an oath an' without waiting for
any further information or hearing the
warning cried after him to 'stick to the
road Simeon gave his horses the lash,
and they plunged down the bank and out
on the ice.
Instead of following the long, curving
sweep Of the comparatively safe track,
he drove in a straight line toward the
landing on the farther side of the river
The ferry Waterman and the man in the
cutter. the latter standing up in his
vehicle to see better, watched in silence
and with staring eyes the progress Of
the foolhardy travellers. The sleigh
crossed the first thin field of ice and
passed the middle of the stream in safety.
Gosh exclaimed the Waterman.
They'll do it; but wouldn't try it for
farm"
At that very moment. when the swiftly
flying vehicle was within a hundred
yards of the Pittsburg shore, horses, men
and sleigh suddenly disappeared from
sight There was no struggle, no re-
appearance and battling for life, nothing
but wide circular expanse of wafer, that
looked black, and in which big pieces of
ice slowly came to the surface and lazily
drifted down to the lower side.