ourselves. We got another lesson we did not forget, but there were

many more for us to learn. The dog got a good lesson too and did not bother us any more.

Sliding Toward a Roaring Torrent

When I was about fourteen years of age I went to work at a place six miles from home. The man kept a large flock of geese. One evening when they did not come home, as they usually did I was sent out to hunt for them. There was a brook a short distance away, and I thought I would find them there. There had been a great rain, a winter thaw, that swelled the brook into a torrent that rushed into a lake we called uThe Basin.” There was a very high hill sloping down, and ending at the brink of this river. It was like the roof of a house with a narrow flat edge at the lower part of the roof; recent frost had made this roof icy, and smooth as glass. The river was not frozen, it was foaming and roaring like a mad bull. I was going along on the top of this hill in the dark, peering down, trying to discover the geese; suddenly my feet flew out from under me and I started, feet first, down the icy incline toward the rushing ice-cold waters of the river. It was about two hundred feet to the river. I tried to stop myself but there was nothing I could get a hold on. Every second my speed was increasing. I stretched out full length on my back, so as to catch all the surface I could, but it did not check my sliding. I ex- pected to be hurled into the midst of the torrent.

There happened to be a few feet of level ice between the foot of the hill and the brink of the river, at the place where I slid down, this ice was smooth but I stopped sliding as soon as I struck it. I did not know just how near I was to the water, I did not dare look or move lest I start again, or turn round and go head first into the tor- rent. I lay quiet a few seconds and lifted my head carefully to see the situation. My feet were nearly over the brink. I had to curl them under me to get up, which I did with great care. When I got on my feet I stamped the nails of my boot heels into the ice to keep me from slipping; in this way I got footing and crept along on the edge until I got a place where I could climb up. If I had had moccasins on I could not have got up, and might have perished there, unless help came. I was thankful to get out of that danger so well.

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