His teams were usually the first to cross when the river froze up, and
the last to quit crossing in the spring; but as he was a good judge of
the condition of the ice, he never lost a team. I have heard my
brother George say that four or five times, when father or himself
had, by careful driving, crossed in safety with large double teams and
heavy loads, others, trying to cross behind them with light wagons,
had broken through, and either lost their teams or been saved with
difficulty. One spring the ice was thawing rapidly, and had become
quite rotten; but father wanted to take one more heavy load across,
and he drove it himself. It was drawn by several yoke of oxen, and
their weight sunk the ice so that the water spouted through the
air-holes and frightened them. He knew that the beaten track,
where the teams had trodden the ice solid, and the accumulated mud had
shaded it, had not thawed as fast as the surrounding ice, and that to
allow his wagon to swerve a foot, one way or the other, was to risk
breaking in.
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