The Mississippi was frozen across, and he and I went skating one night, probably without permission.

I cannot see why we should go skating in the night unless without permission, for there could be no considerable amusement to be gotten out of skating at night if nobody was going to object to it.

About midnight, when we were more than half a mile out toward the Illinois shore, we heard some ominous rumbling and grinding and crashing going on between us and the home side of the river, and we knew what it meant--the ice was breaking up.

We started for home, pretty badly scared.

We flew along at full speed whenever the moonlight sifting down between the clouds enabled us to tell which was ice and which was water.