"They told us up above that the bottom was dropping out of the trail and that the best thing for us to do was to lay over," Hal said in response to Thornton's warning to take no more chances on the rotten ice. "They told us we couldn't make White River, and here we are." This last with a sneering ring of triumph in it.
What of the thin and rotten ice he had felt under his feet all day, it seemed that he sensed disaster close at hand, out there ahead on the ice where his master was trying to drive him.
For a minute Jo stood still with a strange feeling in her heart, then she resolved to go on, but something held and turned her round, just in time to see Amy throw up her hands and go down, with a sudden crash of
rotten ice, the splash of water, and a cry that made Jo's heart stand still with fear.
It's falling apart," he added, pointing to the dirty gray and brown piles of
rotten ice at the edge.
This is called candle ice, a form of
rotten ice that develops in columns perpendicular to the surface of the lake.
"The ice you have been seeing lately, that dark gray color, is what firefighters call
rotten ice," said Worcester Fire Capt.
Rotten ice denotes packs which are in the process of melting.
