“Kaviak!”

“Kaviak!” And as they got to the river: 

“Think I hear—­”

“So do I—­”

“Coming! coming!  Hold on tight!  Coming, Kaviak!”

They made straight for the big open fish-hole.  Farther away from the Little Cabin, and nearer the bank, was the small well-hole.  Between the two they noticed, as they raced by, the water-bucket hung on that heavy piece of driftwood that had frozen aslant in the river.  Mac saw that the bucket-rope was taut, and that it ran along the ice and disappeared behind the big funnel of the fish-trap.

The sound was unmistakable now—­a faint, choked voice calling out of the hole, “Help!”

“Coming!”

“Hold tight!”

“Half a minute!”

And how it was done or who did it nobody quite knew, but Potts, still clinging by one hand to the bucket-rope, was hauled out and laid on the ice before it was discovered that he had Kaviak under his arm—­Kaviak, stark and unconscious, with the round eyes rolled back till one saw the whites and nothing more.

Mac picked the body up and held it head downwards; laid it flat again, and, stripping off the great sodden jacket, already beginning to freeze, fell to putting Kaviak through the action of artificial breathing.

“We must get them up to the cabin first thing,” said the Boy.

But Mac seemed not to hear.

“Don’t you see Kaviak’s face is freezing?”

Still Mac paid no heed.  Potts lifted a stiff, uncertain hand, and, with a groan, let it fall heavily on his own cheek.

“Come on; I’ll help you in, anyhow, Potts.”

“Can’t walk in this damned wet fur.”

With some difficulty having dragged off Potts’ soaked parki, already stiffening unmanageably, the Boy tried to get him on his feet.

“Once you’re in the cabin you’re all right.”

But the benumbed and miserable Potts kept his eyes on Kaviak, as if hypnotised by the strange new death-look in the little face.

“Well, I can’t carry you up,” said the Boy; and after a second he began to rub Potts furiously, glancing over now and then to see if Kaviak was coming to, while Mac, dumb and tense, laboured on without success.  Potts, under the Boy’s ministering, showed himself restored enough to swear feebly.

“H’ray! my man’s comin’ round.  How’s yours?” No answer, but he could see that the sweat poured off Mac’s face as he worked unceasingly over the child.  The Boy pulled Potts into a sitting posture.  It was then that Mac, without looking up, said: 

“Run and get whiskey.  Run like hell!”

When he got back with the Colonel and the whiskey, O’Flynn floundering in the distance, Potts was feebly striking his breast with his arms, and Mac still bent above the motionless little body.