“Ootah!  Ootah!”

Ootah did not reply.

The storm howled.  The wind lashed the floe—­it fell like a whip on her face.  Annadoah felt the surging impetus of the angry sea under them.  She felt herself rising on the crests of mighty waves and being swiftly hurled into foaming troughs of water.  Frigid spray bathed her face.  Still the two vague shadows, darker than the night, slowly and laboriously moved about her.  At times they brushed her lashed body—­then she felt the quick gasps of their breath; she sensed the strain of Ootah’s limbs twisting in the struggle.

Again she perceived the two shifting away and being merged into the swimming blackness.  Presently she saw only the phosphorescent crest of a mountainous wave . . . rising in the distance . . .  She became cold with white fear—­she felt her blood turn to ice . . .  She screamed and struggled vainly with the lashings . . .  She felt the floe rise, felt herself being steadily lifted into the sheer air, and of paralyzed fright again swooned.

Maisanguaq, by a fierce wrench, managed to release one hand, struck Ootah a heavy blow and broke away.  Leaping to the opposite side of the sledge, with a terrific pull, he drew one of the harpoons out of the ice and with his knife speedily cut it loose from the lashings.  Ootah, stunned for a moment, turned upon him.  Maisanguaq desperately raised the weapon.  Ootah heard it hiss through the air.  He reeled backward—­the harpoon grazed his arm and struck the ice.

At that very instant the oncoming breaker descended with a rush from behind—­a torrent of water washed the floe.  Ootah was lifted from his feet and dashed against the sled.  When he rose he waited in silence for an attack.  There was none.  He moved over the floe cautiously, feeling the darkness.  Creeping to the edge he saw something dimly white and blurred on the receding wave.  “Maisanguaq,” he called, softly.  There was a pang at his heart, for he was truly gentle.  He strained his ears to hear through the din of the elements.  The floe suddenly jolted him as it was carried, with a thud, against shore-clinging ice.  Ootah peered seaward, and called again, loudly—­

“Maisanguaq!”

Only the waves replied.

Hurriedly he cut the leather lashings and, leaping from floe to floe, carried Annadoah to the shelter of the shore.  Returning he loosened the dogs.  Only three lived.  Biding his time until the floe was ground securely among others, he then dragged his load of meat ashore.  Sinking to the earth he rubbed Annadoah’s hands and breathed with eager and enraptured transport into her face.

He called her name.  Presently she stirred.

“Ootah,” she murmured.  “It is very dark—­very dark—­I wonder . . . whether . . . it will soon . . . be spring.”

He chafed her hands.  For a lucid moment she nestled to him and in a terrified voice whispered——­