Above the clamor Annadoah suddenly heard a strangely familiar voice shouting from the distance.  Raising herself slightly, she saw a well-known figure bounding over the promontory toward the murderous natives.  Her heart bounded—­she recognized Ootah.

Having returned from the mountains Ootah had learned of Annadoah’s flight and the pursuit; and with an unselfish determination to save the child he had immediately followed.

At the very edge of the cliff the natives paused.  In his hands, Attalaq, the leader of the pursuit, held the crying babe.  Their voices were raised to an uproar; the women were chattering fiercely.  With quick dexterity Attalaq loosely twisted a leather thong about the baby’s neck, and in haste to finish the tragic task began swaying it in his hands so as to give the helpless creature momentum in its plunge to death.  Ootah bounded toward them.

“Aulate! Aulate!  Halt!” Ootah cried.  “I will be father to Annadoah’s child.”

The crowd turned—­for a moment they gazed with mingled feelings of awed surprise, half-incredulous wonder and speechless admiration upon this man who offered to make the greatest sacrifice possible to one of the tribe; to become the father, protector and supporter of another man’s helpless, defective infant.  For, according to their custom, they just as spontaneously grant life to a defective child when a member offers to assume sole responsibility for its keeping as they are implacably determined upon its death if its mother is husbandless.  But seldom does any man make this sacrifice; in this land of rigorous hardship and starvation it means much.

Ootah fought his way among them.  They gave way, and a low groan arose—­his noble offer had come too late!

On the crest of a golden wave a tiny white speck of a baby face gazed in open-eyed, frightened astonishment skyward, and in a lull of the intermittent rush of waters a thin, piercing baby cry arose from the golden sea.

Awe-stricken, abashed, suddenly overwhelmed with regret and shame, the natives silently drew back . . .  Ootah paused at the very edge of the cliff . . . he saw Annadoah’s pleading white face . . . he extended his arms as a bird opens its wings for flight and brought the finger tips of his hands together above his head.  For a moment his body slightly swayed, then poising to secure unerring aim, he leaped into the dashing sea . . .

Still and statuesque as a figure of stone, but wild-eyed, Annadoah stood alone on the extreme edge of the precipitous cliff and watched the struggle in the dizzy depths below . . .

Awed by the splendor of a heroism so dauntless, a love so overwhelming, unselfish and great, the natives retreated to a far distance and waited in fearful silence.

The prolonged infinity of suspense and horror of many long arctic nights seemed concentrated in the brief spell that Annadoah tensely, breathlessly, watched the struggle of the man to save her child.