The Magnetic North Part 41

"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 n.o.body 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 d.a.m.ned 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 h.e.l.l!"

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.

They tried to get some of the spirit down the child's throat, but the tight-clenched teeth seemed to let little or nothing pa.s.s. The stuff ran down towards his ears and into his neck. But Mac persisted, and went on pouring, drop by drop, whenever he stopped trying to restore the action of the lungs. O'Flynn just barely managed to get "a swig"

for Potts in the interval, though they all began to feel that Mac was working to bring back something that had gone for ever. The Boy went and bent his face down close over the rigid mouth to feel for the breath. When he got up he turned away sharply, and stood looking through tears into the fish-hole, saying to himself, "Yukon Inua has taken him."

"He was in too long." Potts' teeth were chattering, and he looked unspeakably wretched. "When my arm got numb I couldn't keep his head up;" and he swallowed more whiskey. "You fellers oughtn't to have left that d.a.m.n trap up!"

"What's that got to do with it?" said the Boy guiltily.

"Kaviak knew it ought to be catchin' fish. When I came down he was cryin' and pullin' the trap backwards towards the hole. Then he slipped."

"Come, Mac," said the Colonel quietly, "let's carry the little man to the cabin."

"No, no, not yet; stuffy heat isn't what he wants;" and he worked on.

They got Potts up on his feet.

"I called out to you fellers. Didn't you hear me?"

"Y-yes, but we didn't understand."

"Well, you'd better have come. It's too late now." O'Flynn half dragged, half carried him up to the cabin, for he seemed unable to walk in his frozen trousers. The Colonel and the Boy by a common impulse went a little way in the opposite direction across the ice.

"What can we do, Colonel?"

"Nothing. It's not a bit o' use." They turned to go back.

"Well, the duckin' will be good for Potts' parki, anyhow," said the Boy in an angry and unsteady voice.

"What do you mean?"

"When he asked me to hand it to him I nearly stuck fast to it. It's all over syrup; and we don't wear furs at our meals."

"Tchah!" The Colonel stopped with a face of loathing.

"Yes, he was the only one of us that didn't bully the kid to-day."

"Couldn't go _that_ far, but couldn't own up."

"Potts is a cur."

"Yes, sah." Then, after an instant's reflection: "But he's a cur that can risk his life to save a kid he don't care a d.a.m.n for."

They went back to Mac, and found him pretty well worn out. The Colonel took his place, but was soon pushed away. Mac understood better, he said; had once brought a chap round that everybody said was ... dead.

He wasn't dead. The great thing was not to give in.

A few minutes after, Kaviak's eyelids fluttered, and came down over the upturned eyeb.a.l.l.s. Mac, with a cry that brought a lump to the Colonel's throat, gathered the child up in his arms and ran with him up the hill to the cabin.

Three hours later, when they were all sitting round the fire, Kaviak dosed, and warm, and asleep in the lower bunk, the door opened, and in walked a white man followed by an Indian.