"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.