"But how could it be?" asked Mab. "Roly was lost under the ice."
"And that's just where I got this dog," the engineer explained. "Out from under the ice. One day, after the first freeze this winter, I was Balking along a little pond. I came to a thin place in the ice, and looking through, from the shore where I stood, I saw a little white dog down below, just as if he were under a pane of glass.
"I broke the ice with a stick and got him out. I thought he was dead, but I took him home, thawed him out, gave him some hot milk, and soon he was as lively as a cricket. And I've had this dog ever since. When I came here to work at ice cutting I brought him with me."
"But you said he was pure white when you got him out," said Daddy
Blake wonderingly.
"Yes, that's right," answered the ice engineer. "So he was. And how he got spotted was like this. I was blacking my boots one day, and I left the bottle of black polish on a low bench. The dog grabbed it, playful like, and the black stuff spilled all over him. That's how he got spotted. He was worse than he is now, but it's wearing off."
"Then I'm sure this is our Roly-Poly!" cried "Oh, you dear Roly!" she cried, and the spotted poodle dog tried to climb up in her arms and kiss her, he was so glad to see her.
"I believe it is Roly," said Daddy Blake. "It is all very wonderful, but it must be our Roly."
"Well, if he's yours, take him," said the engineer kindly. "I always wondered how he got under the ice. But of course he could not tell me."
"We were skating, the children and I, one day," explained Daddy Blake. "Poor Roly slipped through an air hole in the ice. Then he must have floated down the pond underneath the ice, until he came to another thin place, where you saw him."
"I guess that's it," the engineer agreed. "He was almost drowned and nearly frozen when I found him. But I'm glad he's all right now, and I'm glad the children have him back."