He could hardly talk he was so excited and out of breath from running. He was gasping for breath.
"How we going to get your sister to shore if we don't pull her up out of the hole?" asked Tom.
"We got to get a board—or something—put it on the ice and walk out on it!" Rick answered.
"That's right!" cried Chot. "I remember now! It's in our Boy Scout book. You got to use fence rails, or something to put down on the ice when it's cracking, to hold your weight. There's a fence! We can pull off some boards."
The girls continued screaming and jumping up and down on the bank, pointing toward Mazie, who was still in the water. She was holding to the ice at the edge of the hole through which she had fallen, and she was trying to call for Rick. But she was so cold and frightened she could hardly make a sound.
"Get the boards!" cried Rick to his chums.
But Ruddy waited for no boards. He saw that Mazie was in danger and he went to help her in the only way he knew—by going straight to the hole, reaching down and catching hold of the loose shoulder of the little girl's coat.
That's what Ruddy did! He ran straight over the ice toward the hole. And because Ruddy was a dog, and had four feet resting on the ice, instead of only two, like the boys, and because he was not as heavy as either Rick, Chot or Tom, the ice did not break under the dog's weight. Ruddy, standing on four feet, spread his weight over a larger part of the ice, and this is just why a board should be used by anyone who is trying to save a person who has fallen into an ice hole. A board, or two or three fence rails, will hold you up on ice that would be too thin to walk on.
So it was that Ruddy did not break through, even when he went to the edge of the hole, in which poor Mazie was floundering. He reached over, caught hold of her loose coat in his teeth, and tried to pull her out. But this was too much for Ruddy. His paws were not made for getting a good hold on the ice, and he began to slip toward the dark, cold water.
