Other men came, floundering and sprawling over each other in the darkness, and the word was bellowed from lips to listening ear that a man lay buried beneath the drift.
"Dig! Ye tarriers!" roared Fallon as his heavy mittens gouged into the snow. "Dig! Ut's th' boss!" he yelled into the ear of the nearest man. "Oi know thim rackets!"
And from lip to bearded lip the word passed, and the big men of the logs redoubled their efforts; but the fine snow had packed hard around the prostrate form, and it was many minutes before they had uncovered him sufficiently to note the smaller body lashed tightly upon his back. The frozen lash was soon severed and the two exanimate bodies lifted in eager hands.
Buckets were left to snow under as the men crowded up the bank, howling into each other's ears. Big Stromberg, who bore the boss in his arms, was propelled up the steep slope by the men who crowded about him, pushing, pulling, hauling—the ground-gaining, revolving wedge of the old days of mass formation in football.
"To th' office wid um!" roared Fallon in Stromberg's ear as they milled across the clearing. "Th' b'ys'll crowd th' bunk-house till they hindher more thin hilp!"
The boy responded quickly to vigorous treatment and stimulants and was removed to his own bunk and placed under the able care of his Aunt Margaret and Mrs. Sheridan.
In the office Ethel Manton, white-faced and silent, watched breathlessly the efforts of Appleton and Blood River Jack to revive the exhausted and half-frozen foreman. The lumber magnate unscrewed the silver cap from a morocco-covered flask and poured out a generous dose of liquor; but before it reached the unconscious man's lips the half-breed stayed his hand.
"M's'u' Bill drinks no whisky," he said. "Even in the time of his great sickness would he drink no whisky; and if you give him whisky he will be very angry."
Appleton paused and glanced curiously from the face of the half-breed to the still form upon the bunk, and the other continued:
"It is strange—I do not know—but he told it to Jeanne one day—that, in the great city of the white man is a girl he loves. He used to drink much whisky, and for that reason she sent him from her—and now he drinks no whisky—even though this girl has married another."