“‘John!’ I screamed.
“The appeal seemed not to move him. He continued to wriggle from me. When he came to solid ice he took to his heels. I caught sight of 176 him as he climbed the bank, and kept my eyes upon him until he disappeared over the crest. He had left me without a word.
“The water was cold and swift, and the strength of my arms and back was wearing out. The current kept tugging, and I realized, loath as I was to admit it, that half an hour would find me slipping under the ice. It was a grave mistake to admit it; for at once fancy began to paint ugly pictures for me, and the probabilities, as it presented them, soon flustered me almost beyond recovery.
“‘I was chest-high out of the water,’ I told myself. ‘Chest-high! Now my chin is within four inches of the ice. I’ve lost three inches. I’m lost!’
“With that I tried to release my feet from the clutch of the current, to kick myself back to an upright position, to lift myself out. It was all worse than vain. The water was running so swiftly that it dangled my legs as it willed, and the rotten ice momentarily threatened to let me through.
“I lost a full inch of position. So I settled myself to wait for what might come, determined to yield nothing through terror or despair. My 177 eyes were fixed stupidly upon the bend in the river, far down, where a spruce-clothed bluff was melting with the dusk.
“What with the cold and the drain upon my physical strength, it may be that my mind was a blank when relief came. At any rate, it seemed to have been an infinitely long time in coming; and it was with a shock that John’s words restored me to a vivid consciousness of my situation.
“‘Catch hold!’ said he.
“He had crawled near me, although I had not known of his approach, and he was thrusting towards me the end of a long pole, which he had cut in the bush. It was long, but not long enough. I reached for it, but my hand came three feet short of grasping it.
“John grunted and crept nearer. Still it was beyond me, and he dared venture no farther. He withdrew the pole; then he crept back and unfastened his belt. Working deliberately but swiftly, he bound the belt to the end of the pole, and came out again. He cast the belt within reach, as a fisherman casts a line. I caught it, clutched it, and was hauled from my predicament by main strength. 178