Prince began to bark madly when the boy sat down and thrust his legs into the black water. The chill of it almost took Chet’s breath away when he finally slid down, shoulder deep, into the flood.
“Oh, Chet! don’t you dare get drownd-ed!” begged Carolyn May, terrified now by the situation.
He turned a bright face on her as he struck out for the edge of the other ice floe. Chet might not have been the wisest boy who ever lived, but he was brave, in the very best sense of the word.
“Don’t worry about me, Car’lyn May,” he chattered.
The desperate chill of the water almost stopped the boy’s heart. The shock of this plunge into the icy depths was sufficient to kill a weak person. But Chet Gormley had plenty of reserve strength, whether he was noted for good sense or not.
Almost anybody in his situation would have remained on the ice and hoped for help from shore; but it never entered Chet’s mind that he could expect anybody else to save Carolyn May but himself. She was in his care, and Chet believed it was up to him to get her safely ashore, and that in as quick time as possible.
Three strokes took him across the patch of open water. He hooked his arms over the edge of the ice to his elbows, took breath for a moment, and then dragged his long frame up on the bobbing, uncertain field.
It was a mighty struggle. Chet’s saturated garments and his boots filled with water weighed him down like lead. But he accomplished it at last. He was safely on the ice. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw the child on the sled in the snowstorm and the dog beside her.
“Well be all right in a minute, Car’lyn May!” he called, climbing to his feet.
And then he discovered something that almost stunned him. The line he had looped around his wrist had slipped off! He had no way of reaching the rope attached to the sled save by crossing back through the water.