Prince could not bark his reply with the rope in his jaws, but he sprang into the water, and swam sturdily towards Chet.
“Come on, you good dog!” yelled Chet, half-crying and half-laughing. “You have the pep, you have, Prince! Come on!”
He stooped and seized the dog’s forelegs when he came near and helped him scramble out on the ice. The end of the rope was safely in his grasp again.
“My goodness! My goodness! I could sing a hallelujah!” declared Chet, his eyes streaming now. “Hold on, now, Car’lyn May! I’m goin’ to drag you across. You hang right on to that sled.”
“Oh, I’ll cling to it, Chet,” declared the little girl. “And do take me off this ice, quick, for I think it’s floating out with me.”
Chet drew on the rope, the sled moved forward and plunged, with just a little splash, into the pool. Prince barked desperately as his little mistress screamed.
“Oh, I’m getting wet, Chet!” she shrieked.
“Hold hard!” yelled Chet in return. “You won’t get very wet.”
In a few seconds he had “snaked” the sled to the edge of the ice floe on which he stood. He picked the sobbing Carolyn May off the sled and then lifted that up, too. The little girl was wet below her waist.
“I’m—I’m just as co—cold as I—I can be,” she chattered. “Oh, Chet! take me home please!”