She grasped the ropes and pulled with all the strength of one arm. After what seemed an age of straining, Britton's black gauntlet pierced the slush. The lines were twisted tightly round his wrist, and the girl frantically seized it. However, the effort was useless. By the passiveness of the limb she knew him to be either stunned or drowned, and past helping himself, while her strength could not stir him.
Relaxing her grip, she pulled herself up the side of the hole, ran to Britton's team, and lashed it into activity in spite of the cramping collars. In terror the huskies responded with their supreme efforts, but they could not draw out their master.
In hysterical sobbing now the girl brought her own dogs, hitched them ahead, and slashed the double team till the cruel whip flayed their hides. To her blows she added prayers breathed between terrified sobs.
At last the string of tortured dogs broke out the sagging, anchoring thing, and Britton's senseless body rolled into view with startling suddenness. The animals, at the quick release, dragged it clear of the river before the girl could stop them.
Laurance's cabin showed just around the bend. In a new lease of strength the feminine rescuer rolled the man's body on his sleigh. Calling to her own team to follow, she made a dash for the shelter of the cabin.
The headland reeled away; the ice-gaps ran past till she drew up with a swirl in front of Laurance's. A group of suspicious huskies, guarding the door, howled dubiously and charged on the strange teams. The girl cracked skulls here and there in a frantic fashion. The fear that they might spring on the inert man possessed her, but in a second the clamor reached Laurance by his fire.
The door clanged back. Several oaths, puncturing the icy air like pistol-cracks, were swallowed in a ridiculous gurgle when the old Klondiker recognized the strange form as that of a woman.
"He's drowned!" she screamed. "Help him, for God's sake!"
"Who?" bellowed Laurance, rushing out and kicking dogs right and left. "By me oath, it's Britton, Rex Britton! Where'd you come on him, eh?"
"He fell in the river-jam!" she cried in unsuppressed irritation. "Don't talk–don't question! Do something! It's time that counts. You're losing time, man!" Her voice filed off in an upper break which told of racked nerves.