Laurance gripped Britton in his arms and made the house with some little difficulty. Rex was a heavy man, and a bulky fellow seems twice his own weight when the muscles are so lax.
"I don't think he's drowned near so much as stunned," Laurance observed, as he laid the body in a bunk behind the stove. "Something's hit him a hefty blow there." He touched Britton's forehead where a dark bruise showed.
"Nary a drown," he continued triumphantly, as he ran a hand under thick Arctic clothing to feel the breast. "His heart's a-beatin'. His ribs heave some, too. Nary a drown, I tell you. The crack on the coco done the job, miss. I'll bring him round all up-to-date in a minnit or two."
The girl's convulsive sobbing made Laurance look up in surprise.
"Don't you go for to take on so," he begged. "You go quiet your nerves and make summat hot in the kitchen room, for the cook's away. I'll dry-fix Britton, and he'll drink pints of scaldin' tea when he wakes."
The girl obeyed, eager to do anything that would help. She busied herself over the tea-making, and warmed some soup, made from moose shoulder, which she found in the rough cupboard. At intervals, however, her anxiety overcame her, and she called to Laurance in the next room with questions as to Britton's condition. Reassuring replies came back in the Klondiker's quaint vocabulary, replies that made her smile when she could take her mind off Britton's danger, since Laurance declared there was no need to fear.
By the time she had the tea and soup ready, Laurance came into the kitchen.
"He's come to–sort of dazed, though," was his announcement. "Got them things hot?"
"Steaming!" she answered, turning from the stove. The action brought her face in close range of Laurance's eyes. The tears were dried, disfiguring sobs gone. The sparkle of the eye and the fire-tinged cheek made a rare sight. The old Klondiker gazed for a speechless minute, while the girl's color deepened.
"Say, now," he stammered at last, "if I'd never set eyes on the Rose of the Yukon, I'd take me oath as you was her. Blast me if you don't resemble her like a twin. Where're you from?"