“We’ll be drowned!” piped Noashak.
Amid this dismal chorus the three started picking their way to shore. Noashak had to be lifted across all the deep places, and it took time, yet the going was better than Taptuna expected. As soon as he had landed the child safely on the old ridge he turned back to help with the sleigh.
Meantime Okak had persuaded Kak into crossing a little farther on where the ice looked smoother, reasoning if it were smoother they could move faster and so would be less likely to go through. Sound enough sense in its way, if they had not happened to choose the thinnest part of the whole bridge. Taptuna took in the position at a glance and watched, horrified. He could see the ice bending under them, and dashed up shore, followed by Guninana. The load had but one chance now—to keep moving.
“Come on, Kak!—ahead of the dogs!” he yelled. “Rush it. Okak, hold back there—farther! Farther back! Right away from the sled!”
Kak was in his element. His eyes snapped and his heart bounded.
“Hok!—Hok!—Hok!” he cried to his team. Everybody broke in with yells and cheers.
The light sleigh went banging and bumping over the rough surface, taking its chances, for Okak was too scared to be much good at his office. His place behind had turned out the worst rather than the best, yet he clung to it. Mad with fear at realizing he would be the last to land, he kept pace with the team, flinging his weight on to ice already strained and bending under the load. The feel of it bending drove him daffy. He mixed up this quiet shore water with his recent dread of the straits, saw himself going through to certain death, and lost the remnant of his wits. Instead of holding back as Taptuna cried at him, he pitched forward, clutching the only solid thing in sight.
Kak landed with a flying jump. The runners were already half over on firm ice, when a shriek of mortal terror rent the air. The jar of Okak’s hands falling on the sleigh had been a last straw. Down went the back end into the water with him clinging to it like a limpet.
Taptuna understood his companion so well now he had foreseen this—was expecting disaster. At the same instant Okak grabbed for the load he grabbed for the dogs, and was hauling them on when Kak alighted. For a moment the sleigh teetered on the edge of the solid ice; then Guninana and the boy, screaming wildly, threw themselves each over a runner, clung to them, pressed them down. That day’s hasty repairs tore away with a splintering crash; but the chief guide had control by then. Their combined weight heaved the stern out of the water with Okak still aboard. He was blowing like a bow-head whale and quite insane from fright.
A long pull and a strong pull altogether with the dogs dragged their neighbor and their goods to safety; and then Kak and his mother dropped on the ground and laughed till they could laugh no more. Tennis flannels and evening clothes are funny when sopping wet, but for real class neither of them can hold a candle to a fur suit! Okak resembled nothing on earth but a half drowned pup. He was a small man to begin with, and the hair and hide of his loose garments now fitted like his skin. He stood with chattering teeth and dripping locks, a sort of human spigot, while his four friends made the welkin ring.