Part 15 (1/2)
Chapter XIX.
ADRIFT ON AN ICE RAFT.
Meanwhile Aleck, startled by the upset of the sled and Jim's disappearance, had let go of his support. Now, seeing Jim safe, he was trying to regain it, when suddenly Tug saw him throw up his hand and sink out of sight.
Tug knew what that meant, and that there was not an instant to spare.
Tearing off his coat--he had thrown aside his overcoat in the heat of the work before-he watched till he saw Aleck rising through the clear water, then dashed in, followed by the n.o.ble dog, and grasped his hair. Aleck hung in his hold a dead weight, as though life had gone; but Tug knew that the fatal end had not come yet, and that this was only the fainting of utter exhaustion and the cramping paralysis of cold. Cold! Tug had felt the dreadful chill striking through and through him the instant he had touched the water. Already it was clogging his motions and overcoming his strength with a fearful numbness that would fast render him powerless. And Aleck had been in that stiffening, paralyzing flood several minutes!
All this went through Tug's mind, as on a dark night a flash of lightning enters and leaves the pupil of the eye; it took ”no time at all,” and the instant he had hooked his fingers in Aleck's hair he shouted to Katy to shove out the sled where he might reach it. She did so, and by it drew both the lads to the ice, the brave rescuer grasping the friendly box and towing his senseless Captain.
Then a new difficulty presented itself. Aleck was perfectly helpless, and like a log in the water; or worse than that, for he would sink if Tug loosed his hold. How should they get him out?
Katy saw this problem, and said to Tug, as soon as the ice had been reached, while she knelt at the brink of the splas.h.i.+ng water:
”Let me hold his head up--I can do it--until you can climb out; then both of us together, I guess, can drag him up on to the ice. Oh dear!
will he ever come to?”
Her tears blinded her eyes, but she dashed them away, and took firm hold upon Aleck's collar, while Tug scrambled out. Then, while Katy held his head above the curling, gurgling little waves that the wind was chasing, Tug slipped one end of the rope under Aleck's arms, and made a loop about his body, by which they were able to drag his lifeless form out upon the ice, as though he were a fish or a seal.
”Now let's have the sled!” screamed Tug, minding neither his own freezing garments nor Katy's anguish; and having pulled this from the water, he and Katy lifted Aleck upon it, and set off as fast as they could for the tent, whither the miserable Youngster had already started in a staggering trot, with many groans and rough tumbles. The others overtook him, and all went on together; but Jimkin got no comfort, for Aleck might be drowned--they did not know; while Jim, though certainly miserable, was alive and active, enough so, at least, to look after himself.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”THEY WERE ABLE TO DRAG HIS LIFELESS FORM OUT UPON THE ICE.”]
”How fortunate that there happened to be a kettle of hot water on the fire!”
”Yes. Now here we are. We'll have to drag him through the low doorway heels first. Help me lift him off the sled, Katy.”
Laid on straw and overcoats by the warm fire, Tug quickly stripped off the Captain's wet clothes, while Katy brought warm blankets, and wrapped him in them.
”Didn't you say you had a little bottle of brandy, Katy?”
”Yes; Miss Marshall told us we ought never to go on a long journey without it, and I brought it along for fear something like this might happen. Here it is.”
Taking the bottle, Tug forced a few drops between Aleck's lips and saw them trickle down his throat. A minute later there was a stronger throb of the fluttering heart, a quiver of the eyelids, and a faint, sighing groan, which the anxious watchers could just hear. At this sign of returning life they rose and grasped each other's hands. The tears Katy had so bravely kept back when she had had work to do and no time to cry came now in an unrestrained shower; but they were tears of joy, for the Captain was waking up all right.
Now poor little Jim got some attention, and Katy left them to themselves while the three boys helped each other to get rid of their icy clothes and crawl into the blankets and warm straw of their bedrooms, as they called the hull of the boat. This done, Katy came back and made hot tea for her three tucked-up patients, which so revived them that Tug and Jim begged to be allowed to get up as soon as their clothes had been dried; but Aleck said he wanted to sleep two weeks, and so would stay in bed a little longer.
As for Rex, whose heroism in bringing back Aleck's floating coat, when he was unable to aid his drowning master himself, had been forgotten until now, he was content to lie in a snug corner and wait for the half-frozen fish his mistress had promised him should presently be the reward of his faithfulness.
That eventful day came to an end without anything further to disturb their peace. Aleck rose towards evening, and went out fis.h.i.+ng with Jim and Tug, catching two or three pickerel. The night pa.s.sed in unusual quiet, for the wind, though steady, was not a whistling gale, nor did the grinding roar of moving ice come to their ears, as it had sometimes during the previous daytime.
In the morning the same clouds were overhead, the same vague haze hid the horizon, the same waste of ice and water surrounded their lonely camp, the same quiet breeze breathed steadily across the lake, and, but for occasional noises of their own making, the whole world seemed profoundly still. This was depressing, and the spirits of each one of our young adventurers sank to a level with the flat ice and the dull gray sky; yet it was evident that nothing could be done except to wait as patiently as possible for some change.
”If yez can't be aisy, be as aisy as ye can,” remarked Tug, quoting an excellent Irish rule of life under adverse circ.u.mstances; but the pleasantry met with only a faint smile from his disheartened companions. All thought that any _active_ perils would be better than this motionless, objectless gloom, so threatening because so still and uncertain.
”I wonder if we haven't stopped drifting,” said Katy, as they were pretending to eat a bit of luncheon, for which n.o.body had much appet.i.te; and, more for the sake of doing something than because it seemed to make much difference whether they had come to a standstill or not, they took a few chips to the edge of the floe, and threw them into the water. These tossed up and down on the gentle waves, but did not change their position at all, so our navigators concluded their floe to be at last stationary.