he isn't here?" Mac wheeled round sharply.

"_Here?_"

"He didn't come back here for his dinner?"

"Haven't seen him since you took him out." Mac made for the door. The
Boy followed.

"Kaviak!" each called in turn. It was quite light enough to see if he
were anywhere about, although the watery sun had sunk full half an hour
before. The fantastically huge full-moon hung like a copper shield on a
steel-blue wall.

"Do you see anything?" whispered Mac.

"No."

"Who's that yonder?"

"Potts gettin' water."

The Boy was bending down looking for tracks. Mac looked, too, but
ineffectually, feverishly.

"Isn't Potts calling?"

"I knew he would if he saw us. He's never carried a bucket uphill yet
without help. See, there are the Kid's tracks going. We must find some
turned the other way."

They were near the Little Cabin now.

"Here!" shouted the Boy; "and ... yes, here again!" And so it was.
Clean and neatly printed in the last light snowfall showed the little
footprints. "We're on the right trail now. Kaviak!"

Through his parki the Boy felt a hand close vise-like on his shoulder,
and a voice, not like MacCann's:

"Goin' straight down to the fish-trap hole!"

The two dashed forward, down the steep hill, the Boy saying breathless
as they went: "And Potts--where's Potts?"

He had vanished, but there was no time to consider how or where.

"Kaviak!"

"Kaviak!" And as they got to the river:

"Think I hear--"

"So do I--"

"Coming! coming! Hold on tight! Coming, Kaviak!"

They made straight for the big open fish-hole. Farther away from the
Little Cabin, and nearer the bank, was the small well-hole. Between the
two they noticed, as they raced by, the water-bucket hung on that heavy
piece of driftwood that had frozen aslant in the river. Mac saw that
the bucket-rope was taut, and that it ran along the ice and disappeared
behind the big funnel of the fish-trap.

The sound was unmistakable now--a faint, choked voice calling out of
the hole, "Help!"

"Coming!"

"Hold tight!"

"Half a minute!"

And how it was done or who did it nobody quite knew, but Potts, still
clinging by one hand to the bucket-rope, was hauled out and laid on the
ice before it was discovered that he had Kaviak under his arm--Kaviak,
stark and unconscious, with the round eyes rolled back till one saw the
whites and nothing more.

Mac picked the body up and held it head downwards; laid it flat again,
and, stripping off the grea