t sodden jacket, already beginning to
freeze, fell to putting Kaviak through the action of artificial
breathing.

"We must get them up to the cabin first thing," said the Boy.

But Mac seemed not to hear.

"Don't you see Kaviak's face is freezing?"

Still Mac paid no heed. Potts lifted a stiff, uncertain hand, and, with
a groan, let it fall heavily on his own cheek.

"Come on; I'll help you in, anyhow, Potts."

"Can't walk in this damned wet fur."

With some difficulty having dragged off Potts' soaked parki, already
stiffening unmanageably, the Boy tried to get him on his feet.

"Once you're in the cabin you're all right."

But the benumbed and miserable Potts kept his eyes on Kaviak, as if
hypnotised by the strange new death-look in the little face.

"Well, I can't carry you up," said the Boy; and after a second he began
to rub Potts furiously, glancing over now and then to see if Kaviak was
coming to, while Mac, dumb and tense, laboured on without success.
Potts, under the Boy's ministering, showed himself restored enough to
swear feebly.

"H'ray! my man's comin' round. How's yours?" No answer, but he could
see that the sweat poured off Mac's face as he worked unceasingly over
the child. The Boy pulled Potts into a sitting posture. It was then
that Mac, without looking up, said:

"Run and get whiskey. Run like hell!"

When he got back with the Colonel and the whiskey, O'Flynn floundering
in the distance, Potts was feebly striking his breast with his arms,
and Mac still bent above the motionless little body.

They tried to get some of the spirit down the child's throat, but the
tight-clenched teeth seemed to let little or nothing pass. The stuff
ran down towards his ears and into his neck. But Mac persisted, and
went on pouring, drop by drop, whenever he stopped trying to restore
the action of the lungs. O'Flynn just barely managed to get "a swig"
for Potts in the interval, though they all began to feel that Mac was
working to bring back something that had gone for ever. The Boy went
and bent his face down close over the rigid mouth to feel for the
breath. When he got up he turned away sharply, and stood looking
through tears into the fish-hole, saying to himself, "Yukon Inua has
taken him."

"He was in too long." Potts' teeth were chattering, and he looked
unspeakably wretched. "When my arm got numb I couldn't keep his head
up;" and he swallowed more whiskey. "You fellers oughtn't to have left
that