r alive she had fallen into the stinging Arctic brine.
What chance could there be for her life?

For the time being the ice-field was quiet. The tidal wave had spent
its force on the sandy beach.

That other, less violent disturbances, would follow the first, the girl
knew right well. Hastily creeping to the brink of the dark pool, she
strained her eyes for sight of a floating bit of cloth, a waving hand.
There was none. Despair gripped her heart. Still she waited, and as
she waited, there came the distant sound, growing ever louder, of
another onrushing tide.

When Lucile went down into the dark pool she was not dead. She was
conscious and very much alive. Very conscious she was, too, of the
peril of her situation. Should that chasm close before she rose, or as
she rose, she was doomed. In one case she would drown, in the other
she would be crushed.

Down, down she sank. But the water was salt and buoyant. Now she felt
herself rising. Holding her breath she looked upward. A narrow ribbon
of black was to the right of her.

"That will be the open water," was her mental comment. "Must swim for
it."

She was a strong swimmer, but her heavy fur garments impeded her. The
sting of the water imperiled her power to remain conscious. Yet she
struggled even as she rose.

Just when Marian had given up hope, she saw a head shoot above the
water, then a pair of arms. The next instant she gripped both her
companion's wrists and lifted as she never lifted before. There was
wild terror in her eye. The roar of the second wave was drumming in
her ears.

She was not a second too soon. Hardly had she dragged the
half-unconscious girl from the pool than it closed with a grinding
crash, and the ice-pan again tilted high in air.

The strain of this onrush was not so great. The cake held together.
Gradually it settled back to its place.

Marian glanced in the direction of the wreck. They were very much
nearer to it than to the shore. She thought she saw a small cabin in
the stern. Lucile must be relieved of her water soaked and
fast-freezing garments at once.

"Can you walk?" she asked as Lucile staggered dizzily to her feet.
"I'll help you. The wreck--we must get there. You must struggle or
you'll freeze."

Lucile did try. She fought as she had never fought before, against the
stiffening garments, the aching lungs and muscles, but most of all
against the almost unconquerable desire to sleep.

Foot