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 damn trap up!”

“What’s that got to do with it?” said the Boy guiltily.

“Kaviak knew it ought to be catchin’ fish.  When I came down he was cryin’ and pullin’ the trap backwards towards the hole.  Then he slipped.”

“Come, Mac,” said the Colonel quietly, “let’s carry the little man to the cabin.”

“No, no, not yet; stuffy heat isn’t what he wants;” and he worked on.

They got Potts up on his feet.

“I called out to you fellers.  Didn’t you hear me?”

“Y-yes, but we didn’t understand.”

“Well, you’d better have come.  It’s too late now.”  O’Flynn half dragged, half carried him up to the cabin, for he seemed unable to walk in his frozen trousers.  The Colonel and the Boy by a common impulse went a little way in the opposite direction across the ice.

“What can we do, Colonel?”

“Nothing.  It’s not a bit o’ use.”  They turned to go back.

“Well, the duckin’ will be good for Potts’ parki, anyhow,” said the Boy in an angry and unsteady voice.

“What do you mean?”

“When he asked me to hand it to him I nearly stuck fast to it.  It’s all over syrup; and we don’t wear furs at our meals.”

“Tchah!” The Colonel stopped with a face of loathing.

“Yes, he was the only one of us that didn’t bully the kid to-day.”

“Couldn’t go that far, but couldn’t own up.”

“Potts is a cur.”

“Yes, sah.”  Then, after an instant’s reflection:  “But he’s a cur that can risk his life to save a kid he don’t care a damn for.”

They went back to Mac, and found him pretty well worn out.  The Colonel took his place, but was soon pushed away.  Mac understood better, he said; had once brought a chap round that everybody said was ... dead.  He wasn’t dead.  The great thing was not to give in.

A few minutes after, Kaviak’s eyelids fluttered, and came down over the upturned eyeballs.  Mac, with a cry that brought a lump to the Colonel’s throat, gathered the child up in his arms and ran with him up the hill to the cabin.