Almost anybody in his situation would have remained on the ice and hoped for help from shore; but it never entered Chet’s mind that he could expect anybody else to save Carolyn May but himself. She was in his care, and Chet believed it was up to him to get her safely ashore, and that in as quick time as possible. Three strokes took him across the patch of open water. He hooked his arms over the edge of the ice to his elbows, took breath for a moment, and then dragged his long frame up on the bobbing, uncertain field. It was a mighty struggle. Chet’s saturated garments and his boots filled with water weighed him down like lead. But he accomplished it at last. He was safely on the ice. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw the child on the sled in the snowstorm and the dog beside her. “Well be all right in a minute, Car’lyn May!” he called, climbing to his feet. And then he discovered something that almost stunned him. The line he had looped around his wrist had slipped off! He had no way of reaching the rope attached to the sled save by crossing back through the water. Chet felt that he could not do it. “Oh, Chet! Chet!” wailed Carolyn May, “you’ve dropped my rope!” The end of it hung in the water. The child, of course, could not throw it across to him. The boy was stricken dumb and motionless. That is, he was motionless, save for the trembling of his limbs and the chattering of his teeth. The chill of the water had struck through, it seemed, to the very marrow of his bones. What he should do, poor Chet could not think. His brain seemed completely clouded. And he was so cold and helpless that there was not much he could do, anyway. His clothing was stiffening on his frame. The snow beat against his back, and he could scarcely stand. The space was growing wider between the edge of the ice where he stood and that edge where Carolyn May and the dog were. But what was the little girl doing? He saw her hauling in on the wet rope, and she seemed to be speaking to Prince, for he stood directly before her, his ears erect, his tail agitated. By-and-by he barked sharply. “_Now_, Princey!” Chet heard her cry. She thrust the end of the rope into the dog’s jaws and waved her mittened hand towards the open water and the unhappy Chet beyond it. Prince sprang around, faced the strait of black water, shaking the end of the rope vigorously. Chet saw what she meant, and he shrieked to the dog: “Come on, Prince! Come on, good dog! Here, sir!” Prince could not bark his reply with the rope in his jaws, but he sprang into the water, and swam sturdily towards Chet. “Come on, you good dog!” yelled Chet, half-crying and half-laughing. “You have the pep, you have, Prince! Come on!” He stooped and seized the dog’s forelegs when he came near and helped him scramble out on the ice. The end of the rope was safely in his grasp again.