There was not a moment to lose, so I tore off my oilskins, threw myself out on my hands and knees by the side of the _komatik_ to give a larger base to hold, and shouted to the dogs to go ahead. Before we had gone twenty yards, the animals, divining their peril, hesitated for a moment, and the _komatik_ instantly sank into the slush. It then became necessary for the dogs to pull, and they promptly began to sink in also. Earlier in the season the father of the very man I was going to operate on had been drowned by his dogs tangling their traces around him in the “slob.” This unpleasant fact now flashed into my mind, and I managed to loosen my sheath-knife, scramble forward, find the traces in the water, and cut them, meanwhile taking a turn with the leader’s trace around my wrist. There was a pan of ice some twenty-five yards away, about the size of a dining-table, and on to this the leader very shortly climbed. The other dogs, however, were hopelessly bogged in the slushy ice and water. [Illustration: “ONE OF THE DOGS GOT ON TO MY SHOULDERS, PUSHING ME FARTHER DOWN IN THE ICE.”] Gradually I hauled myself along the leader’s line towards the pan, till he suddenly turned round and slipped out of his harness. It was impossible to make any progress through the “sish” ice by swimming, so I lay there helplessly, thinking it would soon be over, and wondering if anyone would ever know how the tragedy happened. Suddenly I saw the trace of another big dog, who had himself fallen through just before he reached the pan. Along this I hauled myself, using the animal as a bow anchor, but much bothered by the other dogs, one of which, in his struggle for life, got on to my shoulders, pushing me farther down in the ice. Presently, however, I passed my living anchor, and soon, with my dogs around me, I lay on the little piece of ice. I had to help the dogs on to it, though they were able to work their way to me through the lane of water that I had made. We were safe for the moment, yet it was obvious that we must be drowned before long if we remained on this little fragment, so, taking off my moccasins, coat, gloves, and cap, and everything that I could spare, I tied my knife and moccasins separately on to the backs of the dogs. My only hope of life seemed to be to get ashore at once. Had I been able to divine the long drift before me, I might have saved, in the same way as I saved my knife, a small bag of food. The moccasins, made of tanned sealskin, came right up to my thigh, and, as they were filled with water, I thought they accounted for my being able to make no progress.