Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/180

166 up to the fire fighters on the deck. Geoff seized one of these and threw it on the fire and Latham came up behind him.

It made too many men emptying the buckets for the one man filling them. McNeal's hand grasped Geoff's shoulder as he came to the rail and pushed him over to the ice.

"Help Linn!" the skipper commanded hoarsely, and Geoff bent to his work beside the cook. As he filled the pails through the ice and lifted them up, he counted the men snatching them from his hands and rushing with them away from the rail. There were five; all the men were there fighting the fire. Margaret came once to the rail with them, tried to raise a filled bucket, found that she could not and swiftly got herself out of the way. Geoff looked about as he lifted up the pails and no longer saw her; then toward the bow he heard the sound of something falling on the ice. The flame flared higher and in the terrible blazing light he saw Margaret throw over bundles of clothing and disappear to the forward cabins again for more.

There was no choice, as far as safety might