Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/189

Rh might be when the doctor dropped his bucket and demanded of him instead:

"Where's McNeal?"

The skipper was the one not there.

"Where's McNeal?" Koehler called to others.

They ceased their useless work and looked about. McNeal certainly was missing.

A little distance from the ship in every direction big splinters of spars, broken boxes, other material scattered from the Viborg by the bursting of the tanks, blazed and smouldered on the ice. Beside one of these glowing piles lay a dark figure stretched out which, as Koehler recognised with a cry, was the figure of a man. He ran to it and stooped, pulling it away from the burning wood beside which it lay, and with his hands the doctor crushed out the sparks that still gleamed in the charred clothing.

"It's McNeal!" he announced to the others. He bent and made a quick examination. "He's not dead!" The doctor voiced his relief. "He must have been struck by that." He motioned to the burning wood scattered by the explosion