The seconds seemed like ages.

There came a splitting, rending sensation in his head, an almost overpowering desire to open his mouth, to gasp, gasp for air where there was nothing but death! Then his head struck something.

It was the ice! He had come up under the ice, and there was but one end to that! He began to sink again, slowly, as if an invisible hand were pulling him down, and in his despair he made a last frantic effort, striking out blindly, knowing that in another second he must open his mouth.
Even under the water he still had consciousness enough left to know that he tried to cry out, and he felt the first gurgling rush of water into his lungs.

But he did not see the long arm that reached down where the bubbles were coming up, he did not feel the grip that dragged him out upon the ice.

His first sense of life was that something very heavy was upon his stomach, and that he was being rubbed, and pummeled, and rolled about as if he had become the plaything of a great bear.