The Eskimos were too far in the rear to hear his calls for help, and in that ice-cold water the end must have come very quickly.

He who had never shrunk from loneliness in the performance of his duty had at last met death alone.
Coming along over the trail in his footsteps, the Eskimos of his party came to the spot where the broken ice gave them the first hint of the accident.

One of the Eskimos said that the back of Marvin's fur jacket was still visible at the top of the water, while the condition of the ice at the edge seemed to indicate that Marvin had made repeated efforts to drag himself from the water, but that the ice was so thin that it had crumbled and broken beneath his weight, plunging him again into the icy water.

He must have been dead some time before the Eskimos came up.

It was, of course, impossible for them to rescue the body, since there was no way of their getting near it.