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Title: The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash; or, Facing Death in the Antarctic

Author: John Henry Goldfrap

Release date: November 1, 2004 [eBook #6973]
                Most recently updated: January 10, 2015

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Paul Hollander, Juliet Sutherland, Ben Byer, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOY AVIATORS' POLAR DASH; OR, FACING DEATH IN THE ANTARCTIC ***




Produced by Paul Hollander, Juliet Sutherland, Ben Byer,
Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team










THE BOY AVIATORS' POLAR DASH

OR

FACING DEATH IN THE ANTARCTIC



BY

CAPTAIN WILBUR LAWTON
(pseudonym for John Henry Goldfrap)




Boy Aviators' Series

By Captain Wilbur Lawton

1 THE BOY AVIATORS IN NICARAGUA;
or, In League with the Insurgents.

2 THE BOY AVIATORS ON SECRET SERVICE;
or, Working with Wireless.

3 THE BOY AVIATORS IN AFRICA;
or, An Aerial Ivory Trail.

4 THE BOY AVIATORS' TREASURE QUEST;
or, The Golden Galleon.

5 THE BOY AVIATORS IN RECORD FLIGHT;
or, The Rival Aeroplane.

6 THE BOY AVIATORS' POLAR DASH;
or, Facing Death in the Antarctic.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER
I. The Polar Ship
II. A Mysterious Robbery
III. Off for the South Pole
IV. A Message from the Air
V. A Tragedy of the Skies
VI. A Strange Collision
VII. Adrift on a Floating Island
VIII. Caught in the Flames
IX. A Queer Accident
X. The Professor is Kidnapped
XI. A Battle in the Air
XII. Adrift
XIII. The Ship of Olaf the Viking
XIV. Marooned on an Ice Floe
XV. Dynamiting the Reef
XVI. A Polar Storm
XVII. The Great Barrier
XVIII. The Professor Takes a Cold Bath
XIX. Facing the Polar Night
XX. A Mysterious Light
XXI. A Penguin Hunt
XXII. The Flaming Mountain
XXIII. Adrift Above the Snows
XXIV. Swallowed by a Crevasse
XXV. The Viking's Ship
XXVI. Caught in a Trap
XXVII. The Fate of the Dirigible
XXVIII. The Heart of the Antarctic




THE BOY AVIATORS' POLAR DASH

OR

FACING DEATH IN THE ANTARCTIC




CHAPTER I.

THE POLAR SHIP.


"Oh, it's southward ho, where the breezes blow; we're off for the
pole, yo, ho! heave ho!"

"Is that you, Harry?" asked a lad of about seventeen, without looking
up from some curious-looking frames and apparatus over which he was
working in the garage workshop back of his New York home on Madison
Avenue.

"Ay! ay! my hearty," responded his brother, giving his trousers a
nautical hitch; "you seem to have forgotten that to-day is the day we
are to see the polar ship."

"Not likely," exclaimed Frank Chester, flinging down his wrench and
passing his hand through a mop of curly hair; "what time is it?"

"Almost noon; we must be at the Eric Basin at two o'clock."

"As late as that? Well, building a motor sledge and fixing up the
Golden Eagle certainly occupies time."

"Come on; wash up and then we'll get dinner and start over."

"Will Captain Hazzard be there?"

"Yes, they are getting the supplies on board now."

"Say, that sounds good, doesn't it? Mighty few boys get such a chance.
The South Pole,--ice-bergs--sea-lions,--and--and--oh, heaps of
things."

Arm in arm the two boys left the garage on the upper floor of which
they had fitted up their aeronautical workshop. There the Golden
Eagle, their big twin-screw aeroplane, had been planned and partially
built, and here, too, they were now working on a motor-sledge for the
expedition which now occupied most of their waking--and
sleeping--thoughts.

The Erie Basin is an enclosed body of water which forms at once a
repair shop and a graveyard for every conceivable variety of vessel,
steam and sail, and is not the warmest place in the world on a chill
day in late November, yet to the two lads, as they hurried along a
narrow string-piece in the direction of a big three-masted steamer,
which lay at a small pier projecting in an L-shaped formation, from
the main wharf, the bitter blasts that swept round warehouse corners
appeared to be of not the slightest consequence--at least to judge by
their earnest conversation.

"What a muss!" exclaimed Harry, the younger of the two lads.

"Well," commented the other, "you'd hardly expect to find a wharf,
alongside which a south polar ship is fitting up, on rush orders, to
be as clean swept as a drawing-room, would you?"

As Harry Chester had said, the wharf was "a muss." Everywhere were
cases and barrels all stenciled "Ship Southern Cross, U. S. South
Polar Expedition." As fast as a gang of stevedores, their laboring
bodies steaming in the sharp air, could handle the muddle, the
numerous cases and crates were hauled aboard the vessel we have
noticed and lowered into her capacious holds by a rattling, fussy
cargo winch. The shouts of the freight handlers and the sharp shrieks
of the whistle of the boss stevedore, as he started or stopped the
hoisting engine, all combined to form a picture as confused as could
well be imagined, and yet one which was in reality merely an orderly
loading of a ship of whose existence, much less her destination, few
were aware.

As the readers of The Boy Aviators in Record Flight; or, The Rival
Aeroplane, will recall, the Chester boys, in their overland trip for
the big newspaper prize, encountered Captain Robert Hazzard, a young
army officer in pursuit of a band of renegade Indians. On that
occasion he displayed much interest in the aeroplane in which they
were voyaging over plains, mountains and rivers on their remarkable
trip. They in turn were equally absorbed in what he had to tell them
about his hopes of being selected for the post of commander of the
expedition to the South Pole, which the government was then
considering fitting out for the purpose of obtaining meteorological
and geographical data. The actual attainment of the pole was, of
course, the main object of the dash southward, but the expedition was
likewise to do all in its power to add to the slender stock of the
world's knowledge concerning the great silences south of the 80th
parallel. About a month before this story opens the young captain had
realized his wish and the Southern Cross--formerly a stanch
bark-rigged whaler--had been purchased for uses of the expedition.

Their friend had not forgotten the boys and their aeroplane and in
fact had lost no time in communicating with them, and a series of
consultations and councils of war had ended in the boys being signed
on as the aviators of the expedition. They also had had assigned to
their care the mechanical details of the equipment, including a motor
sledge, which latter will be more fully described later.

That the consent of the boys' parents to their long and hazardous trip
had not been gained without a lot of coaxing and persuasion goes
without saying. Mrs. Chester had held out till the last against what
she termed "a hare-brained project," but the boys with learned
discourses on the inestimable benefits that would redound to
humanity's benefit from the discovery of the South Pole, had overborne
even her rather bewildered opposition, and the day before they stood
on the wharf in the Erie Basin, watching the Southern Cross swallowing
her cargo, like a mighty sea monster demolishing a gigantic meal, they
had received their duly signed and witnessed commissions as aviators
to the expedition--documents of which they were not a little proud.

"Well, boys, here you are, I see. Come aboard."

The two boys gazed upward at the high side of the ship from whence the
hail had proceeded. In the figure that had addressed them they had at
first no little difficulty in recognizing Captain Hazzard. In grimy
overalls, with a battered woolen cap of the Tam o' Shanter variety on
his head, and his face liberally smudged with grime and dust,--for on
the opposite side of the Southern Cross three lighters were at work
coaling her,--a figure more unlike that of the usually trim and trig
officer could scarcely be imagined.

The lads' confusion was only momentary, however, and ended in a hearty
laugh as they nimbly ascended the narrow gangway and gained the deck
by their friend's side. After a warm handshake, Frank exclaimed
merrily:

"I suppose we are now another part of the miscellaneous cargo, sir. If
we are in the way tell us and we'll go ashore again."

"No, I've got you here now and I don't mean to let you escape,"
laughed the other in response; "in my cabin--its aft there under the
break in the poop, you'll find some more overalls, put them on and
then I'll set you both to work as tallyers."

Harry looked blank at this. He had counted on rambling over the ship
and examining her at his leisure. It seemed, however, that they were
to be allowed no time for skylarking. Frank, however, obeyed with
alacrity.

"Ay, ay, sir!" he exclaimed, with a sailor-like hitch at his trousers;
"come, Harry, my hearty, tumble aft, we might as well begin to take
orders now as any other time."

"That's the spirit, my boy," exclaimed the captain warmly, as Harry,
looking a bit shamefaced at his temporary desire to protest, followed
his brother to the stern of the ship.

Once on board there was no room to doubt that the Southern Cross had
once been a whaler under the prosaic name of Eben A. Thayer. In fact
if there had been any indecision about the matter the strong smell of
oil and blubber which still clung to her, despite new coats of paint
and a thorough cleaning, would have dispelled it.

The engine-room, as is usual in vessels of the type of the converted
whaler, was as far aft as it could be placed, and the boys noticed
with satisfaction as they entered the officers' quarters aft, that the
radiators had been connected with the boilers and had warmed the place
up to a comfortable temperature. A Japanese steward showed them into
Captain Hazzard's cabin, and they selected a suit of overalls each
from a higgledy-piggledy collection of oil-skins, rough pilot-cloth
suits and all manner of headgear hanging on one of the cabin
bulkheads.

They had encased themselves in them, and were laughing at the
whimsical appearance they made in the clumsy garments, when the
captain himself entered the cabin.

"The stevedores have knocked off for a rest spell and a smoke and the
lighters are emptied," he announced, "so I might as well show you boys
round a bit. Would you care to?"

Would they care to? Two hearty shouts of assent left the young
commander no doubt on this score.

The former Eben A. Thayer had been a beamy ship, and the living
quarters of her officers astern left nothing to be desired in the way
of room. On one side of the cabin, extending beneath the poop deck,
with a row of lights in the circular wall formed by the stern, were
the four cabins to be occupied by Captain Hazzard, the chief engineer,
a middle-aged Scotchman named Gavin MacKenzie, Professor Simeon
Sandburr, the scientist of the expedition, and the surgeon, a Doctor
Watson Gregg.

The four staterooms on the other side were to be occupied by the boys,
whom the lieutenant assigned to the one nearest the stern, the second
engineer and the mate were berthed next to them. Then came the cabin
of Captain Pent Barrington, the navigating officer of the ship, and
his first mate, a New Englander, as dry as salt cod, named Darius
Green. The fourth stateroom was empty. The steward bunked forward in a
little cabin rigged up in the same deck-house as the galley which
snuggled up to the foot of the foremast.

Summing up what the boys saw as they followed their conductor over the
ship they found her to be a three-masted, bark-rigged vessel with a
cro' nest, like a small barrel, perched atop of her mainmast. Her
already large coal bunkers had been added to until she was enabled to
carry enough coal to give her a tremendous cruising radius. It was in
order to economize on fuel she was rigged for the carrying of sail
when she encountered a good slant of wind. Her forecastle, originally
the dark, wet hole common to whalers, had been built up till it was a
commodious chamber fitted with bunks at the sides and a swinging table
in the center, which could be hoisted up out of the way when not in
use. Like the officers' cabins, it was warmed by radiators fed from
the main boilers when under way and from the donkey, or auxiliary,
boiler when hove to.

Besides the provisions, which the stevedores, having completed their
"spell," were now tumbling into the hold with renewed ardor, the deck
was piled high with a strange miscellany of articles. There were
sledges, bales of canvas, which on investigation proved to be tents,
coils of rope, pick-axes, shovels, five portable houses in knock-down
form, a couple of specially constructed whale boats, so made as to
resist any ordinary pressure that might be brought to bear on them in
the polar drift, and nail-kegs and tool-chests everywhere.

Peeping into the hold the boys saw that each side of it had been built
up with big partitions, something like the pigeon-holes in which bolts
of cloth are stored in dry-goods shops--only much larger. Each of
these spaces was labeled in plain letters with the nature of the
stores to be placed there so that those in charge of the supplies
would have no difficulty in laying their hands at once on whatever
happened to be needed. Each space was provided with a swiveled bar of
stout timber which could be pulled across the front of the opening in
heavy weather, and which prevented anything plunging out.

Captain Hazzard explained that the heavy stores were stowed forward
and the provisions aft. A gallery ran between the shelves from stem to
stern and provided ready access to any part of the holds. A system of
hot steam-pipes had been rigged in the holds so that in the antarctic
an equable temperature could be maintained. The great water tanks were
forward immediately below the forecastle. The inspection of the
engines came last. The Southern Cross had been fitted with new
water-tube boilers--two of them--that steamed readily on small fuel
consumption. Her engine was triple expansion, especially installed, as
the boilers had been, to take the place of the antiquated machinery
boasted by the old Thayer.

"Hoot, mon, she's as fine as a liner," commented old MacKenzie, the
"chief," who had taken charge of the boys on this part of their
expedition over the vessel, which was destined to be their home for
many months.

"Some day," said Frank, "every vessel will be equipped with gasoline
motors and all this clumsy arrangement of boilers and complicated
piping will be done away with."

The old Scotch engineer looked at him queerly.

"Oh, ay," he sniffed, "and some day we'll all go to sea in pea-soup
bowls nae doot."

"Well, a man in Connecticut has built a schooner out of cement,"
declared Harry.

The engineer looked at him and slowly wiped his hands on a bit of
waste.

"I ken his head must be a muckle thicker nor that," was his comment,
at which both the boys laughed as they climbed the steel ladders that
led from the warm and oily regions to the deck. The engineer, with a
"dour" Scot's grin, gazed after them.

"Hoots-toots," he muttered to his gauges and levers, "the great ice
has a wonderful way with lads as cocksure as them twa."




CHAPTER II.

A MYSTERIOUS ROBBERY.


Their inspection of the Southern Cross completed, the delighted boys
accompanied Captain Hazzard back to the main cabin, where he unfolded
before them a huge chart of the polar regions.

The chart was traced over in many places with tiny red lines which
made zig-zags and curves over the blankness of the region south of the
eightieth parallel.

"These lines mark the points reached by different explorers,"
explained the captain. "See, here is Scott's furthest south, and here
the most recent advance into south polar regions, that of Sir Ernest
Shackleton. In my opinion Shackleton might have reached his goal if he
had used a motor sledge, capable of carrying heavy weights, and not
placed his sole dependence on ponies."

The boys nodded; Frank had read the explorer's narrative and realized
that what Captain Hazzard said was in all probability correct.

"It remains for your expedition to carry the Stars and Stripes further
to the southward yet," exclaimed Frank, enthusiastically, as Captain
Hazzard rolled up the map.

"Not only for us," smiled the captain; "we have a rival in the field."

"A rival expedition?" exclaimed Frank.

"Exactly. Some time this month a Japanese expedition under Lieutenant
Saki is to set out from Yokahama for Wilkes Land.

"They are to be towed by a man-of-war until they are in the polar
regions so as to save the supply of coal on the small steamer they are
using," went on the captain. "Everything has been conducted with the
utmost secrecy and it is their intention to beat us there if
possible--hence all this haste."

"How did our government get wind of the fact that the Japs are getting
ready another expedition?" inquired Frank, somewhat puzzled.

"By means of our secret service men. I don't doubt that the Japanese
secret service men in this country have also notified their government
of our expedition. England also is in the race but the Scott
expedition will not be ready for some time yet."

"You think, then, that the Japs have secret agents keeping track of
us?" was Frank's next question.

The captain's reply was cut short by a loud crash. They all started up
at the interruption. So intent had they been in their conversation
that they had not noticed the Jap steward standing close behind them
and his soft slippers had prevented them hearing his approach. The
crash had been caused by a metal tray he had let drop. He now stood
with as much vexation on his impassive countenance as it ever was
possible for it to betray.

"What on earth are you doing, Oyama?" sharply questioned Captain
Hazzard.

"I was but about to inquire if the cap-it-an and the boys would not
have some refreshments," rejoined the Jap.

"Not now, we are busy," replied Captain Hazzard, with what was for him
some show of irritation. "Be off to your pantry now. I will ring if I
want you."

With an obsequious bow the Jap withdrew; but if they could have seen
his face as he turned into his small pantry, a cubby-hole for dishes
and glasses, they would have noticed that it bore a most singular
expression.

"It seems curious that while we were talking of Jap secret service men
that your man should have been right behind us," commented Frank. "I
don't know that I ought to ask such a question--but can you trust
him?"

The captain laughed.

"Oh, implicitly," he said easily, "Oyama was with me in the
Philippines, and has always been a model of all that a good servant
should be."

Soon after this the conference broke up, the boys having promised to
have their aeroplane on board early the next day. Frank explained that
the machine was all ready and in shape for shipping and all that
remained to do was to "knock it down," encase it in its boxes and get
a wagon to haul it to the pier.

"Say, Harry," said Frank earnestly, as the boys, having bade their
leave of Captain Hazzard, who remained on board owing to press of
business on the ship, made their way along the maze of wharves and
toward a street car.

"Say it," responded Harry cheerfully, his spirits at the tip-top of
excitement at the idea of an almost immediate start for the polar
regions.

"Well, it's about that Jap."

"Oh that yellow-faced bit of soft-footed putty--well, what about him?"

"Well, that 'yellow-faced bit of putty,' as you call him, is not so
easily dismissed from my mind as all that. I'm pretty sure that he had
some stronger reason than the one he gave for coming up behind us as
silently as a cat while we were talking."

"But Captain Hazzard says that he has had him for years. That he can
trust him implicitly," protested Harry.

"Just the same I can't get it out of my mind that there is something
wrong about the fellow. I wish he hadn't seen that map and the
proposed route of our expedition."

"Oh bosh, you are thinking of what Captain Hazzard said about the Jap
secret service. Our friend Oyama is much too thick to be a secret
service man."

"He simply looks unimpressive," rejoined Frank. "For that reason alone
he would make a good man for any such purpose."

"Well, here comes a car," interrupted Harry, "so let's board it and
forget our Japanese friend. Depend upon it you'll find out that he is
all O. K. long before we sight an iceberg."

"I hope so, I'm sure," agreed Frank; but there was a troubled look on
his face as he spoke.

However, not later than the next morning, as they were screwing up the
last of the big blue cases that contained the various parts of the
Golden Eagle, Billy Barnes, the young reporter who had accompanied the
two boys in all of their expeditions, including the one to Nicaragua,
where, with their aeroplane they helped make Central American history,
as related in The Boy Aviators in Nicaragua; or, Leagued with the
Insurgents,--Billy Barnes, the irrepressible, bounced into the garage
which they used as a workshop, and which was situated in the rear of
their house on Madison Avenue, with what proved to be important news
of the Jap.

"Aha, my young Scotts and Shackletons, I behold you on the verge of
your departure for the land of perpetual ice, polar bears and
Esquimaux," exclaimed the reporter, striking an attitude like that
assumed by Commander Peary in some of his pictures.

"Hullo, Billy Barnes," exclaimed both boys, continuing their work, as
they were pretty well used to the young reporter's unceremonious
calls, "What brings you out so early?"

"Oh, a little story to cover in the Yorkville Court and I thought as I
was up this way I'd drop off and pay my respects. Say, bring me back a
polar bear skin, will you?"

"A polar bear skin?" laughed Frank, "why there aren't any polar bears
at the South Pole."

"No polar bears," repeated Billy lugubriously, "what's the good of a
pole without polar bears. Me for the frozen north then. I suppose
you'll tell me next there are no natives at the South Pole either."

"Well, there are not," rejoined Frank.

"But there are sea-elephants and ice-leopards and--" began Harry.

"And sea-cats, I suppose," interrupted Billy.

"No," exclaimed Harry, rather nettled at the young reporter's joking
tone, "but there is the ship of Olaf--"

Frank was up like a shot.

"Didn't we give our word to the Captain not to mention a word about
that?" he demanded.

"That's so," assented Harry, abashed, "but I just wanted to show this
young person here that he can't treat our expedition with levity."

"The ship of Olaf, eh?" mused the young reporter, "sounds like a
story. Who was Olaf, if I may ask?"

"You may not ask," was Frank's rejoinder. "As you know, Billy, we have
been frank with you, of course under the pledge of secrecy which we
know you too well to dream of your breaking. You know we are bound for
the South Polar regions. You know also that the object of Captain
Hazzard is to discover the pole, if possible; in any event to bring
back scientific data of inestimable value; but there's one thing you
don't know and of which we ourselves know very little, and that is the
thing that Harry let slip."

"All right, Frank," said the young reporter, readily, "I won't say any
more about it, only it did sound as if it had possibilities. Hullo!
ten o'clock; I've got to be jogging along."

"What are you going to court about?" inquired Frank.

"Oh, a small case. Doesn't look as if it would amount to a row of
pins. A Jap who was arrested last night, more for safe-keeping than
anything else, I guess. He was found near the consulate of his country
and appeared to be under the influence of some drug. Anyhow, he
couldn't look after himself, so a policeman took him to a
station-house. Of course, there might be a story back of it and that's
why I'm on the job."

"A Jap, eh?" mused Frank curiously.

"Yes; do you number any among your acquaintance?" inquired Billy.

"Well, we do number one; don't we, Harry?" laughed Frank.

At that moment the telephone bell rang sharply in the booth erected in
the workshop in order to keep out noise when anyone was conversing
over the wire.

"Wait a second, I'll see what that call is," exclaimed Frank, bolting
into the booth. He was in it several seconds and when he came out his
face was flushed and he seemed excited.

"What's the matter--trouble?" inquired Billy, noting his apparent
perturbation.

"Yes, it is trouble in a way," assented Frank, "I guess we'll take a
run to court with you and look over this Jap of yours, Billy."

"Think you know him?"

"That's just what I want to see."

"You seem very anxious about it. Anything wrong?"

"Yes, very wrong. That was Captain Hazzard on the wire, and a
mysterious theft has occurred on the Southern Cross."




CHAPTER III.

OFF FOR THE SOUTH POLE.


The court-room was crowded as the boys entered it, but armed with
Billy's police card they soon made their way through a rail that
separated the main body of the place from the space within which the
magistrate was seated. On the way over Frank had related his
conversation over the wire with Captain Hazzard. It appeared that
Oyama, the Jap, was missing and that several papers bearing on the
objects of the expedition which were,--except in a general way,--a
mystery to the boys themselves, had been stolen.

Putting two and two together, Frank had made up his mind that the Jap
whose case Billy had been assigned to investigate was none other than
Oyama himself, and as they entered the space described above his eyes
eagerly swept the row of prisoners seated in the "Pen."

"I was sure of it," the boy exclaimed as his eyes encountered an
abject, huddled-up figure seated next a ragged, besotted-looking
tramp.

"Sure of what?" demanded Harry.

"Why, that Oyama was the man who stole the papers from the Southern
Cross."

"Well?"

"Well, there he is now."

Frank indicated the abject object in the corner who at the same moment
raised a yellow face and bloodshot eyes and gazed blearily at him.
There was no sign of recognition in the face, however. In fact the Jap
appeared to be in a stupor of some sort.

"Is that little Jap known to you?"

Frank turned: a gray moustached man with a red face and keen eyes was
regarding him and had put the question.

"He is--yes," replied the boy, "but----"

"Oh, you need not hesitate to talk to me," replied the stranger, "I am
Dr. McGuire, the prison surgeon, and I take a professional interest in
his case. The man is stupefied with opium or some drug that seems to
have numbed his senses."

"Do you think it was self-administered?" asked the boy.

"Oh, undoubtedly. Those fellows go on regular opium debauches
sometimes. In this case perhaps it is very fortunate for some one that
he was imprudent enough to take such heavy doses of the drug that the
policeman picked him up, for a lot of papers were found on him. They
are meaningless to me, but perhaps you can throw some light on them."

"The papers, we believe, are the property of Captain Hazzard, the head
of the government's South Polar expedition," exclaimed Frank, whose
suspicions had rapidly become convictions at the sight of the Jap. "We
have no right to examine into their contents, but I suppose there
would be no harm in our looking at them to make sure. I can then
notify the Captain."

"You are friends of his?"

"We are attached to the expedition," replied Frank, "but I must ask
you not to mention it, as I do not know but we are breaking our
promise of secrecy even in such an important matter as this."

"You can depend that I shall not violate your confidence," promised
Dr. McGuire.

It was the matter of few moments only to secure the papers from the
court clerk. There was quite a bundle of them, some of them sealed.
Apparently the thief, elated over his success in stealing them, had
indulged himself in his beloved drug before he had even taken the
trouble to examine fully into his finds. One paper, however, had been
opened and seemed to be, as Frank could not help noticing, a sort of
document containing "General Orders" to the expedition.

It consisted of several closely typewritten pages, and on the first
one Frank lit on the magic words,--"--AND CONCERNING THE SHIP OF OLAF,
THE VIKING ROVER, YOU WILL PROCEED ACROSS THE BARRIER, USING ALL
DISCRETION, AS A RIVAL NATION HAS ALSO SOME INKLING OF THE PRESENCE OF
THE LONG-LOST VESSEL AND,--"

Though the boy would have given a good deal to do so he felt that he
could not honorably read more. He resolutely, therefore, closed the
paper and restored it to its place in the mass of other documents.
There was, of course, no question that the papers were the property of
Captain Hazzard, and that the Jap had stolen them. The latter was
therefore sentenced to spend the next six weeks on Blackwell's Island,
by the expiration of which time the Southern Cross would be well on
her voyage toward The Great Barrier.

As the boys left the court, having been told that Captain Hazzard's
papers would be sealed and restored him when he called for them and
made a formal demand for their delivery, they were deep in excited
talk.

"Well, if this doesn't beat all," exclaimed Frank, "we always seem to
be getting snarled up with those chaps. You remember what a tussle
they gave us in the Everglades."

"Not likely to forget it," was the brief rejoinder from Harry.

"I'll never forget winging that submarine of Captain Bellman's," put
in Billy.

"Well, boys, exciting as our experiences were down there, I think that
we are on the verge of adventures and perils that will make them look
insignificant," exclaimed Frank.

"Don't," groaned Billy.

"Don't what?"

"Don't talk that way. Here am I a contented reporter working hard and
hoping that some day my opportunity will come and I shall be a great
writer or statesman or something and then you throw me off my base by
talking about adventure," was the indignant response.

"Upon my word, Billy Barnes, I think you are hinting that you would
like to come along."

"Well, would that be so very curious. Oh cracky! If I only could get a
chance."

"You think you could get a leave of absence?"

"Two of 'em. But what's the use," Billy broke off with a groan,
"Captain Hazzard wouldn't have me and that's all there is to it. No,
I'll be stuck here in New York while you fellows are shooting Polar
bears--oh, I forgot, there aren't any,--well, anyhow, while you're
having a fine time,--just my luck."

"If you aren't the most contrary chap," laughed Frank. "Here a short
time ago you never even dreamed of coming and now you talk as if you'd
been expecting to go right along, and had been meanly deprived of your
rights."

"I wonder if the Captain----," hesitated Harry.

"Would take Billy along?" Frank finished for him, "well, we will do
this much. We have got to go over to the Erie Basin now and tell
Captain Hazzard about the recovery of his papers. Billy can come along
if he wants and we will state his case for him, it will take three
boys to manage that sledge anyway," went on Frank, warming up to the
new plan. "I think we can promise you to fix it somehow, Billy."

"You think you can," burst out the delighted reporter, "oh, Frank, if
you do, I'll--I'll make you famous. I'll write you up as the
discoverer of the ship of Olaf and--"

"That's enough," suddenly interrupted Frank, "if you want to do me a
favor, Billy, never mention any more about that till Captain Hazzard
himself decides to tell us about it. We only let what we know of the
secret slip out by accident and we have no right to speculate on what
Captain Hazzard evidently wishes kept a mystery till the time comes to
reveal it."

"I'm sorry, Frank," contritely said Billy, "I won't speak any more
about it; but," he added to himself, "you can't keep me from thinking
about it."

As Frank had anticipated, Captain Hazzard agreed to ship Billy Barnes
as a member of the expedition. He was to be a sort of general
secretary and assist the boys with the aeroplane and motor sledge when
the time came. The reporter's face, when after a brief conference it
was announced to him that he might consider himself one of the
Southern Cross's ship's company, was a study. It was all he could do
to keep from shouting at the top of his voice. The contrast between
the dignity he felt he ought to assume before Captain Hazzard and the
desire he felt to skip about and express his feelings in some active
way produced such a ludicrous mixture of emotions on Billy's face that
both the boys and the captain himself had to burst into uncontrollable
laughter at it. Laughter in which the good natured Billy, without
exactly understanding its cause, heartily joined.

A week later the final good-byes were said and the Southern Cross was
ready for sea. She was to meet a coal-ship at Monte Video in the
Argentine Republic which would tow her as far as the Great Barrier.
This was to conserve her own coal supply. The other vessel would then
discharge her cargo of coal,--thus leaving the adventurers a plentiful
supply of fuel in case the worst came to worst, and they were frozen
in for a second winter.

In case nothing was heard of them by the following fall a relief ship
was to be despatched which would reach them roughly about the
beginning of December, when the Antarctic summer is beginning to draw
to a close. The commander of the Southern Cross expected to reach the
great southern ice-barrier in about the beginning of February, when
the winter, which reaches its climax in August, would be just closing
in. The winter months were to be devoted to establishing a camp, from
which in the following spring--answering to our fall--the expedition
would be sent out.

"Hurray! a winter in the Polar ice," shouted the boys as the program
was explained to them.

"And a dash for the pole to cap it off," shouted the usually
unemotional Frank, his face shining at the prospect.

As has been said, the Southern Cross was an old whaler. Built rather
for staunchness than beauty, she was no ideal of a mariner's dream as
she unobtrusively cleared from her wharf one gray, chilly morning
which held a promise of snow in its leaden sky. There were few but the
stevedores, who always hang about "the Basin," and some idlers, to
watch her as she cast off her lines and a tug pulled her head round
till she pointed for the opening of the berth in which she had lain so
long. Of these onlookers not one had any more than a hazy idea of
where the vessel was bound and why.

As the Southern Cross steamed steadily on down the bay, past the bleak
hills of Staten Island, on by Sandy Hook, reaching out its long,
desolate finger as if pointing ships out to the ocean beyond, the
three boys stood together in a delighted group in the lee of a pile of
steel drums, each containing twenty gallons of gasolene.

"Well, old fellow, we're off at last," cried Frank, his eye kindling
as the Southern Cross altered her course a bit and stood due south
down the Jersey coast.

"That's it," cried Billy, with a wave of his soft cap, "off at last;
we're the three luckiest boys on this globe, I say."

"Same here," was Harry's rejoinder.

The blunt bows of the Southern Cross began to lift to the long heave
of the ever restless Atlantic. She slid over the shoulder of one big
wave and into the trough of another with a steady rhythmic glide that
spoke well for her seaworthy qualities. Frank, snugly out of the
nipping wind in the shelter of the gasolene drums, was silent for
several minutes musing over the adventurous voyage on which they were
setting out. Thus he had not noticed a change coming over Harry and
Billy. Suddenly a groan fell on his ear. Startled, the boy looked
round.

On the edge of the hatch sat Billy and beside him, his head sunk in
his hands, was Harry.

"What's the matter with you fellows?" demanded Frank.

At that instant an unusually large breaker came rolling towards the
Southern Cross and caught her fair and square on the side of the bow.
Deep laden as she was it broke over her and a wall of green water came
tumbling and sweeping along the decks. Frank avoided it by leaping
upward and seizing a stanchion used to secure the framework holding
down the deck load.

But neither Harry nor Billy moved, except a few minutes later when
another heavy roll sent them sliding into the scuppers.

"Come, you fellows, you'd better get up, and turn in aft," said Frank.

"Oh, leave me alone," groaned Billy.

"I'm going to die, I think," moaned Harry.

At this moment the new steward, a raw boy from Vermont, who had been
at sea for several years, came up to where the two boys were
suffering.

"Breakfast's ready," he announced, "there's some nice fat bacon and
fried eggs and jam and----"

It was too much. With what strength they had left Billy and Harry
tumbled to their feet and aimed simultaneous blows at him.

It was a final effort and as the Southern Cross plunged onward toward
her mysterious goal she carried with her two of the most sea-sick boys
ever recorded on a ship's manifest.




CHAPTER IV.

A MESSAGE FROM THE AIR.


It was a bright, sunshiny morning a week later. The Southern Cross was
now in sub-tropic waters, steaming steadily along under blue skies and
through smooth azure water flecked here and there with masses of
yellow gulf weed.

The boys were in a group forward watching the flying fish that fled
like coveys of frightened birds as the bow of the polar ship cut
through the water. Under Dr. Gregg's care Billy and Harry had quite
recovered from their sea-sickness.

"Off there to the southeast somewhere is the treasure galleon and the
Sargasso Sea," said Harry, indicating the purplish haze that hung on
the horizon. [Footnote: See Vol. 4 of this series, The Boy Aviators'
Treasure Quest; or, The Golden Galleon.]

"Yes, and off there is the South Pole," rejoined Frank, pointing due
south, "I wish the old Southern Cross could make better speed, I'm
impatient to be there."

"And I'm impatient to solve some of the mystery of this voyage," put
in Billy, "here we've been at sea a week and Captain Hazzard hasn't
told us yet anything about that--that,--well you know, that ship you
spoke about, Frank."

"He will tell us all in good time," rejoined the other, "and now
instead of wasting speculation on something we are bound not to find
out till we do find it out, let's go aft to the wireless room and
polish up a bit."

The Southern Cross carried a wireless apparatus which had been
specially installed for her polar voyage. The aerials stretched from
her main to mizzen mast and a small room, formerly a storeroom, below
the raised poop containing the cabins had been fitted up for a
wireless room. In this the boys had spent a good deal of time during
their convalescence from sea-sickness and had managed to "pick-up"
many vessels within their radius,--which was fifteen hundred miles
under favorable conditions.

Frank was the first to clap on the head-receiver this morning and he
sat silently for a while absently clicking out calls, to none of which
he obtained an answer. Suddenly, however, his face grew excited.

"Hullo," he cried, "here's something."

"What?" demanded Harry.

"I don't know yet," he held up his hand to demand silence.

"That's queer," he exclaimed, after a pause, in which the receiver had
buzzed and purred its message into his ear.

The others looked their questions.

"There's something funny about this message," he went on. "I cannot
understand it. Whoever is calling has a very weak sending current. I
can hardly hear it. One thing is certain though, it's someone in
distress."

The others leaned forward eagerly, but their curiosity was not
satisfied immediately by Frank. Instead his face became set in
concentration once more. After some moments of silence, broken only by
the slight noise of the receiver, he pressed his hand on the sending
apparatus and the Southern Cross's wireless began to crackle and spit
and emit a leaping blue flame.

"What's he sending?" asked Billy, turning to Harry.

"Wait a second," was the rejoinder. The wireless continued to crackle
and flash.

"Cracky," suddenly cried Harry, "hark at that, Billy."

"What," sputtered the reporter, "that stuff doesn't mean anything to
me. What's he done, picked up a ship or a land station or what?"

"No," was the astounding response, "he's picked up an airship!"

"Oh, get out," protested the amazed Billy.

"That's right," snapped Frank, "as far as I can make out it's a
dirigible balloon that has been blown out to sea. They tried to give
me their position, and as near as I can comprehend their message, they
are between us and the shore somewhere within a radius of about twenty
miles."

"Are they in distress?" demanded Billy.

"Yes. The heat has expanded their gas and they fear that the bag of
the ship may explode at any moment. They cut off suddenly. The
accident may have occurred already."

"Why don't they open the valve?"

"I suppose because in that case they'd stand every chance of dropping
into the sea," responded Frank, disconnecting the instrument and
removing the head-piece. "I have sent word to them that we will try to
rescue them, but I'm afraid it's a slim chance. I must tell Captain
Hazzard at once."

Followed by the other two, Frank dashed up the few steps leading to
the deck and unceremoniously burst into the captain's cabin where the
latter was busy with a mass of charts and documents in company with
Captain Barrington, the navigating commander.

"I beg your pardon," exclaimed Frank, as Captain Hazzard looked up,
"but I have picked up a most important message by wireless,--two men,
in an airship, are in deadly peril not far from us."

The two commanders instantly became interested.

"An airship!" cried Captain Hazzard.

"What's that!" exclaimed Captain Barrington. "Did they give you their
position?" he added quickly.

"Yes," replied the boy, and rapidly repeated the latitude and
longitude as he had noted it.

"That means they are to the west of us," exclaimed Captain Barrington
as the boy concluded. He hastily picked up a speaking tube and hailed
the wheel-house, giving instructions to change the course. He then
emerged on deck followed by Captain Hazzard and the boys. The next
hour was spent in anxiously scanning the surrounding sea.

Suddenly a man who had been sent into the crow's nest on the main mast
gave a hail.

"I see something, sir," he cried, pointing to the southwest.

"What is it," demanded the captain.

"Looks like a big bird," was the response.

Slinging his binoculars round his neck by their strap, Captain
Barrington himself clambered into the main shrouds. When he had
climbed above the cross-trees he drew out his glasses and gazed in the
direction the lookout indicated. The next minute he gave a shout of
triumph.

"There's your dirigible, boys," he exclaimed, and even Billy overcame
his dislike to clambering into the rigging for a chance to get a look
at the airship they hoped to save.

Viewed even through the glasses she seemed a speck, no larger than a
shoe button, drifting aimlessly toward the south, but as the Southern
Cross drew nearer to her she stood out in more detail. The watchers
could then see that she was a large air craft for her type and carried
two men, who were running back and forth in apparent panic on her
suspended deck. Suddenly one of them swung himself into the rigging
and began climbing up the distended sides of the big cigar-shaped gas
bag.

"What can he be going to do?" asked Captain Hazzard.

"I think I know," said Frank. "The valve must be stuck and they have
decided now that as we are so near they will take a chance and open it
and risk a drop into the sea rather than have the over-distended bag
blow up."

"Of course. I never thought of that," rejoined the captain, "that's
just what they are doing."

"That man is taking a desperate chance," put in Professor Simeon
Sandburr, who had climbed up and joined the party and looked with his
long legs and big round glasses, like some queer sort of a bird
perched in the rigging. "Hydrogen gas is deadly and if he should
inhale any of it he would die like a bug in a camphor bottle."

Interest on board the Southern Cross was now intense in the fate of
the dirigible. Even the old chief engineer had left his engines and
wiping his hands with a bit of waste, stood gazing at the distressed
cloud clipper.

"The mon moost be daft," he exclaimed, "any mon that wud go tae sea in
sic a craft moost be daft. It's fair temptin' o' providence."

At that instant there was a sharp and sudden collapse of the balloon
bag. It seemed to shrivel like a bit of burned paper, and the
structure below it fell like a stone into the ocean, carrying with it
the man who had remained on it. Of the other, the one who had climbed
the bag, not a trace could be seen. Even as the onlookers gazed
horror-stricken at the sudden blotting out of the dirigible before
their eyes the loud roar of the explosion of its superheated gas
reached their ears.

"Every pound of steam you've got, chief," sharply commanded Captain
Barrington, almost before the dirigible vanished, "we must save them
yet."

The old engineer dived into his engine room and the Southern Cross,
with her gauges registering every pound of steam her boilers could
carry, rushed through the water as she never had before in all her
plodding career.

"Heaven grant we may not be too late," breathed Captain Hazzard, as,
followed by the boys, he clambered out of the rigging. "If only they
can swim we may save them."

"Or perhaps they have on life-belts," suggested Billy.

"Neither will do them much good," put in a voice at his elbow grimly.
It was Professor Sandburr.

"Why?" demanded Frank, "we will be alongside in a few minutes now and
if they can only keep up we can save them."

"The peril of drowning is not so imminent as another grave danger they
face," spoke the professor.

"What's that?"

"Sharks," was the reply, "these waters swarm with them."




CHAPTER V.

A TRAGEDY OF THE SKIES.


It was soon evident that the two men were supporting themselves in the
water. Their heads made black dots on the surface beneath which the
heavy deck structure of the dirigible had vanished. Through the
glasses it could be seen that they were swimming about awaiting the
arrival of the vessel which was rushing at her top speed to their aid.

Soon the Southern Cross was alongside and a dozen ropes and life buoys
were hastily cast over the side. But even as one of the men grasped a
rope's end he gave a scream of terror that long rang in the boys'
ears.

At the same instant a huge, dark body shot through the water and then
there was a whitish gleam as the monster shark turned on its back with
its jaws open displaying a triple row of saw-like teeth.

"Quick, shoot him," cried Captain Hazzard.

But nobody had a rifle or revolver. Frank hastily darted into his
cabin for his magazine weapon but when he reappeared there was only a
crimson circle on the water to mark where the terrible, man-killing
shark had vanished with his prey. Attracted, no doubt, by the
mysterious sense that tells these sea tigers where they can snap up a
meal, other dark fins now began to cut through the water in all
directions.

The second man, almost overcome by the horror of his companion's fate,
however, had presence of mind enough to grasp a rope's end. In a few
seconds he had been hauled to the vessel's side and several of the
crew were preparing to hoist him on board when two of the monsters
made a simultaneous rush at him, Frank's revolver cracked at the same
instant and the sea tigers, with savage snaps of their jaws, which,
however, fell short of their intended prey, rolled over and vanished.

The rescued man when hauled on deck was a pitiable object. But even in
his half famished condition and with the great beard that he wore
there was something very familiar--strangely so--about him to the
boys. Frank was the first to solve the mystery.

"Ben Stubbs," he exclaimed.

"Who's that that called Ben Stubbs," exclaimed the man over whom a
dozen sailors and the doctor had been bending.

"It's me," shouted Frank, regardless of grammar, "Frank Chester."

The amazement on the face of the old salt who had accompanied the boys
in Africa and the Everglades and shared their perils in the Sargasso
Sea, was comical to behold.

"Well, what in the name of the great horn-spoon air you boys doing
here," he gasped, for Harry and Billy had now come forward and were
warmly shaking his hand.

"Well, answer us first: what are you doing here?" demanded Frank.

"Coming mighty near my finish like my poor mate," was the reply.

"Perhaps your friend had better come in the cabin and have something
to eat while he talks," suggested Captain Hazzard to the boys.

All agreed that that would be a good idea and the castaway was
escorted to the cabin table on which Hiram Scroggs the Vermonter soon
spread a fine meal.

"Wall, first and foremost," began Ben, the meal being dispatched, "I
'spose you want to know how I come to be out here skydoodling around
in a dirigible?"

"That's it," cried Billy.

"It's just this way," resumed the old sailor drawing out his aged
pipe. "Yer see, my pardner, James Melville,--that's the poor feller
that's dead,--and me was trying out his new air-craft when we got
blown out ter sea. We'd been goin' fer two days when you picked up the
wireless call for help he was sending out. I used ter say that
wireless was a fool thing ter have on an air-ship, but I owe my life
ter it all right.

"Ter go back a bit, I met Melville soon after we got back from the
treasure hunt. He was a friend of my sister's husband and as full of
ideas as a bird dog of fleas. But he didn't have no money to carry out
his inventions and as I had a pocketful I couldn't exactly figure how
to use, I agreed to back him in his wireless dirigible. We tried her
out several times ashore and then shipped her to Floridy, meaning to
try to fly to Cuba. But day afore yesterday while we was up on a trial
flight the wind got up in a hurry and at the same moment something
busted on the engine and, before we knew where we was, we was out at
sea."

"You must have been scared to death," put in Professor Sandburr who
was an interested listener.

"Not at first we wasn't. Poor Melville in fact seemed to think it was
a fine chance to test his ship. He managed to tinker up the engine
after working all night and part of yesterday on it and as we had
plenty to eat and drink on board--for we had stocked the boat up
preparatory to flying to Cuba--we didn't worry much.

"Howsomever, early this morning, after we'd had the engine going all
night we found we was still in the same position and for a mighty good
reason--one of the blades of the propeller had snapped off and there
we were,--practically just where we'd been the night before and with
no chance doing anything but drift about and wait for help. Melville
never lost his nerve though.

"'We'll be all right, Ben,' says he to me, and though I didn't feel
near so confident, still I chirped up a little for I had been feeling
pretty blue, I tell you.

"Right after we had had a bite to eat he starts in hammering away at
the wireless, sending out calls for help while I just sat around and
hoped something would turn up. Some observations we took showed that
we had not drifted very much further from land in the night on account
of there being no wind. This looked good for it meant that we were, or
should be, in the path of ships. The only thing that worried me was
that mighty few coasting vessels carry wireless, and I was surprised
when we got an answer from what I knew later was the Southern Cross.

"It was just as Melville was getting your answer that I noticed the
bag. The air had grown hot as an oven as the sun rose higher and about
noon I looked up just to see if there wasn't a cloud in the sky that
might mean a storm, and perhaps a change of wind that maybe would blow
us back over land again. What I saw scared me. The bag was blown out
as tight as the skin of a sausage, and it didn't look to me as if it
could swell much more without busting.

"I pointed it out to Melville and he went up in the air--worried to
death.

"'The gas is expanding,' he explains, 'it's the sun that's doing it.
If we don't let some gas out we'll bust.'

"And if we do we'll drop into the sea," says I.

"'Yes, that's very likely,' he replied, as cool as a cucumber, 'when
the evening comes and the gas condenses, with what we've lost, if we
pull the valve open, we won't have enough to keep the ship in the
air.'

"'There's only one thing to do,' he went on, 'we must wait till this
ship I've been speaking to by wireless comes in sight. Then we'll take
a chance. If the worst comes to worst we can float about till they
pick us up.'

"That seemed a good plan to me and I never gave the sharks a thought.
But when you drew near and it seemed as if the bag was going to bust
in a second's time and we tried to open the valve--we couldn't. The
halliards that work it had got twisted in the gale that blew us out to
sea and they wouldn't come untangled.

"Melville takes a look at the pressure gauge. Then he gave a long
whistle.

"'If we don't do something she'll bust in five seconds,' he says.

"Then I suddenly made up my mind. Without saying a word to him I
kicked off my boots and started to climb into the rigging.

"'What are you going to do?' asked Melville.

"Open that valve, says I.

"We saw you climbing and could not imagine what you were doing," put
in Billy.

"Wall," continued the old sailor, "I managed fine at first, although
that thar gas sausage was stretched as smooth and tight as a drum. The
network around it gave me a foothold though, and once I was half-way
round the lower bulge of the bag--where I was clinging on upside
down,--I was all right.

"I had the valve lever in my hand and was just going to open it when I
felt everything cave in around me like something had been pulled from
under my feet--or as if I had been sitting on a cloud and it had
melted.

"The dirigible had blown up.

"Luckily I kept my wits about me and deliberately made a dive for the
sea. It was a good height but I struck it clean. Down and down I went
till I thought I'd never come up again. My ear-drums felt like they'd
bust and my head seemed to have been hit with an axe. But come up I
did eventually as you know, and found poor George Melville there, too.
Of the dirigible there was not so much of as a match-stick left. The
rest you know."

Ben's voice shook a little as he reached the latter part of his
narrative. The rugged sailor's face grew soft and he winked back a
tear. The others said nothing for a few seconds and then Captain
Hazzard looked up.

"Since you have become one of us in such a strange way, I presume you
would like to know where we are bound for?"

"Wall, if it ain't askin' too much I would," rejoined the rugged
adventurer.

"We are bound for the South Pole."

Ben never flicked an eyelid.

"Ay, ay, sir," was all he said.

"I have a proposition to make to you," continued the captain. "We need
a bos'n, will you sign on? If you do not care to we will put you
ashore at the first convenient port or hail a homeward-bound ship and
have you transferred."

The old sailor looked positively hurt.

"What; me lose an opportunity to see the South Pole, to shoot Polar
bears--"

"There aren't any," put in Billy.

"Wall, whatever kind of critters there are there," went on the old
man, "no, sir; Ben Stubbs ain't the man to hold back on a venture like
this. Sign me on as bos'n, and if I don't help nail Uncle Sam's colors
to the South Pole call me a doodle-bug."

"A doodle-bug," exclaimed Professor Sandburr, "What kind of a bug is
that? If you know where to find them I hope you will catch one and
forward it to me."

Ben grinned.

"I guess doodle-bugs is like South Polar bears," he said.

"How is that, my dear sea-faring friend?"

"There ain't any," laughed Ben, blotting his big, scrawling signature
on the ship's books.

On and on toward the Pole plied the Southern Cross. One night when she
was about two hundred miles at sea off the mouth of the Amazon, the
boys, as it was one of the soft tropical nights peculiar to those
regions, were all grouped forward trying to keep cool and keeping a
sharp lookout for the real Southern Cross. This wonderful, heavenly
body might be expected to be visible almost any night now, Captain
Hazzard had told them. Old Ben shared their watch.

The little group was seated right on the forefoot or "over-hang" of
the polar ship, their legs dangling over the bow above the water.
Beneath their feet they could see the bright phosphorous gleam as the
ship ploughed onward. They were rather silent. In fact, except for
desultory conversation, the throb of the engines and the regular
sounding of the ship's bell as it marked the hours were the only
sounds to be heard.

It was past eight bells and everyone on the ship but the helmsman had
turned in, leaving the boys and Ben on watch, when there came a
terrific shock that caused the vessel to quiver and creak as if she
had run bow on into solid land. Captain Hazzard was thrown from his
bunk and all over the vessel there was the wildest confusion.

Shouts and cries filled the air as Captain Hazzard, not able to
imagine what had happened rushed out on deck in his night clothes. The
sky had become overcast and it was terribly black. It was hardly
possible for one to see his hand before his face. A heavy sulphurous
smell was in the air.

"What is it? What has happened? Did we hit another ship?" shouted
Captain Barrington, appearing from his cabin.

The helmsman could give no explanation. There had been a sudden shock
and he had been knocked off his feet. What had struck the ship or what
she had struck he could not make out. Captain Barrington knew there
were no rocks so far out at sea and he also knew that he could not be
near land. The only explanation was a collision with another ship, but
had that been the case surely, he argued, they would have heard shouts
and cries on the other vessel.

"Send forward for the boys and Ben Stubbs, they had the watch," he
commanded.

A man hurried forward to execute his order but he was soon back with a
white scared face.

"The young lads and Bos'n Stubbs aren't there," he exclaimed in a
frightened tone.

"Not there," repeated Captain Hazzard.

"No, sir. Not a trace of them. Beggin' your pardon, sir, I think it's
ghosts."

"Don't talk nonsense," sharply commanded his superior. "Have the ship
searched for them."

"Very good, sir," and the man, with a tug at his forelock, hastened
away to spread the word.

But a search of every nook and cranny of the ship only added to the
mystery.

Neither the boys nor Ben were to be found.

Had ghosts indeed snatched them into aerial regions, as some of the
more superstitious men seemed inclined to believe they could not have
vanished more utterly.




CHAPTER VI.

A STRANGE COLLISION.


We must now turn back and ascertain what has become of our young
adventurers and their rugged old companion. We left them sitting on
the bow--or rather perched there in positions none too secure in case
of a sudden lurch of the ship.

"I smell land," had been Ben's sudden exclamation after one of the
prolonged silences which, as has been said, possessed them that night.

The boys laughed.

"Laugh away," declared Ben, "but I do. Any old sailor can tell it."

"But we are two hundred miles at sea," objected Frank.

"Don't make no difference, I smell land," stubbornly repeated the old
sailor.

"Maybe the wind is off shore and that's the reason," suggested Billy.

"A sensible suggestion, youngster," approved Ben. "I guess that is the
reason for there is no island in this part of the world that I ever
heard tell of. But say," he broke off suddenly, "what's come over the
weather. It's getting black and the stars are blotted out. There's a
storm brewing and a bad one, or I'm mistaken."

The boys agreed that there did seem to be every indication of an
approaching tropical disturbance of some kind. The air had suddenly
grown heavy and sulphurous. There was an oppressive quality in it.

"I'm going aft to tell the captain that there's a bad blow coming on
or I'm a Dutchman," exclaimed Ben, starting to scramble to his feet.

"Better hold onto that stay or you'll topple overboard," warned Frank,
as Ben, balancing himself, got into a standing posture.

"What me, an old sailor topple over," shouted Ben, "Not much younker,
why I--"

The sentence was never finished. At that instant the shock that had
aroused Captain Hazzard and terrified the whole ship's company hurled
him headlong into the night and the boys, balanced as they were on the
prow of the trembling ship, were shot after him into the darkness as
if they had been hurled out of catapults.

Frank's feelings as he fell through the darkness he could not
afterward describe, still less his amazement when, instead of falling
into the sea, fully prepared to swim for his life, he found himself
instead plunged into a sticky ooze. For several seconds, in fact, he
was too amazed to utter a sound or move. It seemed he must be
dreaming.

Then he extended his hands and almost gave a cry so great was his
amazement.

He had encountered an unmistakable tree trunk!

He was on land--not dry land--for the boy was mired to the knees in
sticky mud,--but nevertheless land. Land in midocean.

Hardly had he recovered from his first shock of surprise when he heard
a voice exclaim:

"Can anyone tell me am I awake or dreaming in my bunk?"

"What's the matter, Billy?" hailed Frank, overjoyed to know that one
at least of his comrades was safe.

Before Billy could reply Harry's voice hailed through the darkness.

"I'm up to my neck in mud. Where are we, anyhow?"

"We're on dry land in midocean, shiver my timbers if we ain't," came a
deep throated hail, which proceeded from Ben Stubbs.

"Thank heaven we are all safe anyhow," cried Frank, "this mud is
mighty uncomfortable, though."

"Well, if it hadn't been here we'd have been eaten by sharks by this
time," Billy assured them; an observation all felt to be true.

"Where can the ship be?" exclaimed Harry's voice suddenly.

"Miles off by this time," said Frank. "I don't suppose they have even
missed us and even if they have it's so black they could never find
us."

"Let's see where we are," suggested Ben, "anyhow I'm going to try to
get out of this mud. It's like a pig-pen."

His observation struck the boys as a good suggestion and they all
wallowed in a direction they deemed was forward and soon were rewarded
for their efforts by finding themselves on real dry land. By
stretching out their hands they could feel tree trunks and dense brush
all about them.

"It's no dream," declared Frank, "we are really on land. But where?"

"Maybe the ship was way off her course and we are stranded on the
coast of Brazil," suggested Harry.

"Not likely," corrected Ben, "and besides if we'd hit land the ship
would be ashore."

"Then what can we be on?" demanded Frank.

"Give it up," said Billy.

"Anybody got a match?" asked Frank.

Luckily there were no lack of these and as the boys carried them in
the waterproof boxes they had used on their previous expeditions they
were dry. Some were soon struck and a bonfire built of the brush and
wood they found about them.

It was a strange tropical scene the glare illuminated. All about were
palm trees and tropic growth of various kinds; many of the plants
bearing fruits unfamiliar to the boys. Some large birds, scared by the
light, flapped screaming out of the boughs above them as the bonfire
blazed up. They could now see that they had been pitched out of the
ship onto a muddy beach, the ooze of which stuck to their clothes like
clay. The spot in which they stood was a few feet above the sea level.

"Well, there's no use trying to do anything till daylight," said
Frank, "we had better sleep as well as we can and start out to try and
find a house of some sort in the morning."

All agreed this was a good plan and soon they were wrapped in slumber.
Frank's sleep was restless and broken, however, and once or twice he
had an uneasy feeling that something or somebody was prowling about
the "camp." Once he could have sworn he saw a pair of eyes, like two
flaming points of fire, glare at him out of the blackness; but as it
was not repeated, he assured himself that it was only his nervous
imagination and composed himself to sleep once more.

A sharp thunder storm raged above them shortly before daybreak and
they were compelled to seek what shelter they could under a fallen
tree trunk. The storm was the one that had blackened the sky some
hours before. Luckily it was as short as it was sharp, and when the
sun rose it showed them a scene of glistening tropic beauty.

But the boys had little eye for scenery.

"What are we going to do for breakfast?" was Billy's manner of voicing
the general question that beset them all after they had washed off
some of the mud of the night before.

"Tighten our belts," grinned Harry.

"Not much; not while them oysters is there waiting to be picked,"
exclaimed Ben pointing to some branches which dipped in the sea and to
which bunches of the bivalves were clinging.

"I've got some biscuits in my pocket," said Frank, "I brought them on
deck with me last night in case I got hungry on watch."

"Well, we'll do fine," cheerfully said Ben, as having heated some
stones he set the oysters to broil on them.

Despite his cheerful tone, however, not one of the little party was
there that did not think with longing regrets of the snowy linen and
bountiful meals aboard the Southern Cross.

Breakfast over, Ben announced that the first thing to do was to try to
find out where they could be. It was agreed for this purpose to
advance along the beach for five miles or so in opposite directions,
the group being formed into two parties for the purpose. Harry and
Frank paired off in one party and Ben Stubbs and Billy formed the
other. They were to meet at noon or as soon thereafter as possible and
compare notes.

Frank and Harry tramped resolutely along the beach under a baking hot
sun till they felt as if they were going to drop, but they held
pluckily on, fortunately having found several springs along their line
of march.

From time to time they eagerly scanned the expanse of sparkling sea
that stretched before them; but it was as empty of life as a desert.

"Do you suppose the ship will make a search for us?" asked Frank.

"How can we tell," rejoined his brother, "they will have found out we
are gone by this time and will naturally conclude that we fell
overboard and were drowned or eaten by sharks."

Both agreed that such was probably likely to be the fact and that if
the coast on which they were cast away proved to be uninhabited their
situation might be very serious.

"On the other hand, the ship may have gone down after the collision,"
suggested Harry, "how she ever came to graze this land and then escape
I can't make out."

"I've been puzzling over that, too," replied Frank, "there's a lot
that's very mysterious about this whole thing. The Southern Cross is,
as you know, equipped with a submarine bell which should give warning
when she approaches shallow water. Why didn't it sound last night?"

"Because there must be deep water right up to this coast," was the
only explanation Harry could offer.

"That's just it," argued his brother. "But what is a coast doing here
at all. We are two hundred miles out in the South Atlantic, or rather,
we were last night."

"The charts don't show any land out there, do they?"

"Not so much as a pin point. Some of the deepest parts of the ocean
are encountered there."

"Then the ship must have been off her course."

"It seems impossible. She is in charge of experienced navigators. Her
compasses and other instruments are the most perfect of their kind."

"Maybe it is a dream after all, and we'll wake up and find ourselves
in our bunks," was all Harry could say.

Before Frank could find anything to reply to this extraordinary
suggestion he gave a sudden tense cry of:

"Hark!"

Both boys stopped and above their quick breathing they could hear the
beating of their hearts.

Human voices were coming toward them.

Luckily Frank had his revolver, having been using it the day before in
shooting at huge turtles that floated lazily by. He had by a lucky
oversight neglected to take it off when he had finished his target
practice, merely thrusting it back into its holster. He drew the
weapon now, and grasping Harry by the arm pulled him down beside him
into a clump of brush.

"We'll hide here till we see who it is coming," he said.




CHAPTER VII.

ADRIFT ON A FLOATING ISLAND.


The voices grew nearer and suddenly to his amazement Frank heard his
own name mentioned. The next moment both lads broke into a loud
exclamation of surprise.

Those approaching their place of concealment were Billy Barnes and Ben
Stubbs.

It would be difficult to say which pair of adventurers were more
astonished as they met on the beach.

"Shiver my timbers!" exclaimed Ben, "whar did you boys come from? Did
you turn back?"

"Turn back?" echoed Frank, "no, we've been keeping right on."

"Wall," drawled Ben, "then what I was afeard of at first is true."

"What's that, Ben?"

"Why, that we are on an island."

"On an island!"

"Yes, a floating island."

For a moment they were all dumb with amazement. Then Ben went on:

"I've heard old sailors tell of such things off of this yer coast.
These islands--as they are called--are nothing more or less than huge
sections of forest torn from the banks of the Amazon when it is in
flood and floated out ter sea on its current."

"But how can they keep afloat?" asked Harry.

"Why the tangled roots and tree limbs keep 'em up for a long time,"
rejoined Ben, "and then they sink."

"I hope our island isn't sinking," exclaimed Frank, anxiously looking
about him.

"Not much fear of that; but it's moving, all right," replied the old
sailor, "just fix your eyes on that cloud for a minute."

The boys did as directed, and, sure enough, the island, as they now
knew it, was moving slowly along, doubtless urged by some current of
the ocean.

"Suppose the ship never finds us," gasped Billy.

"Now, just put thoughts like that out of your head, youngster,"
exclaimed Ben sharply. "I've been in worse fixes than this and got out
of them. What we had best do now is to gather up some of those big
cocoanuts that's scattered about there and make waterholders out of
them."

"But there's plenty of water flowing from the springs. We passed
several of them," objected Harry.

"That's just the water that has soaked into the ground after the
rain," said Ben. "It will soon dry up as the day goes on."

The adventurers at once set to work gathering up cocoanuts and with
their knives scooping out their shells so as to form sort of pots out
of them. These were filled with water at the nearest of the little
springs and placed in the shade.

"Now to gather some more oysters and we'll have dinner," said Ben,
when the boys had filled what he pronounced to be a sufficient number
of the improvised pots.

The boys set to work at the task at once, stripping from the low
hanging branches the oysters that clung to them. These were roasted in
the same manner as the previous night and washed down with water and
cocoanut milk.

"Well, we shan't starve for a while, anyhow," said Ben, as they
concluded their meal. "If the worst comes to the worst I guess we can
live on cocoanuts for a while."

After some talk about their situation and the prospects of their being
rescued from it Ben announced that he was going to explore the
interior of the island and see if he could find some tree up which it
would be possible to swarm and attach a sort of signal or at any rate
obtain an extended view of the sea.

The boys, who felt tired and dispirited, said that they would remain
in the camp--if camp it could be called.

Ben had been gone perhaps half an hour, when they were aroused by a
sudden shout. At the sound they all sprang to their feet from the
restful postures they had assumed.

There was a note of terror in the cry.

"Help, boys, help!"

The sound rang through the forest and then died away, as if the
shouter had been suddenly silenced.

"It's Ben," shouted Frank.

"What can have happened?" gasped Harry.

"He is in trouble of some kind," shouted Billy Barnes.

"Come on, boys," exclaimed Frank, drawing his revolver, "get your
knives ready, we may need all the weapons we have."

They plunged into the forest in the direction from which they judged
the cries had proceeded and after a few minutes pushing through the
dense brush, which greatly hampered their progress, they heard a
tremendous noise of breaking tree limbs and a violent threshing about
as if some huge body was rushing through the woods.

"What can it be?" gasped Frank, his face pale at the sound of the
struggle.

In almost the same breath his question was answered. Pushing aside
some brush the boys saw before them a small glade or clearing.

In the midst of this stood Ben, his face transfixed with horror and
brandishing a seaman's knife.

Facing him, and seemingly about to dart forward, was the largest
serpent they had ever seen; the sunlight checkered its bright colored
folds. Its red tongue darted wickedly in and out as it faced the brave
seaman.

"Shoot, Frank. Shoot and kill it," implored Harry.

With a white, tense face the elder boy leveled his revolver. He pulled
the trigger and, before the sharp report that followed had died away,
the monstrous, snake was threshing its huge body about in agony.

But as they started to cheer the effect of the shot a cry of horror
broke from the boys. In its struggles the monster had convulsed its
folds till Frank, who was caught off his guard, was within their
reach.

In a second he was wrapped in the giant reptile's grip without having
time to utter even an outcry.

Powerless, with only their puny knives with which to give battle to
the serpent, the boys stood petrified with terror. Even Ben, to whom
his rescue and Frank's peril had been unfolded so swiftly that he was
half-dazed, seemed unable to determine what to do.

But indecision only held for a moment. Then with a cry he jumped
forward and picked up Frank's revolver, which the boy had dropped when
the serpent seized him. With a prayer on his lips the old sailor
fired.

Almost with the rapidity of a single bullet the whole contents of the
automatic's magazine poured out and every missile took effect in the
reptile's huge head. In its death agony it straightened out its folds
and Frank's senseless body dropped from them, seemingly limp and
lifeless.

The boys started to rush in, but Ben held them back with a warning
hand.

"Hold on; it may not be dead yet," he warned.

But a brief inspection proved that the great snake had succumbed to
Ben's fusillade and, this settled, they dragged Frank to a low bank,
where the extent of his injuries could be ascertained.

"No bones broken," pronounced Ben, after a careful examination. It was
not long before the boy opened his eyes and in a short time he
declared he felt as well as ever.

The serpent on being measured with Frank's pocket rule proved to be a
trifle over twenty feet long and of great girth.

"It's an anaconda," said Ben, "there are lots of 'em up along the
Amazon and they are as deadly a snake as there is. I've heard tell
they can crush a horse in their folds."

"I hope there are no more of them on the island," exclaimed Billy.

"We shall have to be careful," rejoined Ben, "there may be other
dangerous creatures here, too. This island, as I should judge, must be
all of six miles around and there's room for a lot of ugly critters in
that space."

Leaving the dead body of the snake the adventurers made their way back
to camp. The first thing that all wanted was a drink of water. They
made for the place in which the drinking fluid had been left.

As soon as his eyes fell on the row of improvised water pots Frank
gave an exclamation of dismay.

"Look here," he shouted, "there's some one on this island besides
ourselves."

"What!" was the amazed chorus.

"There must be," went on the lad, "see here, there were twenty
cocoanut shells of water when we went away, and now there are only
fifteen."

"Five gone!" exclaimed Ben in an alarmed voice, "and the spring has
already dried up."

"Hullo! What's that?" suddenly cried Billy, as something came crashing
through the branches.

The next moment one of the missing shells was rolled with great
violence into the middle of the group of adventurers. Before they had
recovered from their astonishment a strange sharp scream filled the
forest. There was a derisive note in its tones.

A strange fear filled the boys' hearts. Their faces paled.

"The island is haunted!" shouted Ben.




CHAPTER VIII.

CAUGHT IN THE FLAMES.


"Nonsense," said Frank, sharply, although he had been considerably
startled by the inexplicable occurrence himself, "you know there are
no such things as ghosts, Ben."

"And if there were they wouldn't throw cocoanut shells at us," went on
Harry.

"Wall," said Ben, stubbornly, "what else could it have been?"

"A wild man," suggested Billy; "perhaps a whole tribe of them."

This was not a pleasant suggestion. Frank had but a few cartridges
left and the others had only their knives. These would be small
protection against savages if any of the forest dwellers had really
gone adrift on the floating island. It was not a cheerful party that
sat down to another meal of oysters and fruit that evening. Moreover
the water supply of the little party was almost exhausted and without
water they faced a terrible death.

Because of the unknown dangers which, it was felt, surrounded them it
was decided to set a watch that night and keep the fire burning
through the dark hours. Harry and Ben were to share the first watch
and Frank and Billy agreed to take the second one. Nothing had
occurred when Ben, at midnight, aroused Frank and the young reporter
and told them it was time to go on duty.

The boys had been on sentry duty for perhaps an hour with nothing but
the lapping of the waves against the shore of the floating island to
break the deep stillness, when suddenly both were startled by a
strange and terrible cry that rang through the forest.

With beating hearts they leaped to their feet and strained their ears
to see if they could ascertain the origin of the uncanny cry, but they
heard nothing more.

Hardly had they resumed their places by the fire, however, before the
wild screams rang out again.

"It's some human being," cried Frank.

"They are being killed or something!" cried the affrighted Billy
Barnes.

By this time Ben Stubbs and Harry had awakened and were sitting up
with scared looks on their faces.

"Seems to come from near at hand," suggested Ben.

Suddenly the yell sounded quite close, and at the same instant it was
echoed by the boys as a dozen or more dark forms dashed out of the
dark shades of the forest and rushed toward them. Half unnerved with
alarm at this sudden and inexplicable attack, Frank fired point-blank
into the onrush, and two of the dark forms fell. Their comrades, with
the same wild shrieks that had so alarmed the boys, instantly turned
and fled, awakening the echoes of the woods with their terrifying
clamor.

"A good thing I killed those two," cried Frank; "throw some wood on
the fire, Ben, and we'll see who or what it is that I've shot."

In the bright blaze the adventurers bent over the two still forms that
lay on the ground as they had fallen.

"Why, they're great apes!" exclaimed Frank in amazement; "what
monsters!"

"Howling monkeys, that's what they call 'em," declared Ben, "I've
heard of 'em. No wonder we were scared, though. Did you ever hear such
cries?"

"I wonder why they attacked the camp?" asked Billy.

"I don't suppose it was an attack at all," said Frank, "most likely
they smelled the food and thought they'd come and help themselves to
some broiled oysters."

"I'll bet it was the monkeys that took our water and then threw the
shells at us," cried Harry.

"I guess you are right, boy," said Ben; "them monkeys are terrors for
mischief."

"I hope they don't take it into their heads to annoy us any more,"
said Harry.

"Not likely," declared Ben, "I guess the firing of the revolver and
the sight of them two mates of theirs falling dead scared them out of
two years' growth."

Ben's surmise was right. The adventurers passed the remainder of the
night in peace.

As soon as day broke over a sea unmarred by a single ripple, there was
an eager scrutiny of the horizon by all the castaways, but to their
bitter disappointment not a sign of the Southern Cross, or any other
vessel, could be descried.

"Looks like we'll have to spend some more time on 'Monkey Island',"
said Ben with a shrug.

"We can't spend much more time," said Frank, grimly.

"Why not?" demanded Ben.

"What are we to do for water?"

Things did, indeed, look black. Breakfast was eaten in comparative
silence, and after the meal was concluded, at Frank's suggestion, it
was decided to explore the island for a spring that could be tapped
for further water supply. The boys all admitted to themselves that the
chance of finding one was remote, but they determined to try and
locate one in any event. At any rate Frank felt it would keep their
minds off their troubles to have something to do.

The best part of the morning was spent in the search and although they
came across occasional driblets of water,--the remnants of springs
started by the heavy rain that marked their first night on the
island,--they found nothing that promised an available supply. At noon
they sat down in the shade of a huge palm to rest and made a meal off
the nuts that lay at its foot. The milk of these proved cool and
refreshing and was drunk out of the shell after one end of it had been
hacked off with Frank's hunting knife.

"Well, we might as well make a start back for our camp," suggested
Frank, after some moments had passed in silence.

"Camp," repeated Harry, bitterly, "that's a fine camp. Why, there's
nothing there but trees and sand and howling monkeys."

Nevertheless a start was made for the resting place of the previous
night, the party trudging along the narrow beach in Indian file. All
at once Ben, who was in the lead, stopped short.

"Look!" he exclaimed, pointing overhead.

The boys followed his finger and gave a shout of astonishment.

"Smoke!" cried Frank.

"Hurrah," cheered Harry, "it's the Southern Cross."

He waved his hat at the dark wreaths of vapor that were blowing across
the island overhead.

The smoke scudded across the sky like small fleecy clouds, but it
momentarily grew thicker and blacker.

"She's smoking up all right," laughed Billy Barnes, all his fears gone
now that rescue seemed at hand.

Ben alone of the party seemed troubled.

"I'm not so sure that that's steamer smoke," he said slowly.

"Why, what else can it be?" demanded Frank.

"I don't know,"--sniff,--"but it seems to me,"--sniff,--"that's a
whole lot of smoke for a steamer to be making, and"--sniff--"I don't
like the looks of it."

"What else could make such smoke?" demanded Harry.

For reply Ben asked what seemed a strange question.

"Did you put the fire out when we left the camp?"

In an instant they all perceived without his speaking a word, what the
sailor feared.

The island was on fire!

A few minutes later the smell of the burning trees and the crash as
they fell, while the flames leaped through the brushwood beneath them,
was clearly borne to them.

They were marooned on a floating island, and the island was in flames.

The dense smoke of the fire had by this time blotted out the sky and
all they could see above them was a thick canopy of smoke. It rose in
a huge pillar blotting out the sky and poisoning the air.

"What are we to do?" gasped Billy.

"I don't see what we can do," was Frank's reply, "our escape is cut
off. We shall burn to death."

Indeed it seemed as if the boys were doomed to death in the flames.
With incredible rapidity the fire, undoubtedly started by their
carelessness in not extinguishing their camp fire, came leaping and
roaring through the forest.

Suddenly out of the woods directly in front of them leaped a lithe
spotted form, and without glancing to right or left, the creature shot
into the sea. It swam quite a distance and then sank.

"A jaguar," exclaimed Ben; "a good thing it was too scared to attack
us."

"Yes, I haven't got a cartridge left," said Frank, gazing ruefully at
his empty revolver.

"I don't think that would do us much good if you had; we might as well
die by a jaguar's teeth and claws as by being burned to death," said
Harry.

The boys were now witnesses of a strange scene. Driven by the heat of
the fire scores of terrified animals passed them. There were small
agoutis or wild pigs, monkeys, birds of various kinds,--including huge
macaws and numerous snakes. The creatures paid not the least attention
to the boys, but, crazed with fear, made for the sea. The birds alone
soared off and doubtless the stronger winged of them reached land.

"If we only had the Golden Eagle here," sighed Frank.

"Hurrah," suddenly shouted Ben, capering about, "hurrah, I've got a
plan."

For a minute or two the boys regarded him as one might an insane
person, but as he went on to explain his plan they grasped at it as a
last resort. Two large tree trunks lay near to where they stood. They
had fallen apparently in some tropical storm, so that their bulk
rested on some smaller trees. It was as if they were on rollers.

"We will lash those together with some withes and make a raft,"
exclaimed Ben.

"How are you going to get them into the water?" asked Billy.

"By the natural rollers that are underneath them," replied the sailor;
"come, we have no time to lose if we are to escape."

Indeed they had not. The fire was now so close that they could feel
its ardent breath. Sparks were falling about them in red-hot showers
and already some of the brush in their vicinity was beginning to
smoke. Soon it would burst into flame and then they were doomed.

Feverishly they worked and soon had the two trunks lashed together
firmly with long "lianas" or creepers of tough fibre that grew in
great profusion everywhere. The work of getting the trunks into the
water was, thanks to the natural rollers, not so hard as might have
been anticipated. Ben and Frank managed the placing of the rollers,
which were carried in front of the logs as fast as its hinder end
cleared some of them. In this manner their "raft," if such it could be
called, was soon afloat.

It seemed a terribly insecure contrivance with which to risk a voyage,
but they had no choice. The whole island, except the spot in which
they had worked, was now one raging furnace, and had their situation
not been so critical, the party would have been compelled to admire
the wild magnificence of the spectacle. Great red tongues of flame
shot up through the blanket of dark smoke, dying it crimson.
Occasionally there would be a dull crash as some huge forest monarch
fell prostrate, or the dying scream of some creature overtaken by the
flames rang out.

"Quick, onto the raft," shouted Frank as the clumsy craft floated at
last.

It did not take the adventurers long to follow his directions. The
heat from the fire was now intense and they lost no time in putting
the two branches they had cut to use as paddles into action. It was
hard work but they found to their delight that their raft moved when
they dug into the water with their clumsy means of propulsion.

"Hurrah!" shouted Billy as they began to glide slowly over the waves,
"we are saved from the floating island."

"Yes, but for how long," exclaimed Frank; "we have no provisions and
no water. How long can we live without them?"

"We must hope to be picked up," said Harry.

"That is our only hope," rejoined Frank, "if we are not---"

There was no need for him to finish the sentence, even had he been
able to, for while he was still speaking a startling thing happened.

The raft was about twenty feet from the shore, but despite the
distance a dusky form that had rushed out of the wood with a wild
howl, shot through the air and landed fairly upon it.

[Illustration: "With a Wild Howl, Shot Through the Air."]

With its menacing eyes of green, like balls of angry flame, dull
yellow hide, catlike form, and twitching tail, the boys had no
difficulty in recognizing it for what it was.

A giant panther.

There was no possibility of escape. As the creature growled menacingly
the boys realized that they were practically without means of
protection against this new enemy.

As the panther, too, realized its position, it drew back on its
haunches and, lashing its tail wickedly, prepared to spring.




CHAPTER IX.

A QUEER ACCIDENT.


It was no time for words. Almost before any of them realized just what
had happened, the savage creature that had taken refuge from the
flames on their frail craft, launched its yellow body at them in a
great leap. But the brute miscalculated its spring this time.

With a howl of dismay it shot beyond its mark and fell into the sea.

"Quick, boys, get your knives ready," shouted Ben, "we've got a
fighting chance now."

Hastily the boys, though they felt skeptical as to the effectiveness
of these small weapons against such a formidable enemy, got out their
hunting knives. But they were not destined to use them.

The howl of dismay which the panther had uttered as it found itself
plunged into the water was quickly changed to a shrill scream of
terror from its huge throat. At the same instant a number of
triangular fins dashed through the water toward it.

"Sharks!" shouted Harry.

Attracted by the number of animals that had taken to the water to
escape the fire the creatures had gathered in great numbers about the
island and were devouring the fugitives right and left. Fully a dozen
of the monsters rushed at the panther which, formidable as it was on
land, was, like most of the cat tribe, at a great disadvantage in the
water.

It could make no resistance but a few feeble snaps to the avalanche of
sharks that rushed at it, and a few seconds after the onslaught the
water was crimsoned with the blood of the panther and the boys were
safe from that peril. But the sharks now offered almost as great a
danger as had the land monster.

Made furious by the taste of so much food they cruised alongside the
rickety raft gazing with their little eyes at its occupants till
shudders ran through them. The boys tried to scare them away by
flourishing the branches used as oars, but this, while it scared them
at first, soon lost its effect on the sea-tigers, who seemed
determined to keep alongside the raft, evidently hoping that sooner or
later they would get a meal.

All the afternoon the boys took turns paddling with their branches and
by this means, and impelled also by one of the ocean currents that
abound in this latitude, the smoking island gradually drew further and
further away. But the sharks still cruised alongside and now and again
one bolder than the others would turn partly on his back and nose up
against the raft, showing his cruel, saw-like teeth and monstrous
mouth as he did so.

"I don't wonder they call them sea-tigers," said Frank, "more terrible
looking monsters I never saw."

The tropic night soon closed and darkness shut down with great
rapidity. Far off the boys could see the red glare cast by the flaming
island.

"That's queer," exclaimed Frank suddenly. He had been regarding the
island intensely for some time.

"What's queer?" demanded Billy.

"Why, do you see that long wavering ray of light shooting up near the
island," he cried, pointing in that direction, "what can it be?"

The others looked and to their amazement, as soon as Ben's eyes fell
on the strange ray of white light, the old sailor began dancing a sort
of jig to the imminent danger of his tumbling in among the sharks.

"Hurray! hurray!" he shouted, "douse my topsails and keel-haul my
main-jibboom, if that ain't the best sight I've seen for a long time."

"Have you gone crazy?" asked Harry.

"Not much, my boy," shouted the old tar, "that queer light--as you
call it--yonder is a ship's searchlight. The Southern Cross like as
not."

"She must have seen the smoke from the burning island and sailed in
that direction," exclaimed Frank.

"How can we attract their attention?" cried Billy.

"Easy enough," said Ben, pulling off his shirt, "this is a good shirt,
but I'd rather have my life than a whole trunk full of shirts. Now for
some matches and we'll make a night signal."

The matches were soon produced and the old sailor set fire to the
garment. It flared up brightly and made a fine illumination, but as
the flare died out there was nothing about the movement of the
searchlight to indicate that the signal had been seen.

"We must try again," said Ben.

It was Harry's turn to sacrifice a shirt this time, and he lost no
time in ripping it off. As Frank prepared to light it, however, an
unfortunate--or even disastrous--accident occurred.

The waterproof box of matches slipped from his fingers in his
excitement, and before any of them could recover it, it was overboard.
The rush of a great body through the water at the same instant told
them that one of the watchful sharks had swallowed it.

"I wish they'd burn his insides out," cried Billy.

"Everybody search their pockets for a match," commanded Frank. A
prolonged scrutiny resulted in yielding just one match. It came from
Ben's pocket.

Frank lit it with great care. For one terrible moment, as they all
hung breathless over it, it seemed as if it was going out. It finally
caught, however, and flared up bravely.

"Now the shirt," cried Frank.

It was thrust into his hands and he waved the blazing garment above
his head till the flames streaked out in the night.

This time a cheer went up from the castaways on the raft.

Their signal had been seen.

At least so it appeared, for the searchlight, which had been sweeping
about near the island, suddenly shot its long finger of light in their
direction. As the vessel bearing it neared them a bright glow
enveloped the figures on the raft, who were alternately hugging each
other and shaking hands over the prospect of their speedy deliverance.

A few minutes later all doubt was dissolved. The approaching vessel
was the Southern Cross, and the adventurers were soon answering to
excited hails from her bridge. To lower a boat and get them on board
once more did not take long, and it was not till late that night that,
the story of their perils having been told and retold at least twenty
times, they managed to get to their old bunks.

Never had the mattresses seemed so soft or the sheets so comfortable
as they did to the tired boys. Their heads had hardly touched the
pillows before they were off in dreamland--a region in which, on that
night at least, fires, panthers and sharks raged in inextricable
confusion.

Before they retired they heard from the lips of Captain Hazzard the
puzzle their disappearance from the ship had proved. The Southern
Cross, it appeared, on the day following her collision with the
floating island, had cruised in the vicinity in the hope of finding
some trace of the castaways. Her search was kept up until hope had
been about abandoned. The sight of the glare of the blazing island
had, however, determined her commander to ascertain its cause, with
the result that while her searchlight was centered on the strange
phenomenon the boys' tiny fire signal had been seen by a lookout in
the crow's nest and the ship at once headed for the little point of
light.

For his part the commander was much interested in hearing of the
floating island. It cleared up what had been a great mystery, namely,
the nature of the obstruction they had struck, and proved interesting
from a scientific point of view. Captain Hazzard told the boys that
these great tracts of land were, as Ben had said, not uncommon off the
mouth of the Amazon, but that it was rarely one ever got so far out to
sea.

Two weeks later, after an uneventful voyage through tropic waters,
during which the boys had had the interesting experience of crossing
the equator, and had been initiated by being ducked in a huge canvas
pool full of salt water placed on the fore deck, the Southern Cross
steamed into the harbor of Monte Video, where she was to meet her
consort, the Brutus, which vessel was to tow her down into the polar
regions.

A few interesting days were spent in Monte Video and the boys sent
many letters home and Captain Hazzard forwarded his log books and data
as obtained up to date. Professor Sandburr spent his time among the
natives collecting memoranda about their habits while the boys roamed
at their leisure about the city. They saw a bull fight, a spectacle
that speedily disgusted them, and witnessed the driving into the
stock-yards of a huge herd of cattle rounded up by wild and
savage-looking gauchos on wiry ponies.

One day, while they were walking through a back street leading to some
handsome buildings, they heard terrible cries coming from a small hut
in unmistakably American tones.

"Come on, let's see what is the matter?" shouted Frank.

Followed by Billy and Harry, the lad ran toward the mud hut from which
the cries had issued. As they neared it a terrible-looking figure
dashed out. Its white duck suit was streaming with red and the same
color was daubed all over its face and head.

"Oh, boys, save me!" it cried as it ran towards the three lads.

"Why, it's Professor Sandburr!" exclaimed Harry, gazing at the
crimson-daubed figure; "whatever is the matter?"

"Oh-oh-oh-oh," howled the professor, dancing about, "it's a woman in
that hut. She threw some stinging stuff all over me."

"Why, it's chile con-carne!" exclaimed Frank, examining the red stuff
that daubed the unfortunate professor from head to foot; "good
gracious, what a scare you gave us; we thought you had been attacked
with knives and terribly cut."

There was a trough of water near by and to it the boys conducted the
professor, who was half-blinded by the stinging Spanish dish, which is
a sort of pepper stew. It took a long time to clean him, during which
quite a crowd gathered and laughed and jeered, but at last they had
the luckless scientist looking more presentable.

"Now tell us what happened?" asked Frank, as they started back toward
the city in a hired "volante," or native carriage, that had been
passing, by good luck, as they finished their cleaning process.

"Well, my dear boys, it's an outrage. I will see the mayor or the
president about it, or whoever is in charge of those things in this
land. I saw a fine looking specimen of a hopping sand-toad going into
that house and I dashed in after it with my net extended. As soon as I
rushed in I upset a sort of baby carriage that stood by the door. Two
children, who were in it, started howling in a terrible manner. I know
a little Spanish and I tried to explain, but before I could do so the
mother threw a whole pot of that hot stuff over me and called me a
kidnapper, a robber, a thief. Upon my word I think I may be considered
lucky that she didn't shoot me."

"I think you may, indeed," agreed the boys, who could hardly keep from
laughing at the comical sight the professor presented with his head
cocked on one side and all daubed with the traces of his "hot bath."

Early the next day the Brutus passed a steel hawser to the Southern
Cross and the two vessels proceeded out of the harbor of Monte Video.

"Well, we're really off for the pole at last," exclaimed Frank, as the
shores grew dim behind them and the long ocean swell made itself felt.

"Yes," rejoined the professor, who was busy getting specimens of
jelly-fish in a bucket he lowered overboard by a line. "I wonder what
sort of creatures I can catch in the ice there. I don't care so much
about the pole, but I do want to get a 'Pollywoginisius Polaris.'"

"Whatever is that?" asked Frank.

"It's a sort of large pollywog with fur on it like seal," replied the
professor gravely.

"A sort of fur overcoat," suggested Billy, nudging Frank
mischievously.

"Exactly," said the professor gravely; "if you see one will you catch
it for me?"

"I certainly will," replied Billy gravely.

For several days the Brutus and the vessel she was towing kept on down
the coast. At last one morning the captain announced that they were
off the coast of Patagonia, where the famous giant tribes of
aborigines and a kind of ostrich are to be found. The professor was
greatly excited at this and begged to have the ships stopped and be
allowed to go ashore.

"I am afraid that will be impossible," rejoined Captain Hazzard; "we
must get into the Polar regions before the winter sets in, and if we
delay we shall not be able to do so. No, we must keep on, I am
afraid."

The Brutus was making good speed at the moment, and her tow was
cutting obediently through the water after her. Sail had been set on
all the masts, as there was a favoring breeze. Suddenly there came a
jarring shock that threw everybody from their feet. The tow-line
parted under the strain with a report like that of a gun.

"We have struck something," shouted the captain.

"A sunken wreck, probably," said the professor, who did not seem at
all disturbed.

"Is there any danger?" asked Billy with rather a white face.

"We cannot tell yet till the ship has been examined," replied the
captain. He gave orders to sound the well and sent some men forward to
examine the vessel's bow.

Soon the ship's carpenter and Ben Stubbs came hurrying aft with scared
faces.

"What is it?" demanded the captain, "are we seriously damaged?"

"We have sprung a leak forward and the water is pouring in," was the
alarming reply.




CHAPTER X.

THE PROFESSOR IS KIDNAPPED.


The faces of all grew grave. A leak at sea is a serious menace. The
point at which the water was entering the Southern Cross was soon
found to be through a sprained plank a little below the water line.
Captain Hazzard ordered canvas weighted and dropped overboard around
the leak so that the pressure of water would hold it there. The
carpenter's gang then set to work to calk the hole temporarily.

In the meantime the Brutus had put back, blowing her whistle
inquiringly.

"Send them a wireless message telling them what has happened," the
commander ordered Frank, who hastened to obey.

The captain of the Brutus ordered out his boat as soon as Frank's
message had been conveyed to him and came aboard the Southern Cross.
He agreed, after a consultation with Captain Hazzard, that it would be
necessary to put in somewhere to refit.

"We are now off the mouth of the Santa Cruz river in Patagonia," said
Captain Barrington, "it is a good place to lie to. I was there once on
a passenger steamer that met with an accident. We can shift the cargo
to the stern till we have raised the bow of the Southern Cross, and
then we can patch up her prow easily," he said.

All agreed that this was a good plan. There was only one objection,
and that was the so-called giants of Patagonia, who are hostile to all
strangers. In view of the large force of men on board the two ships,
however, and the numerous weapons carried, it was agreed that there
was not much to be feared from the Patagonians.

The broken steel hawser was at once detached and a new one put in
place and the two vessels headed for the shore, about one hundred and
fifty miles distant. They arrived off the mouth of the Santa Cruz
river the next day and the boys, who had been up before dawn in their
anxiety to get their first glimpse of "The Land of the Giants," were
rather disappointed to see stretched before them a dreary looking
coast with a few bare hills rising a short distance inland. There were
no trees or grass ashore, but a sort of dull-colored bush grew
abundantly.

"I thought the giants lived in dense forests," said Billy,
disgustedly; "this place is a desert."

"It was a fortunate accident though that brought us to this shore,"
said a voice behind them and Professor Sandburr's bony, spectacled
face was thrust forward. "I would not have missed it for a great deal.
I would like to capture a specimen of a Patagonian alive and take him
home in a cage. The Patagonian dog-flea, too, I understand, is very
curious."

The boys all laughed at this, but the professor was perfectly serious.
There is no doubt that he would have liked to have done so and caged
up a Patagonian where he could have studied him at his leisure.

The Brutus, with leadsmen stationed in her bows to test the depth of
the water, proceeded cautiously up the river and finally came to
anchor with her tow behind her about two miles from its mouth. The
work of shifting some of the cargo of the Southern Cross to the stern
so as to elevate her bow, was begun at once; as time was an important
consideration. Soon all was declared ready for the carpenters to start
work and they were lowered on stages over the side and at once began
to rectify the trouble. Some of them worked from a boat secured to the
bow.

"Do you think you can persuade the captain to let us go ashore with
you?" asked Frank of the professor, who was busy at once getting out
all his paraphernalia in anticipation of going on what Billy called "a
bug hunt."

"Certainly," declared the scientist confidently, "come along. I should
like above all things to have you boys go ashore with me. Besides, I
may teach you all to become faunal naturalists."

The delighted boys followed the old man to Captain Hazzard's cabin,
but, to their disappointment, he forbade the expedition peremptorily.

"The Patagonians are dangerous savages," he said, "and I will not
assume the responsibility of allowing you to risk your lives."

Nor did any persuasion of which the boys or the professor could make
have any effect in causing the commander to change his mind. He was
firm as adamant and reluctantly the boys made their way forward and
watched the carpenters fix the leak, and when that palled they were
compelled to fall back on fishing for an amusement.

The professor joined ardently in this sport despite his disappointment
at not being allowed to go ashore. He managed to fix up a net attached
to an iron ring with which he scooped up all kinds of queer fish out
of the river, many of which were so ugly as to be repulsive to the
boys. But the professor seemed to be delighted with them all.

"Ah, there, my beautiful 'Piscatorius Animata Catfisio,'" he would
say, as he seized a struggling sea monster with a firm grip and
plunged it into one of his tin tanks. "I'll dissect you to-night. You
are the finest specimen of your kind I have ever seen."

The boys were suddenly interrupted in their fishing by blood-curdling
yells from the old scientist. Looking up in alarm they saw him dancing
about on the deck holding his arm as if in great pain, while in front
of him on the deck a queer-looking, flat fish with a long barbed tail
flopped about, its great goggle eyes projecting hideously.

Frank ran forward to pick up the creature and throw it overboard, but
as he grasped it he experienced a shock that knocked him head over
heels. As he fell backward he collided with the professor and the two
sprawled on the deck with the professor howling louder than ever.

"No wonder they're hurt," shouted Ben Stubbs, coming up with a long
boat-hook, "that's an electric ray."

"An electric what?" asked Billy.

"An electric ray. They carry enough electricity in them to run a small
lamp, and when they wish they can give you a powerful shock. They kill
their prey that way."

"Ouch--," exclaimed the professor, who had by this time got up, "the
ray nearly killed me. Let me look at the brute so that I'll know one
of them again."

"Why don't you put him in your collection?" asked Frank with a smile,
although his arm still hurt him where the electric ray had shocked it.

"I want no such fish as that round me, sir," said the professor
indignantly, and ordered Ben to throw the creature overboard with his
boat-hook.

After supper that night the boys hung about the decks till bedtime.
The hours passed slowly and they amused themselves by watching the
moonlit shores and speculating on the whereabouts of the Patagonians.

Suddenly Billy seized Frank's arm.

"Look," he exclaimed, pointing to a low ridge that stood out blackly
in the moonlight.

Behind the low eminence Frank could distinctly see a head cautiously
moving about, seemingly reconnoitering the two ships. In a few seconds
it vanished as the apparent spy retreated behind the ridge.

"That must have been a Patagonian," said Frank.

"Just think, they are so near to us and we cannot go ashore," sighed
the professor, who was one of the group. "I wonder if they have any
dogs with them?"

"I have a good mind to go, anyway," said the old man, suddenly, "I
would like to write a paper on the habits of the Patagonians and how
can I if I don't study them at first hand?"

"What if they chopped your head off?" asked Billy.

"They would not do that," rejoined the scientist, with a superior
smile. "I have a friend who lived with them for a time and then wrote
a book about them. According to him Captain Hazzard is wrong; they are
not hostile, but, on the contrary, are friendly to white men."

"Then you think that Captain Hazzard doesn't know much about them?"
asked Billy.

"I did not say that," replied the professor; "but he may be mistaken
just like I was about the electric ray, which I thought was a South
Atlantic skate. Just the same, I mean to find out for myself," he went
on. "To-night when everyone is asleep but the man on duty, I am going
to watch my opportunity and go ashore in the boat the carpenters left
at the bow this afternoon. There are ropes hanging from the prow down
which I can climb."

Soon after this the boys determined to turn in and, naturally, the
professor's decision occupied a great deal of their conversation.

"Do you think we ought to tell the captain about what Professor
Sandburr means to do?" asked Frank of the others.

"I don't think so," said Billy. "He is much older than we are and
doubtless he knows what he is about. At the same time, though, I think
we should watch and if he gets into trouble should try and help him
out of it."

"Very well, then we will all be out on deck at midnight," said Frank,
"and if we find that the professor is really serious in his intention
to go ashore in the boat we will try and stop him. If he still
persists we shall have to tell the captain."

The others agreed that the course that Frank recommended was the best
one, and they all decided to adopt his plan.

But the boys were heavy sleepers and besides were tired out when they
sought their bunks, so that when Frank, who was the first to wake,
opened his eyes it was past one in the morning. With a start the boy
jumped out of bed and hastily called the others.

"We may not be too late yet," he said, as he hastily slipped into
trousers, shirt and slippers.

But the boys WERE too late. When they reached the bow they could see
by peering over that the boat had gone and that the professor had
penetrated alone into the country of the Patagonians.

Suddenly there came a shot from the shore and a loud cry of:

"Help!"

"It's the professor!" exclaimed Frank; "he's in serious trouble this
time."




CHAPTER XI.

A BATTLE IN THE AIR.


To raise an alarm throughout the ship was the work of a few minutes
and the watchman, whose carelessness had allowed the professor to slip
away unnoticed, aroused the indignation of Captain Hazzard, who blamed
him bitterly for his oversight. Several shots followed the one the
boys had heard and more cries, but they grew rapidly fainter and at
the same time the sound of horses galloping away in the distance was
heard.

"They have carried him off," cried Captain Hazzard.

"Can we not chase them and rescue him?" asked Billy, "we've got plenty
of men and arms."

"That would be of little use to us," was the reply, "the Patagonians
are mounted and by this time they have got such a start on us that we
could never hope to catch up to them on foot."

"Not on foot," put in Frank quietly, "but there is another way."

"What do you mean, boy?"

"That we can assemble the Golden Eagle in a couple of hours if you
will give us the men to help."

Captain Hazzard thought a minute.

"It seems to be the only chance," he said at last, "but I don't know
that I ought to let you assume such responsibility."

"We will be in no greater danger than the professor is; much less, in
fact," urged Frank. "Please let us go. If we can save his life it is
worth running the risk."

"Perhaps you are right, my boy," said Captain Hazzard at length, "at
any rate, promise me to run no unnecessary danger."

The promise was readily given and with a cheer the men set to work to
hoist the cases containing the sections of the aeroplane over the side
and row them ashore. The work was carried on under the glare of the
searchlights of the two ships. In two hours' time the Golden Eagle was
ready for an engine test which showed her machinery to be in perfectly
good trim.

"She is fit for the flight of her life," declared Frank, as he stopped
the engine.

"Is everything ready?" asked Captain Hazzard.

"Yes," was the reply, "except for two canteens of water, some
condensed soup tablets and two tins of biscuit."

"You have your weapons?"

"I have sent to the ship for two 'Express' rifles, each carrying a
heavy charge and explosive bullets. In addition we have our revolvers
and some dynamite bombs--the ones that were designed to be used in
blasting polar ice," said Frank.

"One moment," said Captain Hazzard. He turned and hailed the ship:
"Bring over six of the naval rockets from the armory!" he ordered.

"If you should need help," he said, in explanation of his order, "send
up a rocket. They are made so that they are visible by day as well as
night. In the daylight their explosion produces a dense cloud of black
smoke visible at several miles. They also make a terrific report that
is audible for a long distance."

The same boat that brought the boys' weapons carried the rockets and
their provisions and at about four a. m. they were ready for their
dash through the air. At the last minute it was decided to take Billy
Barnes along as he knew something about handling an aeroplane and in a
pinch could make himself useful.

"Good-bye and good luck," said Captain Hazzard fervently as the engine
was once more started, with a roar like the discharge of a battery of
gatling guns. From the exhausts blue flames shot out and the air was
filled with the pungent odor of exploding gasolene.

With a wave of the hand and amid a cheer that seemed to rend the sky
the Golden Eagle shot forward as Frank set the starting lever and
rushed along over the level plane like a thing of life. After a short
run she rose skyward in a long level sweep, just as the daylight began
to show in a faint glow in the east.

It rapidly grew lighter as the boys rose and as they attained a height
of 1,500 feet and flew forward at sixty miles an hour above the vast
level tract of gravelly desert, by looking backward they could see the
forms of the two ships, like tiny toys, far behind and below them. On
and on they flew, without seeing a trace of the professor or the band
that had undoubtedly made him prisoner.

"We must have overshot the mark," said Frank, as he set a lever so as
to swing the aeroplane round. "We shall have to fly in circles till we
can locate the spot where the Patagonians have taken him."

They flew in this manner for some time, sometimes above rugged broken
land with great sun-baked clefts in it, and sometimes above level
plains overgrown with the same dull colored brush they had noticed
fringing the coast.

Suddenly Billy called attention to a strange thing. All about them
were circling the forms of huge birds. Some of them measured fully ten
feet from wing tip to wing tip. They had bald, evil-looking heads and
huge, hooked beaks.

"They are South American condors, the largest birds in existence,"
cried Harry, as the monstrous fowls, of which fully a hundred were now
circling about the invaders of their realm, seemed to grow bolder and
closed in about the aeroplane.

"They mean to attack us," cried Frank, suddenly.

[Illustration: "They Mean to Attack Us."]

As he spoke one immense condor drove full at him, its evil head
outstretched as if it meant to tear him with its hooked beak. The boy
struck at it with one arm while he controlled the aeroplane with the
other and the monstrous bird seemed nonplussed for a moment. With a
scream of rage it rejoined its mates and they continued to circle
about the aeroplane, every minute growing, it seemed, more numerous
and bold.

"We shall have to fire at them," cried Frank at last. "If they keep on
increasing in numbers they may attack us all at once and wreck our
airship."

Hastily Harry and Billy unslung their heavy "Express" rifles and began
firing. Ordinarily it is no easy task to hit a bird on the wing with a
rifle, but so large a target did the huge bodies present that four
fell at the first volley. As they dropped some of their cannibal
companions fell on them and tore them to ribbons in midair. It was a
horrible sight, but the boys had little time to observe it. Their
attention was now fully occupied with beating off the infuriated mates
of the dead birds, who beat the air about the aeroplane with their
huge wings until the air-storm created threatened to overbalance it.

Again and again the boys fired, but failed to hit any more of the
birds, although feathers flew from some of the great bodies as the
bullets whizzed past them.

All at once the condors seemed to come to a decision unanimously.
Uttering their harsh, screaming cries they rushed at the aeroplane,
tearing and snapping with beak and claws. The machine yawed under
their attack till it seemed it must turn over. Still, so far, Frank
managed to keep it on an even keel.

"Bang! bang!" cracked the rifles again and again, but the loud angry
cries of the birds almost drowned the sharp sound of the artillery.

It was a battle in the clouds between a man-made bird and nature's
fliers.

Suddenly Frank gave a shout.

"The dynamite bombs!"

Swiftly and cautiously Harry got one of the deadly explosives ready.
They were provided with a cap that set them off when they encountered
any solid substance, as, for instance, when they struck the earth, but
a small, mechanical contrivance enabled them to be adjusted also so
that they could be exploded in midair.

"Isn't there danger of upsetting the aeroplane?" gasped Billy, as he
saw the preparations.

"We'll have to chance that," was Harry's brisk response, "the birds
are too much for us."

As he spoke he leaned out from the chassis and hurled the bomb high in
the air. As he cast it out there was a slight click as the automatic
exploder set itself.

"Hold tight," shouted Frank, setting the sinking planes.

The aeroplane rushed downward like a stone. Suddenly a terrific roar
filled the air and the boys felt as if their ear drums would be
fractured. The aeroplane swayed dizzily and Frank worked desperately
at his levers and adjusters.

For one terrible moment it seemed that the Golden Eagle was doomed to
destruction, but the brave craft righted herself and soared on.

The bomb had done its work.

Of the huge flock of condors that had attacked the Golden Eagle only a
bare dozen or so remained. The rest had been killed or wounded by the
bomb. The survivors were far too terrified to think of pursuing the
boys and their craft further.

"Thank goodness we have escaped that peril," exclaimed Harry, as they
sailed onward through the air; "who would ever have thought that such
birds would have attacked an aeroplane."

"They frequently, so naturalists say, carry off babies and small
animals to their rocky nests," was Frank's response, "and birds as
bold as that I suppose resented the appearance of what seemed another
and larger bird in their realm."

For an hour more the aeroplane soared and wheeled above the baking hot
plains intersected by their deep gullies, but without result. The boys
with sinking hearts were beginning to conclude that the professor had
been carried off and hidden beyond hope of recovery, when Harry, who
had been peering ahead through the glasses, indicated a distant spot
behind a ridge with much excitement.

"I can see a horse tethered there," he cried.

The aeroplane was at once shot off in that direction and soon all
doubt that they were in the vicinity of a band of Patagonians
vanished. As the air craft rushed forward several tethered horses
became visible and a column of smoke was seen rising from a deep gully
behind the ridge. No doubt the Patagonians thought themselves well
hid.

So secure did they feel, seemingly, that not even a sentry was
visible.

"Do you think they are the same band that kidnapped the professor?"
asked Billy.

"There's not much doubt of it," said Frank.

"At any rate we shall soon see," concluded Harry, as the aeroplane
shot directly above the encampment of the giant Patagonians. Gazing
downward the boys could see one of the savages, a huge figure more
than six feet tall, in a feather mantle and armed with a formidable
looking spear, pacing up and down, as if he were a chief of some kind.
This belief was confirmed when one of the other tribesmen approached
the man in the long cloak and addressed something to him with a low
obeisance. Frank had by this time put the muffler in operation and
throttled down the engine so that the aeroplane swung in lazy circles
above the Patagonians, entirely unnoticed by them.

While they gazed the boys saw a figure led from a rude tent by several
of the Patagonians, of whom there seemed to be two or three hundred in
the camp. Instantly a loud yelling went up and several of the natives
began a sort of dance, shaking their spears menacingly and wrapping
their feather cloaks tightly about their tall figures.

"It's the professor!" shouted Frank, indicating the captive who had
been taken from the tent.

"They are going to burn him alive!" shouted Harry in a voice of horror
the next moment, pointing to the fire.

Indeed, it seemed so. The Patagonians began piling fresh bundles of
wood on their fire, the smoke of which the boys had seen from far off.
Their savage yells and cries filled the air.




CHAPTER XII.

ADRIFT!


Six of the huge warriors picked up the unfortunate professor, who was
bound hand and foot, and were preparing to carry him toward the fire
when there came a startling interruption to their plans.

With a roar as if the desolate mountains about them were toppling
about their ears one of the dynamite bombs carried by the boys was
dropped and exploded a short distance from the camp. A huge hole was
torn in the earth and a great cloud of dust arose.

Shrieks and cries filled the air and, although none of them was hurt,
the Patagonians rushed about like ants when some one has stirred up
their nests. Suddenly one of them happened to look upwards and gave a
wild yell.

Instantly the tribesmen, without waiting to pick up any of their
possessions, fled for their horses and mounting them rode out of sight
without daring to look round. To accelerate their progress the boys
sent another dynamite bomb and two rockets after them, and then
descended to pick up the professor who, bound as he was, had been left
on the ground and was quite as much in the dark as to what he owed his
escape to as the Indians were.

"Oh, boys!" he exclaimed, as the machine glided to earth and the boys
stepped out, "you were just in time. I really believe they meant to
make soup out of me. They were worse than the electric ray, a great
deal. Oh, dear, I wish I had obeyed Captain Hazzard, but I wanted to
get a specimen of a Patagonian dog-flea. They are very rare."

"Did you get one?" asked Frank, laughing in spite of himself at the
woe-begone figure of the professor, who, his bonds having been cut,
now stood upright with his spectacles perched crookedly on his nose.

"I did not," moaned the man of science, who seemed more grieved over
his failure to collect the rare specimen than he did over his own
narrow escape, "there is every other kind of flea around here, though,
I found that out while I was in the tent."

"Come, we had better be going," said Frank at length, after they had
explored the camp and picked up some fine feather robes and curious
weapons which the Patagonians had left behind them in their hurry to
escape.

"The Patagonians might take it into their heads to come back and
attack us and then we should be in a serious fix."

All agreed that it was wise not to linger too long in the camp and so
a few minutes later the Golden Eagle was sent into the air again, this
time with an added passenger.

"Dear me, this is very remarkable," said the professor, "quite like
flying. I feel like a bird," and he flapped his long arms till the
boys had to laugh once more at the comical man of learning.

As they flew along the professor explained to them that after he had
taken the boat he had heard a dog barking ashore, and being confident
that the Patagonians were friendly people and that it was a Patagonian
dog he heard, he determined to do some exploring in search of the
Patagonian dog-flea. He had only crawled a few steps from the river
bank, however, when he felt himself seized and carried swiftly away.
It was then that he had fired the shot the boys heard. Later he had
managed to break loose and then had discharged his revolver some more,
without hitting anybody, however.

The Patagonians had then bound him and tied him to the back of a horse
and rapidly borne him into the interior. They might not have meant any
harm to him at first, he thought, but when they found him examining a
dog with great care they were convinced the simple-minded old man was
a witch doctor and at once sentenced him to be burned to death.

"How about your friend that said that the Patagonians were a friendly
race?" asked Billy, as the professor concluded his narrative.

"I shall write a book exposing his book," said the professor, with
great dignity.

Nothing more occurred till, as they drew near the ships, Frank waved
his handkerchief and the others fired their revolvers in token of the
fact that they had been successful in their quest. In reply to these
joyous signals the rapid-fire gun of the Southern Cross was fired and
the air was so full of noise that any Patagonians within twenty miles
must have fled in terror.

The professor, looking very shamefaced, was summoned to Captain
Hazzard's cabin soon after he had arrived on board and put on clean
garments. What was said to him nobody ever knew, but he looked
downcast as one of his own bottled specimens when he left the cabin.
By sundown, however, he had quite recovered his spirits and had to be
rescued from the claws of a big lobster he had caught and which
grabbed him by the toe as soon as he landed it on deck.

In the meantime the aeroplane was "taken down" and packed up once more
while the boys came in for warm congratulations on the successful
outcome of their aerial dash to the rescue. Captain Hazzard himself
sent for them and complimented them highly on their skill and courage.

"I shall mention your achievement in the despatches I shall send north
by the Brutus," he said in conclusion to the happy boys.

The damage to her bow being repaired, there was nothing more to keep
the Southern Cross and her escort in the dreary river, and with no
regrets at leaving such a barren, inhospitable country behind them,
the pole-seekers weighed anchor early the next day.

Ever southward they forged till the weather began to grow chilly and
warm garments were served out to the men from the storerooms of the
Southern Cross. To the boys the cold was welcome, as it meant that
they were approaching the goal of their journey.

Captain Barrington doubled watches day and night now, for at any
moment they might expect an encounter with a huge iceberg. In the
antarctic these great ice mountains attain such bulk that they could
crush the most powerful ship like an eggshell. It behooves all
mariners venturing into those regions, therefore, to keep a most
careful lookout for them.

One day soon after dinner, while the boys were on the fore peak
chatting with Ben Stubbs, the old bos'n suddenly elevated his nose,
drew in a long breath and announced:

"I smell ice."

Recollecting that Ben had said that he "smelled land" on another
memorable occasion, the boys checked their disposition to laugh,
although the professor, who was trying to dissect a strange little
fish he had caught the day before, ridiculed the idea.

"Ice being a substance consisting of frozen water and without odor,
what you say is a contradiction in terms," he pronounced with much
solemnity.

"All right, professor," said Ben, with a wink at the boys, "maybe ice
ain't as easy to tell as an electric ray, but just the same I'm an old
whaling man and I can smell ice as far as you can smell beefsteak
frying."

This was touching on the scientist's weak spot, for like many men of
eminence, he was nevertheless fond of a good dinner and his alacrity
in answering meal calls had become a joke on board.

"You are arguing 'ad hominum,' my dear sir," spoke the professor with
dignity. "Ice and beefsteak have no affinity for one another, nor do
they partake of the same qualities or analyses."

Whatever Ben might have said to this crushing rejoinder was lost
forever, for at this moment there was a great disturbance in the water
a short distance from the ship. The boys saw a whale's huge dark form
leap from the waves not forty feet from the bow and settle back with a
crash that sent the water flying up in the air like a fountain.

"Whale ho!" shouted Ben, greatly excited. "Hullo," he exclaimed the
next instant, "now you'll see some fighting worth seeing."

As he spoke, a form dimly seen, so near to the surface was it, rushed
through the water and crashed headlong into the whale.

"What is it, another whale?" asked Billy.

"No, it's a monster sword-fish," cried Ben, "and they are going to
fight."

The water grew crimson as the sword-fish plunged his cruel weapon into
the great whale's side, but the monster itself, maddened by its wound,
the next instant charged the sword-fish. Its great jaws opened wide as
it rushed at its smaller enemy, for which however, it was no
match,--for the sword-fish doubled and swam rapidly away. The next
instant it dived, and coming up rammed the whale with its sword once
more. With a mighty leap the sea monster mounted clear of the water
once more, the blood spouting from its wounds.

But its strength was gone and it crashed heavily downward while it was
in mid-spring. A warning shout from Ben called the attention of
everybody who had been watching the fight to a more imminent danger to
the ship. The giant cetacean in falling to its death had struck the
towing cable and snapped it under its huge bulk as if the stout hawser
had been a pack thread.

"We are adrift," shouted Captain Barrington, rushing forward with
Captain Hazzard by his side.

Another cry of alarm mingled with his as he uttered it.

"The iceberg!" cried Ben.

The old sailor pointed ahead and there, like a huge ghost drifting
toward them, was a mighty structure of ice--the first berg the boys
had ever seen. With its slow advance came another peril. The air grew
deathly cold and a mist began to rise from the chilled sea.

"Signal the Brutus!" shouted Captain Barrington, but the fires had
been extinguished on the Southern Cross when she was taken in tow, and
she had nothing to signal with but her rapid firing gun. This was
fired again and again and soon through the mist there came back the
low moan of the siren of the Brutus.

"They won't dare to put back after us in this," exclaimed Captain
Barrington, as he stood on the bridge with the boys beside him, "we
shall have to drift helplessly here till the iceberg passes or--"

"Until we are crushed," put in Captain Hazzard quietly, "wouldn't it
be as well to have the boats made ready for lowering," he went on.

"A good idea," agreed Captain Barrington. Ben Stubbs was summoned aft
and told to give the necessary orders, and soon the men were at work
clearing the life-boats in case things should come to the worst.

The mist grew momentarily denser and the cold more intense, yet so
critical was the situation that nobody thought of leaving the decks to
don warmer clothing. The fog, caused by the immense berg chilling the
warmer ocean currents, was now so thick that of the mighty berg itself
they could perceive nothing. The knowledge that the peril was
invisible did not make the minds of those on board the drifting vessel
any the easier.

"If only we had steam we could get out of the berg's path," said
Captain Barrington, stamping his foot.

"Couldn't we hoist sail," suggested Frank.

"There is no wind. I wish there were," replied the captain, "then it
would blow this mist away and we could at least see where we are
driving to."

In breathless silence and surrounded by the dense curtain of freezing
mist the polar ship drifted helplessly on, those on board realizing
that at any moment there might come the crash and disaster that would
follow a collision with the monster berg.

Suddenly there came a shock that almost threw those on the bridge off
their feet.

Hoarse cries and shouts sounded through the mist from the bow of the
ship, which was no longer visible in the dense smother.

Above all the confused noises one rang out clear and terrible.

"The berg has struck us. We are sinking!" was the terrible cry.




CHAPTER XIII.

THE SHIP OF OLAF THE VIKING.


"Stop all that confusion," roared Captain Barrington through his
megaphone, which he had snatched from its place on the bridge.

Silence instantly followed, only to be succeeded by a tearing and
rending sound.

The rigging of the foremast had caught in a projecting ridge of the
berg and was being torn out. The ship trembled and shook as if a giant
hand was crushing her, but so far her heavy timbers seemed to have
stood the shock. Presently the noises ceased and the air began to grow
less chilly.

"I believe we are free of the berg!" shouted Captain Hazzard.

The rapid clearing away of the dense fog that had hung like a pall
about the seemingly doomed ship confirmed this belief. By great good
fortune the Southern Cross had been spared the fate of many ships that
venture into the polar seas, and the boys gazing backward from the
bridge could see the mighty berg, looking as huge as a cathedral,
slowly increasing its distance from them, as it was borne along on the
current.

"Hurrah, we are safe!" cried Harry.

"Don't be too sure," warned Captain Barrington. "I hope we are, but
the vessel will have to be examined before we can be certain. In any
event our foremast and bowsprit are sad wrecks."

The portions of the ship he referred to were, indeed, badly damaged.
The shrouds supporting the foremast had been ripped out by the berg on
the port or left hand side of the vessel, and her jibboom had been
snapped off short where the berg struck her. Two boats had, besides,
been broken and the paint scraped off the polar ship's sides.

"We look like a wreck," exclaimed Billy.

"We may think ourselves lucky we got off so easily," said Captain
Barrington, "we have just gone through the deadliest peril an
antarctic ship can undergo."

The Brutus now came gliding up, and after congratulations had been
exchanged between the two ships, a new hawser was rigged and the
Southern Cross was once more taken in tow.

"I don't want any more encounters with icebergs," said Billy, as the
ship proceeded toward her goal once more.

"Nor I," spoke the others.

"It's a pity this isn't at the north pole," said the professor, who
was varnishing dried fish in the cabin, where this conversation took
place.

"Why?" asked Frank.

"Because, if it had been, there might have been a polar bear on that
iceberg. I have read that sometimes they drift away on bergs that
become detached and are sighted by steamers quite far south."

"Why,--do you want a polar bear skin," asked Billy, "you can buy lots
of them in New York."

"Oh, I don't care about the polar bear," said the professor quickly,
"but the creatures have a kind of flea on them that is very rare."

At the idea of hunting such great animals as polar bears for such
insignificant things as fleas, the boys all had to laugh. The
professor, who was very good-natured, was not at all offended.

"Small animals are sometimes quite as interesting as large ones," was
all he said.

The next day the rigging and bowsprit were refitted and further and
further south steamed the Brutus with the polar ship in tow. The fires
of the Southern Cross had now been started and her acetylene gas plant
started going as the heat and light were needed. Icebergs were now
frequently met with and the boys often remained on deck at night,
snugly wrapped in furs, to watch the great masses of ice drift by.

Although they were as dangerous as ever, now that the ships were in
cooler water the bergs did not create a fog as they did in the warmer
region further north. By keeping a sharp lookout during the day and
using the searchlights at night, Captain Barrington felt fairly
confident of avoiding another encounter with an ice mountain. The
damage the ship had sustained in her narrow escape from annihilation
had proved quite difficult to repair, though before the vessel reached
the sixtieth parallel it had been adjusted.

"Well, boys," announced Captain Hazzard one day at noon, "we are now
not more than three hundred miles from the Great Barrier."

"Beyond which lies the polar mystery," exclaimed Frank.

Captain Hazzard glanced at him quickly.

"Yes, the polar mystery," he repeated, "perhaps now is as good a time
as any for telling you boys the secret of this voyage. Come to my
cabin and I will tell you one of the objects of our expedition, which
hitherto has been kept a secret from all but the officers."

The excitement of the boys may be imagined as they followed the
captain to his cabin and seated themselves on a seat arranged above
the radiator.

"It's the ship of Olaf," whispered Billy to Harry.

"Of course," began Captain Hazzard, "the main object of this
expedition is to plant the flag of the United States at 'furthest
south,' even if not at the pole itself."

"And to capture a South Polar flea and a fur-bearing pollywog," put in
the professor, who had included himself in the invitation to the boys.

"Exactly," smiled the captain, "but there is still another object
scarcely of less importance than the ones that I and the professor,"
he added with a smile, "have enumerated."

"You boys have all heard of the daring rovers who set out centuries
ago in their ships to explore unknown oceans?"

The boys nodded.

"You mean the Vikings?" asked Frank.

"Yes," replied the captain. "Well, some time ago a member of one of
our great scientific bodies, while traveling in Sweden, discovered in
a remote village an odd legend concerning some sailors who claimed to
have seen an old Viking ship frozen in the ice near the Great Barrier.
They were poor and superstitious whalemen and did not dare to disturb
it, but they brought home the story."

"And you think the ship is still there," broke in Harry.

"If they really saw such a thing there is every reason to suppose that
it is," rejoined the lieutenant. "In the ice anything might be
preserved almost indefinitely. Providing the yarn of the whalemen is
true, we now come to the most interesting part of the story. The
scientist, who has a large acquaintance among librarians and
custodians of old manuscripts in European libraries, happened to
mention one night to a friend what he had heard in the little
Norwegian fishing village. His friend instantly surprised him by
declaring that he had an idea what the ship was.

"To make a long story short, he told him that years before, while
examining some manuscripts in Stockholm, he had read an account of a
Viking ship that in company with another had sailed for what must have
been the extreme South Pacific. One of the ships returned laden with
ivory and gold, which latter may have been obtained from some mine
whose location has long since been lost, but the other never came
back. That missing ship was the ship of Olaf the Rover, and as her
consort said, she had last been seen in the South Pacific. The
manuscript said that the returned rovers stated that they had become
parted from the ship of Olaf in a terrific gale amid much ice and
great ice mountains. That must have meant the antarctic regions. This
much they do know, that Olaf's ship was stripped of her sails and
helpless when they were compelled by stress of weather to abandon her.
It is my theory and the theory of a man high in the government, who
has authorized me to make this search, that the ship of Olaf was
caught in a polar current and that the story heard so many years after
about the frozen ship in the ice is true."

"Then somewhere down there along the Great Barrier there is a Viking
ship full of ivory and gold, you believe?" asked Frank.

"I do," said the captain.

"And the ice has preserved it all intact?" shouted Billy.

"If the ship is there at all she is undoubtedly preserved exactly as
she entered the great ice," was the calm reply.

"Gosh!" was the only thing Billy could think of to say.

"Sounds like a fairy tale, doesn't it?" gasped Harry.

"Maybe some Viking fleas got frozen up, too," chirped the professor,
hopefully. "What a fine chance for me if we find the ship."

"Have you the latitude and longitude in which the whalers saw the
frozen vessel?" asked Frank.

"I have them, yes," replied the captain, "and when the winter is over
we will set out on a search for it. On our march toward the pole that
will make only a slight detour."

"Was it for this that you wanted to have our aeroplane along?" asked
Frank, his eyes sparkling.

"Yes," was the reply, "in an airship you can skim high above the
ice-fields and at a pace that would make an attempt to cover unknown
tracts on foot ridiculous. If the Viking ship is to be found it will
have to be your achievement."

Captain Hazzard was called out on deck at this juncture and the boys,
once he was out of the room, joined in a war dance round the swinging
cabin table.

"Boys, will you take me along when you go?" asked the professor
anxiously. "If there is any chance of getting a Viking flea I would
like to. It would make my name famous. I could write a book about it,
too."

"But you've got a book to write already about the Patagonians,"
objected Frank.

"Bless me, so I have," exclaimed the absent-minded old man. "However
that can wait. A Viking flea would be a novelty indeed."

At this moment loud tramplings on the deck overhead and shouts
apprised them that something out of the ordinary must be occurring.
Just as they were about to emerge from the cabin the captain rushed
in. He seemed much excited.

"My fur coat, quick," he cried, seizing the garment from Frank, who
had snatched it from its peg and handed it to him.

"What has happened?" asked Frank.

The words had hardly left his lips before there came a terrible
grinding and jarring and the Southern Cross came to a standstill. Her
bow seemed to tilt up, while her stern sank, till the cabin floor
attained quite a steep slope.

"What can be the matter?" cried the professor, as he dashed out after
the boys and the captain, the latter of whom had been much too excited
to answer Frank's question.




CHAPTER XIV.

MAROONED ON AN ICE FLOE.


"We have struck a polar reef!"

It was Captain Barrington who uttered these words after a brief
examination.

"Do you think we will be able to get off?" Frank asked Ben Stubbs, who
with the boys and the rest of the crew was in the bow peering down at
what appeared to be rocks beneath the vessel's bow, except that their
glitter in the lanterns that were hung over the side showed that the
ship was aground on solid ice.

"Hard to say," pronounced Ben. "These polar reefs are bad things. They
float along a little below the surface and many a ship that has struck
them has had her bottom ripped off before you could say 'knife.'"

"Are we seriously damaged?" asked Billy, anxiously gazing at the
scared faces around him.

"I hope not," said the old salt; "there is one thing in our favor and
that is that we were being towed so that our bow was raised quite a
bit, and instead of hitting the ice fair and square we glided up on
top of it."

Another point in favor of the ship's getting off was that there had
been no time to reshift the cargo, which, it will be recalled, had
been stowed astern when her bow was sprung off Patagonia, so that she
rode "high by the head," as sailors say. So far as they could see in
the darkness about twenty feet of her bow had driven up onto the polar
reef. The Brutus had stopped towing in response to the signal gun of
the Southern Cross in time to prevent the towing-bitts being rooted
out bodily or the cable parting.

"There is nothing to be done till daylight," pronounced Captain
Barrington, after an examination of the hold had shown that the vessel
was perfectly dry. "The glass indicates fair weather and we'll have to
stay where we are till we get daylight."

Little sleep was had by any aboard that night, and bright and early in
the morning the boys, together with most of the crew, were on deck and
peering over the bow. The day was a glorious one with the temperature
at two below zero. The sun sparkled and flashed on the great ice-reef
on which they had grounded, and which in places raised crested heads
above the greenish surface of the sea.

No water had been taken on in the night, to the great relief of the
captain, and soon a string of gaudy signal flags were set which
notified the Brutus, lying at anchor about a mile away, to stand by.
The hawser had been cast off over night and so the Brutus was free to
steam to any position her captain thought advisable. As soon as the
signalling was completed he heaved anchor and stood for a point about
half-a-mile to the leeward of the Southern Cross, where he came to
anchor once more.

Breakfast, a solid meal as befitted the latitude in which they were,
was hastily despatched and the boys bundled themselves up in polar
clothes and hurried out on deck to see what was going forward. Captain
Barrington, after a short consultation with Captain Hazzard, decided
to order out boat parties to explore the length and depth of the
ice-reef so that he could make plans to free his ship off her prison.

The boys begged to be allowed to accompany one of the boat parties and
so did the professor. Their requests were finally acceded to by the
two captains and they formed part of the crew of Boat No. 3, in charge
of Ben Stubbs.

"Wait a minute," shouted the professor, as, after the boat to which
they were assigned lay ready for lowering, the boys clambered into
her.

"What's the matter?" demanded the boys.

"I want to get my dredging bucket," exclaimed the man of science,
"this is a fine opportunity for me to acquire some rare specimens."

He dived into his cabin, the two ends of his woolen scarf flying out
behind him like the tail of some queer bird. He reappeared in a second
with the bucket, an ordinary galvanized affair, but with a wire-net
bottom and a long rope attached, to allow of it being dragged along
the depths of the sea.

"All ready!" shouted Frank, as the professor clambered into the boat.

The "falls" rattled through the blocks and the boat struck the water
with a splash, almost upsetting the professor, who was peering over
the side through his thick spectacles as if he expected to see some
queer polar fish at once. The crew swarmed down the "falls," and as
Ben gave the order, pulled away for the outer end of the reef, the
station assigned to them.

In accordance with their instructions when they arrived at the end of
the reef, the crew, headed by Ben Stubbs, left the boat and tramping
about on the slippery ice tried to ascertain its thickness and how far
under water it extended. The boys soon tired of sitting idle in the
boat and, as they had been forbidden to land on the treacherous ice of
the reef, cast about for something to do. The professor soon provided
a digression.

"Look there," he suddenly shouted, pointing at a black triangular
shaped object that was moving about on the green water a short
distance from the boat.

"What can it be?" wondered Billy.

"Some sort of rare fish, I don't doubt," rejoined the professor.
"Let's row out and see."

The boys, nothing loath, shoved off, and as Ben and the crew of the
boat were far too busy sounding and poking about on the reef to notice
them, they rowed off unobserved.

The triangular object proved elusive, and after rowing some time, the
boys found they had come quite a distance from the ship without
getting much nearer to it. Suddenly a great, shining black back curved
itself out of the water and the boys saw that the sharp triangular
thing was an immense dorsal fin attached to the back of a species of
whale they had not so far seen, although they had sighted many
varieties since entering the Antarctic regions.

"Let's give it a shot," cried Billy, and before any one could stop
him, the young reporter fired at the creature.

To their amazement, instead of diving, as do most whales when injured
by a bullet or otherwise, the creature raised its blunt head and gazed
at them out of a wicked little red eye.

"What--what--what's the matter with him do you suppose?" gasped Billy.

As he spoke the whale began lashing the water with its tail till the
white foam spread all about it, slightly flecked with red here and
there, in token that Billy's shot had struck it.

"I'm afraid that we are in for serious trouble," suddenly said the
professor.

"Why, you don't mean that the creature is bold enough to attack us?"
gasped Billy.

"That's just what I do," exclaimed the professor, apprehensively.

"The creature is a killer whale--an animal as ferocious as a shark and
far more bold. I should have recognized what it was when I saw that
sharp fin cruising about."

"We must row back," shouted Frank, and he and Harry sprang to the
oars.

But they were too late. With a flashing whisk of its tail the
ferocious killer whale dived, and when it came up its head was within
twenty feet of the boat.

"Pull for that floe!" shouted the professor, pointing to a small
island of ice floating about not far from them. It was their only
chance of escape, and the boys gave way with a will. But pull as they
would their enemy was faster than they. Just as the nose of their boat
scraped the floe the great "killer" charged.

Frank had just time to spring onto the floe and drag Harry after him
when the monster's head rammed the boat, splitting it to kindling wood
with a terrible crackling sound. The stout timbers might as well have
been a matchbox, so far as resistance to the terrific onslaught was
concerned.

Billy jumped just as the boat collapsed under him, and gained the
floe. But where was the professor?

For an instant the terrible thought that he had perished flashed
across the boys' minds, but just then a cry made them look round, and
they saw the unfortunate scientist, blue with cold and dripping with
icy water, come clambering over the other side of the little floe on
which they stood. He had been hurled out of the boat when the whale
charged and cast into the water. His teeth were chattering so that he
could hardly speak, but he still had his bucket, and insisted on
examining it to see if any creatures had been caught in it when he
took his involuntary plunge.

The whale, after its charge and the terrific bump with which it struck
the boat, seemed to be stunned and lay quietly on the water a few feet
from the floe, from which it had rebounded.

"I'll bet he's got a headache," exclaimed Billy.

"Headache or no headache, I don't see how we are going to get off this
floe unless we can attract the attention of the ship, and we are
drifting further away from it every minute," said Frank, gravely.

"Let's fire our pistols," suggested Billy.

"I didn't bring mine," said Frank.

"Nor I," said Harry.

"N-n-n-n-or I," chattered the shivering professor.

"Gee whitakers," shouted Billy, "and to top the bad luck, I left mine
in the boat. I laid it on a seat after I had fired at the whale."

"B-b-b-b-boys, w-w-w-w-w-hat are we g-g-g-oing to d-d-d-do?" shivered
the scientist.

"Shout," said Frank; "come on, all together."

They shouted at the tops of their voices, but in the clear polar air,
rarified as it is, sound does not carry as well as in northern
latitudes, and there was no response.

All the time the floe, slowly revolving in the current like a floating
bottle, was drifting further and further from the ships. The situation
was serious, and, moreover, the scientist was evidently suffering
acutely, although he made no complaint, not wishing to add to their
anxieties. Frank, however, insisted on their each shedding a garment
for the professor's benefit, and although the scientist at first
refused them, he finally consented to don the articles of dry apparel
and seemed to be much comforted by their warmth.

Faster and faster the floe drifted, and they were now almost out of
sight of the ships. The boys' faces, although they tried not to show
their fear, grew very pale. There seemed to be no prospect of their
being saved, and in the rigorous cold of that climate they knew they
could not survive many hours without food or drink.

Suddenly Frank, who had been gloomily watching the progress of the
floe, gave a shout of surprise.

"What's the matter?" said Harry.

"Are we g-g-g-g-going d-d-d-d-down?" gasped the professor.




CHAPTER XV.

DYNAMITING THE REEF.


"No," shouted the boy, "not that, but I think I see a chance of our
being saved!"

"Have they seen us from the ships?" asked Billy.

"No, but the floe has struck a different current and we are drifting
back."

"Are you s-s-s-sure of t-t-t-this?" asked the professor.

"Certain," replied Frank; "I have been watching the progress of other
pieces of drifting ice and the current seems to take a distinct curve
here and radiate backward toward the pole."

"Then we are saved--hurray!" shouted Billy, dancing about on the
slippery ice, and falling headlong, in his excitement, on the
treacherous footing it afforded.

"No use hollering till we are out of the woods," said Frank; "the
current may make another turn before we land near the ships."

This checked the enthusiasm and the boys all fell to anxiously
watching the course their floe was likely to pursue.

"There's our whale," shouted Billy, suddenly. "Look what a smash on
the nose he got."

The great monster seemed to have recovered from its swoon and was now
swimming in slow circles round the floe, eyeing the boys malevolently,
but not offering to attack them. Evidently it was wondering, in its
own mind, what it had struck when it collided with the boat and the
floe.

The floe drifted onward, with the vessels' forms every moment growing
larger to the boys' view. All at once a welcome sound rang out on the
nipping polar air.

"Boom!"

"They have missed us and are firing the gun," cried Frank.

"That's what," rejoined Billy; "and we are going to get a terrible
lecture when we get back on board, too."

Soon the floe, drifting steadily southward, by the strange freak of
the antarctic current, came in view of the lookouts on the ships, who
had been posted as soon as the boys were missed. The boats were at
once despatched, and headed for the little ice island.

The killer whale suddenly took it into his head, as the boats drew
near, to try one more attack, but Dr. Watson Gregg, the ship's
surgeon, who stood in the bow of the first boat, saw the ferocious
monster coming and, with three quick bullets from a magazine rifle,
ended the great brute's career forever. His huge, black bulk, with its
whitish belly and great jaws, floated on the surface for a few
minutes, and the boys estimated his length at about thirty feet.

"Room enough there to have swallowed us all up," commented Billy, as
they gazed at the monster.

"Well, young men, what have you got to say for yourselves?" asked Dr.
Gregg, as the boats drew alongside.

The boys all looked shamefaced as they got into the boat, and two
sailors assisted the half-frozen professor into it. They realized that
they had been guilty of a breach of discipline in taking off the boat,
and that, moreover, their disobedience had cost the expedition one of
its valuable assets, for there was no hope of ever putting the smashed
craft together again.

On their return to the ship Captain Hazzard did not say much to them,
but what he did say, as Billy remarked afterward, "burned a hole in
you."

However, after a hearty dinner and a change of clothing, they all,
even the professor--who seemed none the worse for the effects of his
cold bath--cheered up a bit, more especially as Captain Barrington had
announced that he had a plan for getting the ship off the reef. Ben
Stubbs, who had, with his crew, been taken off the end of the
obstruction by another boat, had announced that the depth of the
obstruction did not seem to exceed twenty feet and its greatest width
forty. Where the ship's bow rested the breadth was about thirty feet
and the depth not more than twenty.

"My gracious," suddenly cried the professor as the boys came out from
dinner; "I have suffered a terrible loss!"

His face was so grave, and he seemed so worried, that the boys
inquired sympathetically what it was that he had lost.

"My bucket, my dredging bucket," wailed the scientist. "I was too cold
to examine it thoroughly and I recollect now that I am sure it had
some sort of sea-creatures in the bottom of it."

"What has become of it?" asked Frank, hardly able to keep from
laughing.

"I left it on the ice floe," wailed the professor. "I must have it."

"Well, if it's on the floe it will have to stay there," remarked
Frank. "There seems to be no way of getting it off."

"I wonder if the captain wouldn't send out some men in a boat to look
for it," hopefully exclaimed the collector, suddenly.

"I shouldn't advise you to ask him," remarked Ben Stubbs, who just
then came up, his arms laden with packages. "We've lost one boat
through going after peppermints or specimints, or whatever you call
'em."

"Possibly, as you say, it would not be wise," agreed the professor;
"never mind, perhaps I can catch a fur-bearing pollywog at the South
Pole."

He seemed quite cheered up at this reflection and smiled happily at
the thought of achieving his dream.

"What have you got there, Ben?" asked Billy, pointing to the
queer-looking boxes and packages the boatswain was carrying.

"Dynamite, battery boxes, and fuses," replied the old sailor.

"Whatever for?" asked the young reporter. "Are you going to blow up
the ship?"

"Not exactly, but we are going to blow her OUT."

"Dynamite the ice, you mean?"

"That's it."

"Hurray, we'll soon be free of the ice-drift," cried Harry, as they
followed the boatswain forward and watched while he and several of the
crew drilled holes in the ice and adjusted the dynamite on either side
of the bow, at a distance of about two hundred feet from the ship in
either direction.

Caps of fulminate of mercury were then affixed to the explosive and
wires led from it to the battery boxes.

"How will that free us?" asked the professor, who, like most men who
devote all their time to one subject, was profoundly ignorant of
anything but deep sea life and natural history.

"It is the nature of dynamite to explode downwards," said Frank. "When
that charge is set off it will blow the ice away on either side and we
shall float freely once more."

"Wonderful," exclaimed the professor. "I had better get my deep sea
net. The explosion may kill some curious fish when it goes off."

He hurried away to get the article in question, while the boys stood
beside Captain Hazzard, who was about to explode the heavy charges.
Everybody was ordered to hold tight to something, and then the
commander pushed the switch.

"Click!"

A mighty roar followed and the ship seemed to rise in the air. But
only for an instant. The next minute she settled back and those on
board her broke out in a cheer as they realized that they once more
floated free of the great ice-reef.

The two ends of the obstruction having been blown off by the dynamite,
the center portion was not buoyant enough to support the weight of the
Southern Cross, and went scraping and bumping beneath her to bob up
harmlessly to the surface at her stern.

There was only one dissenting voice in the general enthusiasm that
reigned on board at the thought that they were now able to proceed,
and that was the professor's. He had been untangling a forgotten rare
specimen of deep-sea lobster from his net, when the explosion came.

In his agitation at the vessel's sudden heave and the unexpected
noise, he had let his hand slip and the creature had seized him by the
thumb. With a roar of pain the professor flung it from him and it
flopped overboard.

"Hurray! we are off the reef, professor," shouted Frank, running aft
to help adjust a stern cable that had been thrown out when the
Southern Cross grounded.

"So I see, but I have lost a rare specimen of deep-sea lobster,"
groaned the professor, peering over the side of the ship to see if
there were any hope of recapturing his prize.

The anchor of the Southern Cross was dropped to hold her firmly while
the steel hawser was reconnected with the Brutus, and soon the coal
ship and her consort were steaming steadily onward toward the Barrier
and the polar night.

It grew steadily colder, but the boys did not mind the exhilarating
atmosphere. They had games of ball and clambered about in the rigging,
and kept in a fine glow in this way. The professor tried to join them
at these games, but a tumble from halfway up the slippery main shrouds
into a pile of snow, in which he was half smothered, soon checked his
enthusiasm, and he thereafter devoted himself to classifying his
specimens.

Great albatross now began to wheel round the vessel and the sailors
caught some of the monster white and gray birds with long strings to
which they had attached bits of bread and other bait. These were flung
out into the air and the greedy creatures, making a dive for them,
soon found themselves choking. They were then easily hauled to deck.
Captain Hazzard, who disliked unnecessary cruelty, had given strict
orders that the birds were to be released after their capture, and
this was always done. The birds, however, seemed in no wise to profit
by their lessons, for one bird, on the leg of which a copper ring had
been placed to identify him, was captured again and again.

The professor, particularly, was interested in this sport, and devised
a sort of lasso with a wire ring in it, with which he designed to
capture the largest of the great birds, a monster with a wing spread
of fully ten feet. Day after day he patiently coaxed the creature near
with bits of bread, but the bird, with great cunning, came quite close
to get the bread, but as soon as it saw the professor getting ready to
swing his "lariat" it vanished.

"Ah-ha, my beauty, I'll get you yet," was all the professor said on
these occasions. His patience was marvelous.

One day, as the ships were plunging along through ice-strewn seas, not
far to the eastward of the inhospitable and bleak Shetland Islands,
the professor accomplished his wish, and nearly ended his own career
simultaneously.

The boys, who were amidships talking to Ben Stubbs, were apprised by a
loud yell that something unusual was occurring aft, and ran quickly in
that direction. There they saw a strange sight. The professor, with
his feet hooked into a deck ring, was holding with both hands to the
end of his lasso, while the albatross, which he had at last succeeded
in looping, was flapping with all its might to escape.

"Help, help, he'll pull me overboard," screamed the professor.

"Let go the halliards!" roared Ben, who saw that there was, indeed,
danger of what the professor feared happening.

"I can't let him escape. Help me!" yelled the professor.

"My feet are slipping!" he went on.

"Let go of the albatross," shouted the boys, who with Ben were
hastening up the ladder leading to the raised stern. It did not look,
however, as if they could reach there before the professor was carried
overboard like the tail of a kite, by the huge bird he had lassoed.

Suddenly, with a howl of terror, the professor, who never seemed to
entertain the thought of letting go of the bird, was jerked from his
foothold by a sudden lurch of the ship.

Ben Stubbs was just in time. He sprang forward with wonderful agility
and seized the professor's long legs just as the man of science was
being pulled over the rail into space by the great albatross.

"Let go, dod gast you!" he bellowed, jerking the lasso out of the
professor's hands, while the albatross went flapping off, a long
streamer of rope hanging from its neck.

"I've lost my albatross," wailed the scientist.

"And blamed near lost yer own life," angrily exclaimed Ben. "Why
didn't you let go?"

"Why, then I'd have lost the bird," said the professor, simply. "But I
thank you for saving my life."

"Well, don't go doin' such fool things again," said Ben, angrily, for
he had feared that he would not be in time to save the bigoted
scientist's life.

The professor, however, was quite unruffled, and went about for some
hours lamenting the loss of the huge antarctic bird. He consoled
himself later, however, by shooting a beautiful little snow petrel,
which he stuffed and mounted and presented to Ben Stubbs, who was
quite mollified by the kind-hearted, if erratic, professor's gift.




CHAPTER XVI.

A POLAR STORM.


Early in February the voyagers, whose progress had been slow, found
themselves in a veritable sea of "Pancake ice." Everywhere in a
monotonous waste the vast white field seemed to stretch, with only a
few albatrosses and petrels dotting its lonely surface. The
thermometer dropped to ten below zero, and the boys found the snug
warmth of the steam-heated cabins very desirable. There was a fair
wind, and sail had been set on the Southern Cross to aid the work of
towing her, and she was driving through the ice with a continuous
rushing and crashing sound that at first was alarming, but to which
her company soon grew accustomed.

Captain Barrington announced at noon that day that they were then in
lat. 60 degrees 28 minutes, and longitude 59 degrees 20 minutes
West--bearings which showed that they would be, before many days had
past, at the Great Barrier itself. Excitement ran high among the boys
at the receipt of this news, and Frank and Harry, who had fitted up a
kind of work-room in the warmed hold, worked eagerly at their
auto-sledge, which was expected to be of much use in transporting
heavy loads to and from the ship to the winter quarters.

Before the two vessels reached the Barrier, however, they were
destined to encounter a spell of bad weather.

One evening Ben Stubbs announced to the boys, who had been admiring a
sunset of a beauty seldom seen in northern climes, that they were in
for a hard blow, and before midnight his prediction was realized.
Frank awoke in his bunk, to find himself alternately standing, as it
seemed, on his head and his feet. The Southern Cross was evidently
laboring heavily and every plank and bolt in her was complaining. Now
and again a heavy sea would hit the rudder with a force that
threatened to tear it from its pintles, solidly though it was
contrived.

Somewhat alarmed, the boy aroused the others, and they hastened out on
deck. As they emerged from the cabin the wind seemed to blow their
breath back into their bodies and an icy hand seemed to grip them. It
was a polar-storm that was raging in all its fury.

As she rose on a wave, far ahead the boys could see the lights of the
Brutus. Only for a second, however, for the next minute she would
vanish in the trough of a huge comber, and then they could hear the
strained towing cable "twang" like an overstretched piano wire.

"Will it hold?" That was the thought in the minds of all.

In order to ease the hawser as much as possible, Captain Barrington,
when he had noted the drop of the barometer, had ordered a "bridle,"
or rope attachment, placed on the end of the cable, so as to give it
elasticity and lessen the effect of sudden strains, but the
mountainous seas that pounded against the blunt bows of the Southern
Cross were proving the stout steel strand to the uttermost.

The boys tried to speak, but their words were torn from their lips by
the wind and sent scattering. In the dim light they could see the
forms of the sailors hurrying about the decks fastening additional
lashings to the deck cargo and making things as snug as possible.

Suddenly there came a shout forward, followed by a loud "bang!" that
made itself audible even above the roar of the hurricane.

The cable had parted!

Considering the mountainous seas in which they were laboring and the
violence of the storm, this was a terrifying piece of intelligence.

It meant that at any moment they might drift helplessly into some
mighty berg and be crushed like an egg-shell on its icy sides. Captain
Barrington muffled up in polar clothes and oilskins, rushed past the
boys like a ghost and ran forward shouting some order. The first and
second officers followed him.

Presently the voice of the rapid-fire gun was heard, and the boys
could see its sharp needles of white fire splitting the black night.

A blue glare far away answered the explosions. It was the Brutus
signaling her consort. But that was all she could do. In the terrific
sea that was running it would have been impossible to rig a fresh
cable. The only thing for the two ships to do was to keep burning
flare lights, in order that they might keep apart and not crash
together in the tempest.

"Shall we go down, do you think?" asked Billy, shivering in spite of
himself, as a huge wave towered above them as if it would engulf the
polar ship, and then as she rose gallantly to its threatening bulk,
went careening away to leeward as if angry at being cheated of its
prey.

"We can only hope for the best," said a voice at his elbow. It was
Captain Hazzard. "I have implicit confidence in Captain Barrington. He
is a sailor of rare mettle."

These remarks were shouted at the top of the two speakers' voices, but
they sounded, in the midst of the turbulent uproar that raged about
them, like the merest whispers.

Time and again it seemed that one of the great waves that came
sweeping out of the darkness must engulf them, but so far the Southern
Cross rode them like a race-horse, rising pluckily to them as they
rushed at her. Captain Barrington and his officers were trying to get
some headsail put on the vessel to keep her head up to the huge waves,
but they were unwilling to imperil any one's life by ordering him out
on the plunging bowsprit, that was now reared heavenward and again
plunged downward as if pointing to the bottom of the sea.

Ben Stubbs it was who finally volunteered to crawl out, and two other
American seamen followed him. They succeeded, although in deadly peril
half a dozen times, in getting the jib gaskets cast loose, and then
crawled back half frozen to receive the warm plaudits of the officers
and more substantial rewards later on. With her jib hoisted, the
Southern Cross made better weather of it, but the seas were fast
becoming more mountainous and threatening. The wind screeched through
the rigging like a legion of demons. To add to the turmoil some casks
got loose and went rolling and crashing about till they finally went
overboard as a great wave toppled aboard.

"We must see how the professor is getting on," said, or rather yelled,
Frank suddenly.

He and the boys entered the cabin structure aft, which seemed warm and
cosy with its light and warmth after the turmoil of the terrific
battle of the elements outside.

But a prolonged search failed to reveal any trace of the man of
science.

Where could he be?

A scrutiny of his cabin, even looking under the bunk, failed to reveal
him. The boys began to fear he might have been swept overboard, when
suddenly Frank exclaimed:

"Perhaps he is in his laboratory."

"Hiding there?" asked Billy.

"No, I don't think so. The professor, whatever his oddities may be, is
no coward," rejoined Frank.

"No, his search for the Patagonian dog-flea proved that," agreed
Harry.

Frank lost no time in opening the trap-door in the floor of the main
cabin, which led into what had formerly been the "valuables room" of
the Southern Cross, but which had been fitted up now as a laboratory
for the professor.

"There's a light burning in it," announced Frank, as he peered down.

"Oh, professor--Professor Sandburr, are you there?" he shouted the
next moment.

"What is it? Is the ship going down?" came back from the depths in the
voice of the professor. He seemed as calm as if it was a summer's day.

"No, but she is having a terrible fight with the waves," replied the
boy.

"She has broken loose from the towing ship. The cable has snapped!"
added Harry.

"Is that so?" asked the professor calmly. "Will you boys come down
here for a minute? I want to see you."

Wondering what their eccentric friend could possibly wish in the way
of conversation at such a time, the boys, not without some difficulty,
clambered down the narrow ladder leading into the professor's den.
They found him balancing himself on his long legs and trying to secure
his bottles and jars, every one of which held some queer creature
preserved in alcohol. The boys aided him in adjusting emergency racks
arranged for such a purpose, but not before several bottles had broken
and several strange-looking snakes and water animals, emitting a most
evil smell, had fallen on the floor. These the professor carefully
gathered up, though it was hard work to stand on the plunging floor,
and placed in new receptacles. He seemed to place great value on them.

"So," he said finally, "you think the ship may go down?"

"We hope for the best, but anything may happen," rejoined Frank; "we
are in a serious position. Practically helpless, we may drift into a
berg at any moment."

"In that case we would sink?"

"Almost to a certainty."

"Then I want you to do something for me. Will you?"

The boys, wondering greatly what could be coming next, agreed readily
to the old scientist's wish. Thereupon he drew out three slips of
paper. He handed one to each of the boys.

"I wrote these out when I first thought there was danger of our
sinking," he said.

The boys looked at the writing on their slips. They were all the same,
and on each was inscribed:

"The man who told me that the Patagonians were a friendly race is a
traitor to science. I, Professor Simeon Sandburr, brand him a teller
of untruths. For Professor Thomas Tapper, who told me about the
fur-bearing pollywog of the South Polar seas, I have the warmest
respect. I leave all my books, bottled fishes and reptiles to the
Smithsonian Institute. My servant, James, may have my stuffed
Wogoliensuarious. My sister is to have my entire personal and real
estate. This is my last will and testament.

"Simeon Sandburr.

"M.A.-F.R.G.S.-M.R.H.S.-Etc., etc."

"What are we to do with these papers?" asked Frank, hardly able, even
in the serious situation in which they then were, to keep from
laughing.

"One of you boys may escape, even if the ship does go down," said the
professor, gravely: "If any of us should get back to civilization I
want the world to know that the Patagonians are not a friendly race,
and that I died hoping to capture the fur-bearing pollywog of the
South Polar seas."

At this moment a sudden shock hurled them headlong against the
glass-filled shelves, smashing several bottles and releasing the
slimy, finny contents, and sending them all in a heap on the floor.

"We have struck something!" cried Frank.

"Something terrible has happened!" shouted Harry and Billy.

"We are sinking, boys," yelled the professor; "don't forget my last
will and testament."




CHAPTER XVII.

THE GREAT BARRIER.


To rush on deck was the work of a few moments. If it was a scene of
confusion the boys had left, the sight that now met their eyes was far
more turbulent.

"The boats! the boats! We are sinking!"

"We are going down!"

"The iceberg has sunk us!"

These and a hundred other cries of terror filled the air, for the wind
seemed to have died down, though the sea still ran high, and sounds
were now more audible. Off to the starboard side of the ship the boys
perceived a mighty towering form, which they knew must be the iceberg
they had encountered. The crew fought madly for the boats.

Suddenly a sharp voice rang out:

"I'll shoot the first man that lays a hand on the boats!"

It was Captain Barrington. He stood on the stern deck steadying
himself against the rail. In his hands gleamed two revolvers. Beside
him stood Captain Hazzard, a look of stern determination on his face.
Ben Stubbs and several other seamen, who had not lost their heads,
were grouped behind them prepared to quell any onslaught on the boats.

The members of the crew, who had become panic-stricken when the
helpless ship encountered the iceberg, paused and looked shamefaced.

"We've a right to save our lives," they muttered angrily.

"And prove yourselves cowards," exclaimed Captain Barrington. "You
ought to be ashamed to bear the names of American seamen! Get forward,
all of you, and let me see no more of this."

The stern voice of their commander and his evident command of himself
reassured the panic-stricken crew and they withdrew to the forecastle.
Their shame was the more keen when it was found that, while the
Southern Cross had been severely bumped by the iceberg, her stout
timbers had sustained no damage.

By daybreak the sea had calmed down somewhat, and the wind had still
further moderated. But the danger was by no means over till they could
get in communication with the Brutus. Frank was set to work on the
wireless and soon "raised" the towing ship, the captain of which was
delighted to hear of his consort's safety. The position of the
Southern Cross being ascertained, her bearings were wirelessed to the
Brutus, and she then cast anchor to await the arrival of the towing
ship.

As the line was once more made fast, having been spliced till it was
as strong as new, the professor came up to the boys. He looked rather
sheepish.

"Would you mind giving me back those papers I gave you last night," he
said.

"You mean the last will and testament?" Frank could not help saying.

"That's it. I have changed my mind. I will show up that Patagonian
fellow in a book."

The professor, as he received the little slips of paper, scattered
them into tiny bits and threw them overboard.

"You are quite sure you have not been fooled also on the fur-bearing
pollywog?" asked Frank.

"Quite," replied the professor, solemnly. "Professor Tapper is one of
our greatest savants."

"But so was your friend who told you the Patagonians were a friendly
tribe," argued Frank.

"I am quite sure that Professor Tapper could not have been mistaken,
however."

"Has Professor Tapper ever been in the South Polar regions?" asked
Billy, seriously.

"Why, no," admitted the professor; "but he has proved that there must
be a fur-bearing pollywog down here."

"In what manner has he been able to prove it?" asked Harry.

"He has written three volumes about it. They are in the Congressional
library. Then he contributed a prize-essay on it to the Smithsonian
Institute, which has bound it up with my report on the Canadian Bull
Frog. He is a very learned man."

"But the South Polar pollywog is then only a theory?"

"Well, yes--so far," admitted the professor; "but it is reserved for
me to gain the honor of positively proving the strange creature's
existence."

"And if there should be no such thing in existence?" asked Frank.

"Then I shall write a book denouncing Professor Tapper," said the
professor, with an air of finality, and turning away to examine the
water through a pair of binoculars.

On moved the ships and at last, early one day, Captain Barrington
called the boys on deck and, with a wave of the hand, indicated a huge
white cliff, or palisade, which rose abruptly from the green water and
seemed to stretch to infinity in either direction.

"The Great Barrier," he said, simply.

"Which will be our home for almost a year," added Captain Hazzard.

The boys gazed in wonder at the mighty wall of snow and ice as it
glittered in the sunlight. It was, indeed, a Great Barrier. At the
point where they lay it rose to a height of 130 feet or more from the
water, which was filled with great detached masses of ice. Further on
it seemed to sweep to even greater heights.

This was the barrier at which Lieutenant Wilkes, on his unlucky
expedition, had gazed. The mighty wall that Shackleton and Scott, the
Englishmen, had scaled and then fought their way to "furthest South"
beyond. The names of many other explorers, French, English, Danish,
and German, rushed into the boys' minds as they gazed.

Were they destined to penetrate the great mysteries that lay beyond
it? Would their airship be successful in wresting forth the secret of
the great white silence?

"Well?" said Captain Barrington, breaking the silence at length, with
a smile; "pretty big proposition, eh?"

The boys gazed up at him awe-struck.

"We never dreamed it was anything like this," said Frank. "I always
pictured the Great Barrier as something more or less imaginary."

"Pretty solid bit of imagination, that ice-wall yonder," laughed
Captain Hazzard.

"How are we ever going to get on the top of it?" asked Billy.

"We must steam along to the westward till we find a spot where it
shelves," was the reply.

"Then it is not as high as this all the way round the polar regions?"

"No, in places it shelves down till to make a landing in boats is
simple. We must look for one of those spots."

"What is the nature of the country beyond?" asked Frank, deeply
interested.

"Ice and snow in great plateaus, with here and there monster
glaciers," was the reply of Captain Hazzard. "In places, too, immense
rocky cliffs tower up, seeming to bar all further progress into the
mystery of the South Pole."

"Mountains?" gasped Billy.

"Yes, and even volcanoes. This has given rise to a supposition that at
the pole itself there may be flaming mountains, the warmth of which
would have caused an open polar sea to form."

"Nobody knows for certain, then?" asked Frank.

"No, nobody knows for certain," repeated Captain Hazzard, his eyes
fixed on the great white wall. "Perhaps we shall find out."

"Perhaps," echoed Frank, quite carried away by the idea.

"What is known about the location of the pole?" asked Billy.

"It is supposed to lie on an immensely high plateau, possibly 20,000
feet above sea level. Shackleton got within a hundred miles of it he
believes."

"And then he had to turn back," added Captain Barrington.

"Yes; lack of provisions and the impossibility of traveling quickly
after his Manchurian ponies had died compelled him to leave the
mystery unsolved. Let us hope it remains for the American flag to be
planted at the pole."

"Are there any animals or sea-creatures there, do you know?" inquired
the professor, who had been an interested listener.

"If there is an open polar sea there is no doubt that there is life in
it," was the answer, with a smile; "but what form such creatures would
assume we cannot tell."

"Perhaps hideous monsters?" suggested the imaginative Billy.

"More likely creatures like whales or seals," returned Captain
Hazzard.

"If there is such a thing as a creature with a South Polar flea in its
fur I would like to catch it," hopefully announced the scientist.

"Seals are covered with them," rejoined the officer.

"Pooh, those are just common seal-fleas," returned the professor. "I
would like to find an insect that makes its home at the pole itself."

"Well, perhaps you will," was the rejoinder.

"I hope so," said the professor. "It would be very interesting."

All this time the two vessels were steaming slowly westward along the
inhospitable barrier that seemed, as Frank said, to have been erected
by nature to keep intruders away from the South Polar regions. As the
professor concluded his last remark the lookout gave a sudden hail.

"Shipwrecked sailors!"

"Where away?" shouted Captain Barrington.

"Off to the starboard bow, sir," came back the hail.

Captain Barrington raised his glasses and looked in the direction
indicated. The boys, too, brought binoculars to bear. They were
greatly excited to see what seemed to be four men standing up and
waving their arms on a raft drifting at some distance away.

"Lower a boat," commanded Captain Barrington.

The command was speedily complied with--in a few seconds one of the
stanch lifeboats lay alongside.

"Do you boys want to go?" asked Captain Hazzard.

"Do we?" asked Billy. "I should say."

"All right, away with you."

"Can I go, too? I might get some specimens," asked the professor,
eagerly.

"Yes, but don't try to catch any more killer whales," was the answer,
which brought a general laugh.




CHAPTER XVIII.

THE PROFESSOR TAKES A COLD BATH.


"Give way, men!" shouted Ben Stubbs, who was in command of the boat;
"them poor fellers must be perishin' of cold and hunger."

The boat fairly flew through the water, skillfully avoiding, under
Ben's careful steering, the great floes of ice which were drifting
about.

The boys and the professor were in the bow, eagerly scanning the raft
with the four black figures upon it. The castaways kept waving their
arms in the most pitiable fashion.

Suddenly the professor exclaimed:

"There's something queer about those men!"

"You'd be queer, too, if you was drifting about the polar seas on an
old raft," returned Ben Stubbs.

All the men laughed at this and the professor said no more. But he
scanned the "castaways" carefully, and so did the boys. As they drew
nearer, the latter also began to observe that they were the funniest
looking men they had ever seen.

"They've got on long black coats with white waistcoats to their
knees," cried Billy.

"So they have," exclaimed Harry. "If it wasn't too ridiculous, you'd
say they had on evening clothes."

"They're not men at all," suddenly shouted the professor, with an air
of triumph. "I thought I was not mistaken."

"Not men!" roared Ben. "What are the poor critters, then--females?"

"Neither men nor women," was the astonishing reply. "They are
penguins."

All the men turned at this, and one of them, who had sailed in the
polar regions before, announced, with a shout of laughter:

"The doc is right. Them's Emperor penguins, sure enough--taking a
joy-ride through the ice."

The queer birds betrayed not the slightest excitement at the approach
of the boat, but stood gazing solemnly at it, waving their little
flippers,--somewhat like those of a seal, only feathered,--up and down
in a rhythmic way.

"They act like band leaders," was Frank's remark.

"Better go back to the ship," said Ben, much disgusted at the upshoot
of the expedition, and somewhat chagrined, too, if the truth must be
told, at the professor's triumph over him.

"No, let us catch one," urged the professor. "I would like to see if
it is possible to tame one."

"Yes, let's go up to them and see what they look like at close range,"
cried Frank.

"All right, if we don't waste too much time," agreed Ben. "Give way,
men."

They soon drew near the strange South Polar birds who blinked solemnly
at them as if to say:

"And who may you be?"

As they bobbed up and down on the piece of drift wood the boys had
mistaken for a raft, the sight was so ludicrous that the boys burst
into a hearty laugh.

"Hush," warned the professor, holding up his hand; "you may scare
them."

They were big birds of their kind, standing fully four feet, and it
was not strange that from the ship they had been mistaken for
shipwrecked men; indeed, it is not the first time such an incident has
occurred in the South Polar climes.

"Steady now, men," said the professor, bowing his lean form over the
bow of the boat as they drew near to the penguins.

"Ah! my feathered beauties, if you will only stay there and not move,
I will soon have one of you," he whispered to himself, as the
boat,--the men rowing as silently as possible,--glided alongside.

The birds made no sign of moving, and evidently had not the slightest
fear of the strange beings, such as the newcomers must have seemed to
them. Instead, they seemed mildly curious and stretched their necks
out inquiringly.

"Here, chick-chick-chicky," called the professor, by an odd
inspiration, as if he were calling to the chickens in the barnyard at
home.

"Here, chick-chick-chicky. Pretty chick-chick-chicky."

Suddenly he made a grab for the nearest penguin, and at the same
instant the boys gave a shout of dismay. As he seized it, the
creature--affrighted when it felt the professor's bony arms about
it,--had dived and the scientist, losing his balance, had followed it
into the water.

This might not have been so serious, but the other penguins, seeing
the professor's plight, started to attack him, beating him back into
the icy water every time he came to the surface.

"Ouch, you brute--oh, boys, help--o-o-o-h, this water is cold. Get me
out, somebody. Scat, get away, you penguins."

These were some of the cries uttered by the luckless professor, as he
struggled to get to the inside of the boat.

When they could, for laughing at the ludicrous plight, the men and the
boys beat off the big penguins with the oars and hauled the professor
into the boat. His nose was pecked badly and was of a ruddy hue from
his misadventure. Fortunately, one of the men had some stimulant with
him and this was given to the professor to drink and the strong stuff
quickly revived him. He sat up in the boat and talked with animation
while the boat was being rowed back to the ship.

"Bless my soul, what an adventure," he puffed. "Ouch, my poor nose. I
thought the penguins would peck it off. Boys, that penguin was as
slippery as a greased pig and as fat as butter. Oh, dear, what a
misadventure, and I've ruined a good suit of clothes and broken a
bottle of specimens I had in the pockets. Never mind, I can catch some
more."

Thus the professor rattled on, from time to time feeling his very
prominent nose, apparently in some doubt as to whether he still
retained the feature.

"I guess you are cured of penguin hunting?" remarked Frank.

"Who, I?" asked the professor, in mild surprise. "Oh, no, my dear boy.
I will get a penguin yet, even if I have to fight a regiment of them.
I'll get one, never fear, and tame him to eat out of my hand."

"I hope so, I'm sure," said Frank, with a smile at the odd old man's
enthusiasm.

"Hullo, what's that?" cried Billy, suddenly pointing.

"What?" chorused the boys.

"Why that creature off there on the ice flapping about,--it seems to
be in distress."

"There is certainly something the matter with it," agreed Frank.

What seemed to be a huge bird was struggling and flapping about on the
floes at no great distance from them.

"Other birds are attacking it!" cried Billy.

It was so, indeed. Numerous albatrosses and other large sea birds and
gulls were hovering above the struggling creature, from time to time
diving and pecking it.

"What in the world can it be?" cried Frank.

"We might go and see, but the professor is wet and should get back to
the ship," said Ben.

"Oh, my dear sir, don't mind me," demurred that individual. "If I
could have a little more of the stimulant--ah, thank you--as I was
saying, I am never in a hurry to go anywhere when there is an
interesting question of natural history to be solved."

"Very well, then," said Ben, heading the boat about; "if you catch
cold, don't blame me."

"Oh dear, no. I wouldn't think of such a thing," said the professor,
his eyes eagerly fixed on the disturbance of the birds.

"It's a big wounded albatross!" suddenly exclaimed Billy, as the boat
drew near to the object the other birds were attacking.

"So it is," cried Harry.

"A monster, too," supplemented the professor. "It would be a great
find for any collection."

"Perhaps we can catch it and stuff it," cried Billy.

"Perhaps so; but we must hurry or the others will have pecked it to
bits."

The boat flew through the water, and soon they were near enough to
drive the other birds away. The wounded albatross, however, did not
rise, but lay flapping on the ice.

"Why, bless my soul, how very extraordinary!" cried the professor,
forgetting his wet clothes and his chill in his excitement.

"What is?" asked Frank.

"Why something seems to be holding the bird down under water," was the
answer.

"It's a string!" suddenly cried Ben, standing up in the stern of the
boat.

"A string?" echoed the professor.

"Sure enough," was the reply.

And so it proved. The albatross was held down by a bit of string
encircling its neck so tightly as to almost choke it, and which had
become caked with ice till it was quite heavy.

"I know that bird," shouted the professor, suddenly, as they drew
alongside it.

"You know it?" echoed the others, thinking the old man had taken leave
of his senses.

"Yes, yes," cried the professor. "It's the one that nearly dragged me
overboard. See whether the wire loop is still round its neck."

"It sure is," exclaimed Ben, as, disregarding the pecks of the big
bird, he dragged it struggling into the boat and pinioned its wings.

"Well, this is a most extraordinary happening," smiled the professor,
as happy as if he had been left a million dollars. "This will be most
interesting to scientists and will make my name famous. 'The Sandburr
albatross, which flew many scores of miles with my lasso round its
neck.' Wonderful. Poor creature. I suppose as it dipped into the waves
for its food a thin film of ice formed on the cord till it grew too
heavy for it to carry."

"That's right," said Ben, who had cut the lasso and released the
creature from its hampering weight. "I'll bet this weighs ten or
twelve pounds."

He held out a huge chunk of ice for their inspection.

"That's great weight for a bird to carry so many miles," said Frank.

"It is, indeed," said the professor, patting the bound albatross on
the head. "That makes it all the more remarkable."

"What are you going to do with the albatross, now that you have him?"
inquired Billy Barnes.

"I must make a cage for him out of packing cases, and perhaps we can
tame him," said the professor.

All agreed that this would be an interesting experiment, and the boat
pulled back to the ship with one passenger more than she had left it
with. As for the professor, he was in the seventh heaven of delight
all the way back.

He sat on a stern seat by the albatross, which was looking wildly
about, and kept talking to it as if he thought it could understand
him.

"Ah, my beauty, I'll astonish Professor Tapper with you when I get
home," he said; "you are worthy to be ranked with the fur-bearing
South Polar pollywog. I will feed you till your feathers shine and you
are the envied of all birds. I am the most fortunate man in the
world."

All hands enjoyed a hearty laugh as, on the return to the ship, their
adventures were narrated.

"The poor professor never seems to go out but what he gets into some
pickle or other," laughed Captain Barrington, who was joined in his
merriment by Captain Hazzard. "But, dear me," he went on, "where is
the professor?"

They ran out on deck and found the man of science seated in the boat,
which had not yet been hauled up, as the vessels were not to weigh
anchor till the next day,--the berth where they lay being a snug one.

"Why don't you come on board, professor?" asked Captain Hazzard,
indicating the accommodation ladder, which had been lowered.

"I-I'd like to, but I can't," responded the professor.

"You can't? Why, what on earth do you mean? You'll freeze to death
down there," roared Captain Barrington.

"I wish you'd send down a small stove," wailed the scientist.

"A small stove; why, what do you want with that?"

"Why the fact is, I'm sozzen to the feet--I mean frozen to the seat,
and if you can't send down a stove, send down another pair of
trousers!" was the calm reply.

When the perfect tempest of laughter at the poor professor's expense
had subsided, he was hauled to the deck in the boat and handed a long
coat. Only till then would he consent to get up from the seat, an
operation which was attended by a loud sound of ripping and tearing.

"Ha, ha, ha," roared Captain Hazzard. "First the professor nearly
loses his life, and then he loses his trousers!"




CHAPTER XIX.

FACING THE POLAR NIGHT.


After steaming for several hours the next day, the Great Barrier
opened into a small bight with shelving shores, which seemed to
promise an easy landing place. A boat party, including the professor
and the boys, was organized and the pull to the shore begun, after the
two ships had swung to anchor.

The beach was a shelving one, formed of what seemed broken-off
portions of volcanic rock. A short distance back from the shore there
were several rocky plateaus, clear of snow, which seemed to offer a
good site for pitching camp. From the height, too, the boys could see,
at no great distance, stretched out on the snow, several dark forms
that looked not unlike garden slugs at that distance.

"What are they?" asked Billy.

"Seals," replied the professor; "though of what variety I do not know,
and it is impossible to tell at this distance."

Captain Barrington and Captain Hazzard, after viewing the landing
place and its surroundings, decided that a better spot could hardly be
found, and the men were set to work at once marking out a site for the
portable hut, which was to form the main eating and dwelling place,
and the smaller structure in which the officers of the expedition were
to make their homes.

The work of setting up the main hut, which had double walls, the space
between being filled with cork dust and felt, was soon accomplished,
and it was then divided off into small rooms. In the center a big
table was set up and at one end a huge stove was placed for heating
and cooking. At the other end the acetylene gas-plant, for providing
light during the antarctic night, was provided. A big porch provided
means of entrance and egress. This porch was fitted with double doors
to prevent any cold air or snow being driven into the house when it
was opened.

Captain Barrington and Captain Hazzard each had a small hut, another
was shared by Doctor Gregg and the first officer, while the boys and
the professor occupied still another. The engineer and Ben Stubbs were
placed in charge of the main hut, in which the twelve men who were to
be left behind after the Brutus sailed north, were to find quarters.

When everything had been fixed in position, a task that took more than
a week, the work of unloading the provisions and supplies was begun.
The cases which did not hold perishable goods, or ones likely to be
affected by cold, were piled about the walls of the main hut as an
additional protection against snow and cold. The glass jars of fruit
and others of the supplies were stored inside the main hut, where they
could be kept from freezing. The various scientific instruments of the
expedition were stored in the huts occupied by Captain Barrington and
Captain Hazzard. These huts, as well as the one occupied by the boys
and Professor Sandburr, were all warmed by a system of hot-air pipes
leading from the main stove in the hut. Specially designed oil heaters
were also provided. A short distance away the aeroplane shed or
"hanger" was set up.

The coal, wood, oil and fuel the expedition would need in its long
sojourn were stored in a canvas and wood shelter some distance from
the main camp, so as to avoid any danger of fire. When all was
completed and big steel stays passed above the roofs of the huts to
keep them in position, even in the wildest gale, a tall flag-pole,
brought for the purpose, was set up and the Stars and Stripes hoisted.

While all these preparations had been going on, the boys and the
professor had made several hunting trips over the ice and snow in the
neighborhood of the camp. Some little distance back from the barrier
they had been delighted to find two small lakes, connected by a narrow
neck of water, which they promptly christened Green Lake. The water in
these was warmish, and the professor said he had little doubt it was
fed by volcanic springs.

The lakes swarmed with seals, and the boys' first seal hunt was an
experience they were not likely to forget. Armed with light rifles,
they and the professor set out for the seal grounds one morning on
which the thermometer recorded seven degrees below zero. All wore
their antarctic suits, however, and none felt the cold, severe as it
was.

As they neared the seal grounds the soft-eyed creatures raised their
heads and regarded them with mild astonishment. A few of them dived
into the waters of Green Lake, but the rest stood their ground.

"There is one with a young one," shouted the professor, suddenly. "I
must have it. I will tame it."

He dashed upon the mother seal, who promptly raised herself up and
struck the professor a violent blow with her fin.

The professor was caught off his guard and, losing his footing,
staggered back several steps. As he did so Frank cried a note of
warning. The steep icy bank above Green Lake was below the scientist's
heel. Before he had time to heed the boys' warning cry the professor,
with a yell of amazement, slid backwards into the green pool, from
which he emerged, blowing and puffing as if he had been a seal.
Luckily, the water was warm and he suffered no serious consequences,
but thereafter he was much more careful.

The boys could not bring themselves to kill the seals that seemed so
gentle and helpless, but some of the men acted as butchers later on,
for seal meat is a valuable ration in the antarctic.

"Wait till you lads encounter a leopard seal, or a sea elephant," said
Captain Hazzard, when the boys confided their scruples to him.

"Sea leopards!" exclaimed Frank.

"Sea elephants!" echoed Harry.

"Yes, certainly," laughed the captain. "The creatures are well named,
too. The sea leopard is as formidable as his namesake on land. The sea
elephant is his big brother in size and ferocity."

"I shall give them a wide berth," said the professor. "That killer
whale was enough for me."

"You will be wise, too," was the rejoinder, and the captain turned to
busy himself with his books and papers, for this conversation occurred
about noon in his hut.

The next day there were good-byes to be said. The polar winter was
near at hand, when the sea for miles beyond the barrier would freeze
solid and it would have been foolhardy for the Brutus, which had
discharged all her coal but that necessary to steam north with, to
have remained longer. She sailed early in the morning, bearing with
her letters to their friends in the north, which the boys could not
help thinking might be the last they would ever write them. Unknown
perils and adventures lay before them. How they would emerge from them
they did not know.

All experienced a feeling of sadness as the ship that had gallantly
towed them into their polar berth lessened on the horizon, and then
vanished altogether in the direction of the north. The Southern Cross
alone remained now, but she was no longer their floating home, most of
her stores and comforts having been removed to the shore. Her boilers
were emptied and piping disconnected in preparation for her sojourn in
the ice.

With so much to be done, however, the adventurers could not long feel
melancholy, even though they knew their letters from home would not
reach them till the arrival of the relief ship late in the next
autumn.

The first duty tackled by Captain Hazzard was to call all the members
of the expedition into the main hut and give them a little talk on the
dangers, difficulties and responsibilities that lay before them. The
men cheered him to the echo when he had finished, and each set about
the duties assigned to him. Ben Stubbs was ordered to set the watches
for the nights and adjust any minor details that might occur to him.

"I want to speak to you boys for a minute," said Captain Hazzard, as
he left the hut and returned to his own.

Wondering what he could have to say to them the boys followed him.

"As you boys know, we are not alone in our anxiety to reach the pole,"
he began. "There is another nation anxious to achieve the glory also.
How much of our plans they have gained possession of, I do not know.
No doubt, not as much as they would have in their possession if the
Jap had not been captured. I am pretty confident that they know
nothing of the treasure ship, for instance. But it is probable that
they will watch us, as they have some suspicion that we are after more
than the pole itself, and have an ulterior object."

"Then you think that the Japanese expedition has landed?" asked Frank.

"They must have, if they made any sort of time," replied Captain
Hazzard. "Our own progress down the coast was very slow, and they have
probably established a camp already."

"Where?"

"That, of course, I have no means of knowing," was the reply. "I
suppose that they are somewhere to the west of us, however. What I
wanted to impress on you, however, is that some time ago a big
dirigible was purchased abroad, and it is believed that it was for the
use of the Japanese polar expedition, as it had means provided
specially to warm the gas and prevent its condensation in extremely
cold climates."

The boys nodded, but did not interrupt.

"It would be an easy matter for them to scout in such a ship and maybe
discover our camp," said the captain. "For that reason I want to ask
you boys to set an extra night watch of your own. Nobody else need
know anything about it. I feel that I can rely on you more than any of
the other subordinates of the expedition, excepting Ben Stubbs, and he
is too busy to do everything."

The boys willingly agreed to keep out a watch for any airship that
might appear, although privately they thought it was a bit of extra
caution that was unnecessary.

"I don't see why any one who could keep out of the cold at night,
would want to go scooting around in an airship in the dark for," said
Billy, when they were all seated in their own hut.

"Captain Hazzard knows best," said Frank, shortly. "You and Harry had
better take the first watch tonight, and I and--"

He stopped, puzzled. Who was to take the other watch with him? After
some reflection they decided on asking the captain if a colored man,
who acted as cook, couldn't be placed on to be Frank's companion. He
was the only person they could think of whose duties would permit him
to take the job, as his duties were only to cook for the officers, and
were consequently light.

Moreover, he was a trustworthy man and not likely to gossip if he saw
anything strange. Captain Hazzard readily gave his consent to the
colored man, whose name was Rastus Redwing, being Frank's companion on
the night watch.

"We can have our breakfast cooked by the other man," he said, "and
then all Rastus will have to do will be to prepare lunch and dinner
and extra pay."

But Rastus, when the plan was broached to him, was by no means so
willing.

"Wha' me tramp, tramp, tramp roun' in dat dar ice and snow all de
night time?" he gasped. "Laws a me Massa Frank, wha' kin' of man yo
all tink dese yar darky am?"

"It only means a few hours' more work, and you get double pay for it,"
said Frank.

"Oh-ho, dat alters de circumference ob de question," said Rastus,
scratching his head, when this had been explained to him. "All right,
Massa Frank, yo' count on me at twelve to-night fo' sho."

"Very well," said Frank. "I shall--and see that you are there."

"Ah'll be dar, don' you nebbe fear fo' dat," chuckled the colored man.
"Huh-huh double pay and no brakfus' ter git. Dat's what I calls
LIVIN'--yas, sah."

As Frank, well pleased at having adjusted the business of the night
watches so easily, was striding over the snow-powdered rocks toward
the boys' hut, he heard a sudden disturbance behind the main hut and
loud cries of:

"Help! help!"

The person who was uttering them seemed to be in great distress and
was apparently in dire need of aid.

"It's the professor," shouted Frank, as the cries were repeated.
"Whatever can have happened to him now."

As he spoke, the professor came dashing toward the camp, his arms were
outstretched as if in entreaty, and his long legs going up and down
like piston rods, at such speed was he running.

"Whatever is that caught to his coat tails?" exclaimed Frank, as he
saw that a large, heavy creature of some kind was clinging fast to the
flying professor's garment.




CHAPTER XX.

A MYSTERIOUS LIGHT.


"Take him off,--take him off. If I were not running he'll bite me,"
shrieked the scientist as he sped along.

"Whatever is it?" shouted Frank, regarding the strange sight with
amazement.

"It's a sea-leopard. Ouch!--he bit me then. Shoot him or something,"
screamed the professor, scooting round in circles like a professional
runner; for he knew that if he stopped the creature would surely nip
him hard.

Frank hastily ran into the hut for his rifle and returned in a moment
followed by the others. Half the occupants of the camp were out by
this time to watch the outcome of the professor's quandary.

Frank raised his rifle and took careful aim--or as careful aim as he
could with the professor rushing along at such a pace, but even as the
rifle cracked the professor tripped on a snow hummock and down he
came. The yell he set up echoed back from the naked, rocky crags that
towered at the back of the camp.

"Don't holler so, the creature's dead," cried Frank, as he and the
boys came running up to where the recumbent professor lay howling in
the snow.

"Oh, dear, I do seem to have the worst luck," moaned the scientist.
"First, I'm nearly drowned by a killer whale, then I'm almost pollowed
by a swenguin--no, I mean swallowed by a penguin, and now a sea
leopard attacks me."

As he spoke the professor got to his feet and the dead sea-leopard, as
he called it, fell over on the snow. It was a ponderous creature, much
like a seal, but with huge tusks and a savage expression, even in
death. It was about five feet in length.

"What made it tackle you?" asked Harry.

"I was down by the beach collecting some curious specimens of polar
sea-slugs, when I felt a tug at my coat-tails," said the scientist. "I
looked round and saw this creature glaring at me."

"Why didn't you shoot at it?" asked Billy, noting the outline of the
professor's revolver under his coattail.

"I had placed a specimen of antarctic star-moss in the barrel of my
revolver for safe-keeping, and didn't wish to disturb it," explained
the professor; "so I thought the best thing to do under the
circumstances was to run. I never dreamed the creature would cling
on."

"Well it did, and like a bull-dog, too," said Billy.

"We'll have to be careful and not get snarled up with any
sea-leopards," said Harry, who had been examining the dead animal.
"Look at the monster's tusks."

"Yes, he could make a fine meal off any of you boys," remarked the
professor.

Suddenly he fell on his knees beside the sea-leopard and began
examining it carefully.

"What in the world are you doing, now?" asked Frank.

"I thought I might find a sea-leopard flea," was the response of the
engrossed scientist.

"Ah," he exclaimed, making a sudden dart; "here is one, a beauty, too.
Ah, ha, my fine fellow, no use your wriggling, I have you fast."

As he spoke he drew out one of the bottles of which receptacles his
pockets seemed to be always full, and popped the sea-leopard flea into
it.

"That will be a very valuable addition to science," he said, looking
round triumphantly.

A few days after this incident the polar night began to shut down in
grim earnest. Sometimes for days the boys and the other adventurers
would be confined to the huts. Entertainments were organized and
phonograph concerts given, and, when it was possible to venture out,
hunting trips in a neighboring seal-ground were attempted. All these
things helped to while away the monotony of the long darkness. In the
meantime the commanders of the expedition laid their plans for the
spring campaign, when the boys' aerial dash was to be made.

On one of the milder nights, when Frank and Rastus were on watch,
their first intimation that a strange and mysterious presence shared
their lonely vigil was made manifest. It was Rastus who called Frank's
attention to what was eventually to prove a perplexing puzzle to the
pole hunters.

As the colored man and Frank were pacing outside the huts, keeping
their watch, the negro suddenly gripped the boy's arm.

"Fo' de lub ob goodness, man, wha's dat?" he exclaimed, getting as
pale as it is possible for a negro to become.

"What?" demanded the boy. "I can't see anything."

He stared about him in the gloom.

"Ain't nuffin ter SEE," rejoined Rastus, in a low, awed tone. "But,
hark!"

The negro's ears, sharper than those of the white boy, had caught a
sound that later became audible to Frank.

It was a most peculiar sound.

Coming from no one direction that one could indicate with certainty,
it seemed to fill the whole air with a buzzing noise that beat almost
painfully on the eardrums.

While he gazed about, in perplexity at the phenomenon, Frank suddenly
descried something that almost startled him into an outcry.

In the sky far to the westward and, seemingly, high in the air, there
hovered a bright light!

The next instant it vanished so suddenly as to leave some doubt in the
boy's mind as to whether he had really seen it,--and, if he had, if it
might not have been a star or some other heavenly body.

He turned to his companion.

"Rastus, did you see a light in the sky there a second ago?"

The boy pointed in the direction in which the mystery had appeared.

"A light--?" repeated the puzzled negro, still scared at the buzzing
sound, which had now ceased. "You done say a light--a reg'lar LIGHT,
light?"

"Yes, yes," impatiently; "did you see one?"

"No, sah, no, indeedy," was the indignant response; "ah don' see no
lights."

"That's strange," said Frank, half to himself. "You are quite sure?"

Again the negro denied all knowledge of having beheld such a thing.

"Ef ah'd done seed anyfing lak dat," he declared; "ah'd hev bin
skedaddlin' fer ther hut lak er chicken wif a hungry coon afta'
it,--yas, sah."

Thoroughly convinced that his imagination had played him a trick,
Frank did not mention the incident, to his fellow adventurers and soon
almost forgot it. It was recalled to his mind in a startling manner a
few nights later.

This time it was Rastus that saw the strange light, and the yell that
he set up alarmed the entire camp.

"Oh, Lordy--oo-o-o-o-ow, Lawdy!" he shrieked; "ah done see a ghosess
way up in dar sky, Massa Frank!"

Frank seized the black by the arm, as he started to run.

"What do you mean, you big black coward," he exclaimed. "What's the
matter with you?"

"Oh, dat dar light," wailed Rastus. "Dat ain't no human light dat
ain't; dat light's a way up in dar sky. It's a polar ghosess, dat's
wha' dat is--de ghos' ob some dead sailor."

"Don't talk nonsense," sharply ordered Frank, as the others, hastily
bundled in their furs, came rushing out.

"Whatever is the matter?" demanded Captain Hazzard, gazing sternly at
the trembling negro.

"Oh, Massa Hazzard, ah done see a ghos' light in dar sky," he yelled.

"Silence, sir, and stop that abominable noise. Frank, what do you know
about this?"

"Only that I really believe he saw such a thing, sir."

"What, a light in the sky!" echoed Captain Barrington. "Did you see
it, too?"

"Not to-night, sir."

"Then it has appeared before?"

"Yes, it has," was the reply.

"But you said nothing of it," exclaimed Captain Hazzard.

"No; I thought it might be imagination. It appeared for such a short
time that I could not be certain if it was not a trick of the
imagination."

"Well, it begins to look as if Rastus is telling the truth," was the
officer's comment.

"Yas, sah, yas sah, I'se tellin' de truf, de whole truf, and
everything but de truf," eagerly stuttered the negro.

"Where did you first see the light?" demanded Captain Hazzard.

"Right ober de grable (gable) ob de ruuf ob de big hut," was the
reply.

"That's about where I saw it," burst out Frank.

"Was it stationary?" asked Captain Hazzard.

"Yas, sah; it's station was airy, dat's a fac'," grinned Rastus. "It
was high up in de air."

"That's not what I mean, at all," snapped Captain Hazzard. "Was it
moving or standing still?"

"Oh, ah see what yo' mean, Captain Hazzard,--no, sir, der was no
circumlocution ob de objec', in fac', sah, it was standin' still."

"For how long did you watch it?"

"Wall, sah, it jes flash lak de wink ob an eye and den it was gone."

"Possibly it was some sort of antarctic lightning-bug," ventured the
professor, who had been intently listening to the account of the
strange light.

"Hardly likely," smiled Captain Barrington. "Tell us, Rastus, what it
looked most like to you--what did it resemble?"

"Wall, sah, it presembled mos'ly dat big laight what yo' see on a
snortermobile befo' it runs ober you. Yas, sah, Cap't Barranton, dat's
what it looked lak, fo' sho."

"Does that tally with your impression of it, Frank?" asked Captain
Hazzard.

"Yes, sir, Rastus has put it very well. It was more like an automobile
headlight than anything else."

"Well, nobody could be driving an automobile in the sky," put in the
professor, decisively, as if the matter were disposed of in this way
without any more argument being wasted.

"No, but there are other vehicles that are capable of rising above the
earth," spoke Captain Hazzard, thoughtfully.

"For instance--?" breathed Frank, with a half-formed idea of what he
meant.

"For instance, airships," was the quiet reply.

"Airships," exclaimed Captain Barrington. "Then you think---?"

"That we have some very undesirable neighbors at close quarters,"
rejoined Captain Hazzard.




CHAPTER XXI.

A PENGUIN HUNT.


Although, as may be imagined, a closer watch than ever was kept during
the period of darkness, nothing more was seen that winter of the
mysterious light. The dim twilight preceding spring began to appear in
February without there being any recurrence of the mysterious
incident. The coming of the season in which they hoped to accomplish
such great things, found the camp of the adventurers in splendid trim.
Everyone from Captain Hazzard down to the professor's albatross, which
by this time had become quite tame, was in fine health, and there had
been not the slightest trace of illness among the adventurers.

The motor-sledge was put together as soon as the September spring
began to advance, and was found to work perfectly. As it has not been
described in detail hitherto, a few words may be devoted to it at this
point.

It was a contrivance, about twenty feet long by three wide, supported
on hollow "barrels" of aluminum. The sledge itself was formed of a
vanadium steel frame with spruce planking, and was capable of carrying
a load of a thousand pounds at thirty miles an hour over even the
softest snow, as its cylindrical supports did not sink into the snow
as ordinary wheels would have done. The motor was a forty-horse power
automobile machine with a crank-case enclosed in an outer case in
which a vacuum had been created--on the principle of the bottles which
keep liquids cold or warm. In this instance the vacuum served to keep
the oil in the crank-case, which was poured in warm, at an even
temperature. The gasolene tank, which held twenty gallons, was also
vacuum-enclosed, and as an additional precaution the warm gases from
the exhaust were inducted around it, and the space used for storing
extra cans of fuel.

Specially prepared oils and a liberal mixing of alcohol with the
gasolene afforded a safeguard against any sudden freezing of the vital
fluids. The engine was, of course, jacketed, but was air-cooled, as
water circulation would have been impracticable in the polar regions.

The test of the weird-looking contrivance was made on a day in early
spring, when, as far as the eye could reach, a great solid sea of ice
spread to the northward, and to the south only a vast expanse of snowy
level was visible,--with far in the distance the outlines of some
mountains which, in Captain Hazzard's belief, guarded the plateau on
the summit of which perhaps lay the South Pole.

The Southern Cross lay sheathed in ice, and the open sea, through
which she had approached the Great Barrier, was now a solid ocean of
glacial ice. If it did not break up as the spring advanced the
prospect was bad for the adventurers getting out that year, but at
this time they were too engrossed with other projects to give their
ultimate release much thought.

But to return to the motor-sledge. With Frank at the steering wheel in
front and Harry, Billy Barnes, the professor, and Rastus distributed
about its "deck," it was started across the snow, amid a cheer from
the men, without a hitch. So splendidly did it answer that the boys
drove on and on over the white wastes without giving much thought to
the distance they traversed.

With the return of spring, Skua gulls and penguins had become
plentiful and in answer to the professor's entreaties the boys finally
stopped the sledge near a rookery of the latter, in which the queer
birds were busy over the nests. These nests are rough piles of stones,
on which the eggs are laid. Soon the chickens--fuzzy little brown
creatures--appear, and there is a lot of fuss in the rookery; the
penguins getting their families mixed and fighting furiously over each
small, bewildered chick.

It was egg-laying time, however, when the boys rolled up on their
queer motor-sledge to the neighborhood of the breeding ground the
professor had espied. The man of science was off the sledge in a
trice, and while the boys, who wished to examine the motor, remained
with the vehicle, he darted off for the penguins' habitat.

With him went Rastus, carrying a large basket, which the professor had
ordered him to bring in case they needed it to carry back any finds of
interest.

"Perfusser, is dem dar penguins good ter eat?" asked Rastus, as he and
his learned companion strode through the snow to the rookery.

"They are highly esteemed as food," was the reply. "Former expeditions
to the South Pole have eaten them and declare that their flesh is as
good as chicken."

"As good as chicking!" exclaimed Rastus, delightedly. "My, my, yo'
make mah mouf watah. Don' you fink we could ketch one an' hev a
fricassee, perfusser?"

"I am only going in search of eggs and would, of course, like to catch
a flea--a penguin-flea, I mean," said the professor; "and I should not
advise you to meddle with any of the creatures, Rastus."

"Why, dey look as tame as elingfants in de Zoo," protested the colored
man, as he gazed at the penguins, who in turn gazed back at him with
their beady black eyes.

"Yes, and ordinarily they are, but in the breeding season they get
savage if molested, although it is safe enough to walk among them."

"Huh," grunted Rastus to himself; "dis yer perfusser am a fusser fer
sho. Ef dem birds tas' lak chicking ah'm a-goin 'ter ketch one while
he's a huntin' fer fleas and other foolishnesseses."

"What's that you said, Rastus?" inquired the professor, as they began
to thread their way among the piles of stones, each of which marked a
nest.

"Ah said de perfusser am a wonderful man wid his fleas and other
scientificnesses," rejoined the colored man.

"Ah, Rastus," cried the professor, highly flattered; "if I can only
catch the fur-bearing pollywog, then I shall, indeed, have some claim
on fortune and fame, till then--let us hunt penguin eggs."

In the meantime the boys were busy examining the motor. They found
that the specially prepared oil worked perfectly and that, although it
changed color in the low temperature, it showed no disposition to
freeze. The gasolene, too, was successfully kept at the right
temperature by means of the vacuum casing of the tank.

"We could go to the pole itself in this motor-sledge," cried Billy,
enthusiastically.

"How would we pass the mountains?" asked Frank, pointing to the south,
where stood the snowy sentinels guarding the mystery of the Antarctic.

"That's so," agreed Billy, hurriedly. "That's a job for the Golden
Eagle."

"And she's going to do it, too," rejoined Frank, earnestly. "That is
if it is humanly possible."

"You bet she is," began Harry, enthusiastically.

"Hullo, what's happened to the professor now?" he broke off.

Indeed, it seemed that some serious trouble had again overtaken the
luckless naturalist.

"Oh, boys! boys!" came his cries from the direction of the penguin
rookery. "Help! The menguins are plurdering us--I mean the penguins
are murdering us!"

"Fo' de Lawd's sake, come quick!" came a yell in Rastus's tones.
"We're done bin eated alive by dese yar pencilguins."

The rookery lay in a slight depression and was not visible from where
the boys stood, so that they were unable to imagine what was taking
place.

"They are in serious trouble of some sort again," cried Frank. "Come
on, boys, let's go to their rescue."

The motor-sledge was soon speeding over the snow and in a few minutes
was at the edge of the declivity in which lay the penguin rookery.
Gazing down into it the boys could hardly keep from laughing.

Indeed, Billy did burst into loud roars of merriment as he beheld the
strange figures cut by the professor and Rastus, as they strove to
escape the onslaught of the whole colony of penguins, which, with
sharp shrieks of rage were attacking them with their beaks and beating
them with their wings.

[Illustration: "They Strove to Escape the Onslaught of the Penguins."]

"Oh, please, good Mistah Pencilguins, I didn't mean no harm," roared
Rastus, who seemed to think the human-looking birds could understand
him. "Go afta' de perfusser, it was him dat tole me youalls tasted lak
chicking."

"Stop that, you greedy black rascal," retorted the professor, laying
about him with the egg-basket. "If you hadn't tried to grab that
penguin we wouldn't have been in this trouble."

This was true enough. The penguins had not seemed to resent their
nests being interfered with at all, but had gathered round the
invaders with much curiosity. The trouble all originated when Rastus
had sneaked up to a small penguin while the professor was busy
extracting an egg from a nest, and with a cry of:

"Oh, you lubly lilly chickin, ah hev yo fer supper, sho nuff," had
grabbed the creature.

It instantly sent up a loud cry of fear and rage, which its mates
seemed to regard as a battle cry, for they all fell on the rash
invaders of their realm at once.

As the boys dashed down the snowbank into the rookery, with their
revolvers drawn, the professor, with a loud yell, fell backward into a
well-filled nest. He arose with yellow yolks streaming from him and
covered with down, feathers and eggshell, that made him look like a
spectacled penguin himself. Rastus fared no better and was being
beaten and pecked unmercifully when the boys rushed down to the
rescue.

"Fire your revolvers in the air!" cried Frank. "Don't kill the poor
things."

"Fo' goodness sake kill dis big feller dat's a-peckin' mah nose off!"
yelled Rastus, struggling on the ground in the midst of a mass of
broken eggs.

The fusillade that went up from the boys' pistols made the penguins
stop their attack and waddle off in affright, while the professor and
Rastus, both sorry figures, scrambled to their feet and tried to brush
off some of the eggshells and yellow yolks that covered them from head
to foot.

"Come on back to the auto," cried Frank, when he saw they were safe.

"What, aren't you going to kill some of the birds?" demanded the
professor.

"No, certainly not," replied Frank. "What for?"

"Why they attacked us and frightened the life out of me," protested
the professor.

"An' dem pesky pencilguins mos' bited mah nose off," roared Rastus,
rubbing that not over prominent feature.

"Well, you had no business in their rookery, anyhow," rejoined Frank,
unfeelingly. "Why did you go?"

"Why, my dear sir," said the professor, regarding him with sorrowful
egg-stained countenance; "in the interests of science, of course. We
would not have been attacked at all if Rastus had not tried to catch a
penguin. What for, I cannot imagine."

"Why, perfusser, you done say dey tas' lak chickin," ruefully cried
the black man.

"Did I?" exclaimed the man of science. "Well, bless my soul, so I did.
That was very foolish of me. I ought to have known that Rastus would
not be able to resist such an idea."

"Ah dunno 'bout de idah," observed Rastus, as he cranked up the
machine, and the boys and the professor climbed on board; "but ah
couldn' resis' de chicking."




CHAPTER XXII.

THE FLAMING MOUNTAIN.


A few days after the events described in the last chapter, Captain
Hazzard summoned the boys to him and informed them that it was time to
start out and establish "depots" for the storing of food and blankets
as far as was practicable, in the direction of the pole. This was in
order that any parties sent out to explore might not run the chance of
being lost in the antarctic snows without having some place to which
they could retreat. The "depots" were to be marked as rapidly as they
were made with tall bamboo poles, each of which bore a black flag.

The boys pitched in to this occupation with great enthusiasm and, with
the aid of the motor-sledge, soon had established three depots,
covering a radius of some eighty miles from the camp. This work
brought them to the verge of the chain of snow-mountains, beyond whose
white crests they believed lay the pole. Somewhere along the coast
line of this chain of mountains, too, so the lieutenant calculated,
lay the Viking ship, which, in the years that had elapsed since the
whalemen had seen her, must have drifted towards their bases on the
ever-shifting polar currents. For the Great Barrier, solid as it
seems, is not stationary, and many scientists hold that it is subject
to violent earthquakes, caused by the subsidence of great areas of icy
land into the boiling craters of polar volcanoes.

A careful study of the position, in which the whalemen set down they
had spied the ship, and a calculation of the polar drift during the
time that had elapsed from their discovery, had enabled Captain
Hazzard to come, as he believed, very nearly locating the exact
situation of the mysterious vessel.

"Somewhere to the southeast, at the foot of the snow-mountains, I
firmly believe that we shall find her," he said.

It was a week after the establishment of the last depot that the boys
were ready to make their first flight in polar regions. The Golden
Eagle's vacuum tank and crank-case were attached and a supply of
non-freezing oils and gasolene drums, carefully covered with warm
felt, taken on board.

"Your instructions are," were Captain Hazzard's parting words, "to fly
to the southward for a distance of a hundred miles or so, but no
further. You will report the nature of the country and bring back your
observations made with the instruments."

The Golden Eagle, which had been assembled earlier in the spring, was
wheeled out of her shed and, after a brief "grooming," was ready for
her first flight in the antarctic regions.

"It seems queer," observed Frank, "to be flying an aeroplane, that has
been through so many tropical adventures, in the frozen regions of the
south pole."

"It does, indeed," said the professor, who, with Billy Barnes, had
obtained permission to accompany the boys.

Captain Hazzard, himself, would have come but that he and Captain
Barrington had determined to make surveys of the ice surrounding the
Southern Cross, in order to decide whether the ship had a speedy
chance of delivery from her frozen bondage.

The Golden Eagle shot into the icy air at exactly ten minutes past
nine on the morning of the 28th of September. It was a perfect day,
with the thermometer registering 22 above zero. So accustomed had they
become to the bitter cold of the polar winter that even this low
temperature seemed oppressive to the boys, and they wore only their
ordinary leather aviation garments and warm underclothes. A plentiful
supply of warm clothing was, however, taken along in case of need.
Plenty of provisions and a specially contrived stove for melting snow
into water were also carried, as well as blankets and sleeping bags.

The shout of farewell from the sojourners at the camp had hardly died
out before the aviators found themselves flying at a height of three
hundred feet above the frozen wastes. Viewed from that height, the
aspect stretched below them was, indeed, a desolate one. As far as the
eye could reach was nothing but the great whiteness. Had it not been
for the colored snow goggles they wore the boys might have been
blinded by the brilliancy of the expanse, as cases of snow blindness
are by no means uncommon in the Antarctic.

On and on they flew toward the mighty snow mountains which towered
like guardian giants ahead of them. The barograph showed that after
some hours of flying they had now attained a height of two thousand
feet, which was sufficient to enable them to clear the ridge. Viewed
from above, the snow mountains looked like any other mountains. They
were scarred by gullies and valleys in the snow, and only the lack of
vegetation betrayed them as frozen heaps. Perhaps not mountains in the
ordinary sense at all, but simply mighty masses of ice thrown up by
the action of the polar drift.

"Look, look," quavered Billy Barnes, as they cleared the range and
their eyes fell on the expanse beyond.

The boy's exclamation had been called forth by the sight of an immense
mountain far to the southward of them.

From its summit was emerging a cloud of black smoke.

"A volcano!" exclaimed Frank, in blank astonishment.

"Such another as Mount Erebus and Mount Terror, also within the
antarctic circle, but not either of which is as big as this one. I
should imagine," said the professor. "Boys, let us head for it," he
exclaimed; "it must be warm in the vicinity of the crater and perhaps
we may find some sort of life existent there. Even the fur-bearing
pollywog may reside there. Who knows?"

All agreed, without much argument, that it came within the scope of
their duties to investigate the volcano, and they soon were winging
toward it. As they neared the smoking cone they observed that its
sides were formed of some sort of black stone, and with that, mingled
with the smoke that erupted from its mouth, came an occasional burst
of flame.

"It's in eruption," gasped Billy. "We'd better not get too near to
it."

"I apprehend no danger," said the professor. "Both Scott and
Shackleton and our own Wilkes examined the craters of Mounts Erebus
and Terror, when steam and flames were occasionally spurting from
them, without suffering any bad consequences."

Acting on the professor's advice the aeroplane was grounded at a point
some distance from the summit of the mountain, on a small flat
plateau. The warmth was perceptible, and some few stunted bushes and
trees clung to the sides of the flaming mountain. The professor was
delighted to find, flitting among the vegetation, a small fly with
pink and blue wings, which he promptly christened the Sanburritis
Antarcticitis Americanus. He netted it without difficulty and popped
it into a camphor bottle and turned, with the boys, to regarding the
mountain.

"Let's climb it and examine the crater," exclaimed Frank, suddenly,
the instinct of the explorer strong in him.

"Bully," cried Billy; "I'm on."

"And me," exploded Harry.

"I should dearly love to," spoke the professor; "perhaps we can
discover some more strange insects at the summit."

The climb was a tedious one, even with the aid of the rope they had
brought with them from the Golden Eagle; and with which part of the
party hauled the others over seemingly impassable places. At last,
panting, and actually perspiring in the warm air, they stood on the
lip of the crater and gazed down.

It was an awe-inspiring sight.

The crater was about half-a-mile across the top, and its rocky sides
glowed everywhere with the glare of the subterranean fires. A reek of
sulphurous fumes filled the air and made the adventurers feel dizzy.
They, therefore, worked round on the windward side of the crater, and
after that felt no ill consequences.

For a long time they stood regarding the depths from which the heavy
black smoke rolled up.

"There's no danger of an eruption, is there?" asked Billy, somewhat
apprehensively.

"I don't apprehend so," rejoined the professor. "A survey of the sides
of the crater convinces me that it is many years since the volcano was
active."

"It is a wonderful feeling to think that we are the first human beings
who have ever seen it," exclaimed Frank, impulsively.

"It is, indeed," agreed the professor. "This is a great discovery and
we must take possession of it in the name of the United States. Let us
call it Mount Hazzard in commemoration of this expedition."

And so with a cheer the great antarctic volcano was named in honor of
the leader of the expedition.

At the foot of the flaming mountain, originated no doubt by the
warmth, were numerous large lakes filled with water of a deep greenish
blue hue.

"I wonder if there aren't some fish in those lakes?" wondered the
professor, gazing at the bodies of water so far below them. "At any
rate there may be some kinds of creatures there that are very
uncommon. Conditions such as they must exist under would make them
unlike any others on earth, provided the waters are inhabited."

"It's easy enough to see," said Frank.

"How so?"

"We can clamber down the mountain side and get in the aeroplane and
fly down to examine the lakes," said the boy.

"Bless my soul, that's so," ejaculated the man of science. "Do you
know, for a moment I had quite forgotten how it was possible to get
here. That is a wonderful machine that you boys have there."

The climb down the mountain side was almost more difficult and
dangerous than the ascent, but at last all, even the professor, were
once more at the side of the Golden Eagle. They were soon on board,
and in long spirals, Frank dropped to the earth, landing not far from
the edge of one of the small lakes.

"How curiously honeycombed the rocks are," exclaimed Frank, as they
got out of the craft.

Indeed the face of the cliff that towered above the lakes did present
a singular appearance, there being myriads of holes in its face at a
height of a few inches above the surface of the water.

"Doubtless some freak of the volcanic nature of the earth hereabouts,"
explained the professor; "but they do, indeed, look curious."

The water of the lake, on being tested, was found to be quite fresh
and agreeable to the taste though it was warmish and seemed to have an
admixture of iron in it. All about them--strangest freak of all--small
geysers of hot water bubbled, sending up clouds of steam into the air.

"This is like an enchanted land," was Billy's comment, as he gazed
about him. Indeed, what with the towering black mountain above them
with its perpetual cloud of smoke hovering above its crest, the green
lakes of warm water and the bubbling, steaming geysers, it did seem
like another world than ours.

Some time was occupied by a thorough investigation of the small lake
and the boys and their scientific companion then advanced on a larger
one that lay at some distance.

"Do you think it is wise to go so far from the aeroplane?" asked
Harry.

"Why, there's nothing here that could attack us," the professor was
beginning, when he stopped short suddenly with an exclamation.

"Look there!" he exclaimed, pointing down at the ground. "A human
track."

The boys looked and saw the imprint of a foot!

Yet, on inspection, it was unlike a human foot and seemed more like
the track of a bear. Several other prints of a similar nature became
visible now that they examined the spongy soil carefully.

"Whatever do you think it is?" Frank asked of the professor, who was
examining the imprints with some care.

"I don't know, my dear boy," he replied. "It looks like the foot of a
bear, and yet it appears to be webbed as if it might be that of some
huge water animal."

"Yes, but look at the size of it," argued Billy. "Why, the animal
whose foot that is must be an immense creature."

"It's certainly strange," mused the professor, "and suggests to me
that we had better be getting back to our aeroplane."

"You think it is dangerous to remain here, then?" asked Harry, with
some dismay.

"I do, yes," was the naturalist's prompt reply. "I do not know what
manner of animal it can be that left that track, and I know the tracks
of every known species of mammal."

"Perhaps some hitherto unknown creature made it," suggested Billy.

"That's just what I think, my boy," was the reply. "I have, as I said,
not the remotest conception of what sort of a creature it could be,
but I have an idea from the size of that track that it must be the
imprint of a most formidable brute."

"Might it not be some prehistoric sort of creature like the mammoths
of the north pole or the dinosauras, or huge flying-lizard?" suggested
Frank.

"I'm inclined to think that that is what the creature is," rejoined
the scientist. "It would be most interesting to remain here and try to
get a specimen, but in the position we are in at present we should be
cut off from the aeroplane in case an attack came from in front of
us."

"That's so," agreed Frank. "Come on, boys, let's get a move on. We can
come back here with heavy rifles some day, and then we can afford to
take chances. I don't like the idea of facing what are possibly
formidable monsters with only a pistol."

"My revolver can--," began Billy, drawing the weapon in question--when
he stopped short.

The faces of all blanched as they, too, noted the cause of the
interruption.

A harsh roar had suddenly filled the air, booming and reverberating
against the gloomy cliffs like distant thunder.

Suddenly Billy, with a shout that was half a scream, called attention
to the holes they had noticed at the foot of the acclivity.

"Look, look at that!" he chattered, his teeth clicking like castanets
with sheer terror.

"We are lost!" shouted the professor, starting back with blanched
cheeks.

From the strange holes they had previously noticed at the foot of the
cliffs, dozens of huge creatures of a form and variety unknown to any
in the party, were crawling and flopping into the lake.

That their intentions were hostile was evident. As they advanced in a
line that would bring them between the boys and their aeroplane, they
emitted the same harsh, menacing roar that had first started the
adventurers.

"Run for your lives," shouted Frank, as the monsters cleaved the
water, every minute bringing them nearer.




CHAPTER XXIII.

ADRIFT ABOVE THE SNOWS.


"Whatever are they?" gasped Billy, as they ran for the aeroplane.

"Prehistoric monsters," rejoined the professor, who was almost out of
breath.

The next minute he stumbled on a bit of basalt and fell headlong. Had
it not been for this accident they could have gained the aeroplane in
time, but, as it was, the brief space it took to aid the scientist to
his feet gave the creatures of the cliff a chance to intercept the
little party.

As the creatures drew themselves out of the green warm water of the
lake with hideous snarls the boys saw that the animals were great
creatures that must have weighed several hundred pounds each and were
coated with shaggy hair. Their heads and bodies were shaped not unlike
seals except that they had huge tusks; but each monster had two short
legs in front and a pair of large flippers behind. Their appearance
was sufficiently hideous to alarm the most callous venturer into the
Antarctic.

"We've got to make the aeroplane," exclaimed Frank, "come on, get your
guns out and fire when I give the word. If we can only kill a few of
them perhaps the rest will take fright."

"A good idea," assented the professor producing his revolver, a weapon
that might have proved fatal to a butterfly, but certainly would not
be of any effect against the shaggy foes they now faced.

"Fire!" cried Frank, when the others had their heavy magazine weapons
ready.

A volley of lead poured into the ranks of the monsters and several of
them, with horribly human shrieks, fled wounded toward the lake. A
strong sickening odor of musk filled the air as the creatures bled.

But far from alarming the rest of the monsters the attack seemed to
render them ten times more savage than before. With roars of rage they
advanced toward the boys, making wonderful speed on their legs and
flippers.

"Let 'em have it again," shouted Frank as he noted with anxiety that
the first fusillade had been a failure, the rough coats and thick hide
of the monsters deflecting the bullets.

Once more the adventurers emptied their pistols, but the shaggy coats
of the great creatures still seemed to prevent the bullets doing any
serious injury.

The boys' position was ominous indeed. An order from Frank to reload
resulted in the discovery that he alone of any of the party had a belt
full of cartridges; the others had all used up the few they had
carried.

"We're goners sure," gasped Billy as the creatures hesitated before
another scattering discharge of bullets, but still advanced, despite
the fact that this time two were killed. Suddenly, however, their
leader with a strange cry threw his head upward and seemed to sniff at
the air as if in apprehension.

At the same instant a slight trembling of the ground on which the
adventurers stood was perceptible.

"It's an earthquake," cried Billy, recollecting his experience in
Nicaragua.

With wild cries the monsters all plunged into the lake. They seemed to
be in terror. Behind them they left several of their wounded, the
latter making pitiful efforts to reach the water.

"Whatever is going to happen?" cried Billy in dismay, at the animals'
evident terror of some mysterious event that was about to transpire,
and the now marked disturbance of the earth.

As he spoke, the earth shook violently once more and a rumbling sound
like subterranean thunder filled the air.

"It's the mountain!" shouted the professor, who had been gazing about,
"it's going to erupt."

From the crater they had explored there were now rolling up great
masses of bright, yellow smoke in sharp contrast to the dark vapors
that had hitherto poured from it. A mighty rumbling and roaring
proceeded from its throat as the smoke poured out, and vivid, blue
flames shot through the sulphurous smother from time to time.

"We've no time to lose," cried Frank, "come on, we must get to the
aeroplane in a hurry."

They all took to their heels over the trembling ground, not stopping
to gaze behind them. The monsters had all disappeared, and as they had
not been seen to re-enter their holes they were assumed to be hiding
at the bottom of the lake.

As the boys gained the aeroplane and clambered in, Frank uttered an
exclamation:

"Where's the professor?"

In a few seconds they espied him carefully bending over the dead body
of one of the slain monsters several yards away.

"Come on, professor," they shouted, "there's no time to lose."

"One second and I have him," the scientist called back.

At the same instant he made a dart at the dead creature's shaggy fur
and appeared to grasp something. He hastily drew out a bottle and
dropped whatever he had seized into it and then started leaping and
bounding toward the aeroplane, his long legs looking like stilts as he
advanced over the uneven ground.

He was just in time.

As the aeroplane left the ground the water in the lakes became
violently agitated and steam arose from fissures in the mountain side.
Flames shot up to a considerable height above the crater and a torrent
of black lava began to flow toward the lakes, falling into them with a
loud hissing sound that was audible to the boys, even after they had
put many miles between themselves and the burning mountain.

"That will be the last of those monsters, I expect," remarked Harry as
they flew steadily northward.

"I don't know," observed the professor, "they may have caves under
water where they can keep cool. They evidently knew what to expect
when they felt the first rumblings and shaking of the earth and must
have had previous experience. I guess I was mistaken in thinking the
volcano inactive."

"It was a piece of great good luck for us that the eruption came when
it did," said Frank.

"It was a terrific one," commented Billy.

The professor laughed.

"Terrific," he echoed, "why, my boy, you ought to see a real eruption.
This was nothing. See, the smoke is already dying down. It is over."

"Well, it may not have been a big one, but you were in a mighty hurry
to get to the aeroplane," said Billy with a grin.

"That was so that I could get my volcano monster's flea back safe and
sound," exclaimed the man of science. "See here."

He took from his pocket and held up a small bottle.

"Look there," he exclaimed in triumph.

"Well," said the others, who, all but Frank, who was steering, were
regarding the naturalist.

"Well," he repeated somewhat querulously, "don't you see it?"

"See what?" asked Billy, after a prolonged scrutiny of the bottle.

"Why, the flea, the little insect I caught in the shaggy fur of the
volcano monster?"

"No," cried both boys simultaneously.

The professor gazed at the bottle in a puzzled way.

"Bless my soul, you are right," he exclaimed, angrily, "the little
creature eluded me. Oh, dear, this is a bitter day for science. I was
in such a hurry to pop my specimen into the bottle that I held him
carelessly and he evidently hopped away. Oh, this is a terrible, an
irreparable, loss."

Although the boys tried to comfort him they could not. He seemed
overcome by grief.

"Cheer up," said Billy at length, "remember there is always the
fur-bearing pollywog to be captured."

"Ah, yes," agreed the professor, "but a bug in the hand is worth two
in the air."

As they talked, there suddenly came a loud explosion from the engine
and two of the cylinders went out of commission. The speed of the
aeroplane at once decreased and she began to drop.

The dismay of the boys may be imagined. They were several miles from
the camp and below them was nothing but the desolate expanse of the
snow wastes that lay at the foot of the barrier range.

"Shall we have to go down?" asked Billy.

"Nothing else to do," said Frank with a grave face, "there's something
wrong with the engine and we can't repair it up here. If we were not
in this rarified atmosphere we could fly on the cylinders that are
firing all right, but this atmosphere would not support us."

"Do you think it is anything serious?" asked the professor.

"I can't tell yet," was the grave reply, "that explosion sounded like
a back-fire and that may be all that's the matter. In such a case we
can drain the crank case and put in fresh oil; for if it was really a
back-fire it was most likely caused by 'flooding.'"

Ten minutes later they landed on the firm, hard snow and lost no time
in getting things in shape to spend the night where they were; for it
was unlikely that repairs could be effected in time for them to fly
back to the camp before dark. The canvas curtains at the sides of the
aeroplane's body were drawn up, forming a snug tent. The stove was set
going and soup and canned meats and vegetables warmed and eaten by the
light of a lantern.

In the meantime Frank had discovered that the breakdown had been
caused by a defect in the ignition apparatus which it would take some
time to repair. Both he and Harry went to work on it after supper,
however, and by midnight they had it adjusted.

They were just preparing to turn in, the professor and Billy having
wrapped themselves in their blankets some time before, when a sudden
sound, breaking on the stillness of the Antarctic night, made them
pause. Both boys strained their ears intently and the sound came once
more.

This time there was no mistaking it.

It was the same sound to which Rastus had called Frank's attention the
night they were on watch outside the hut.

Pulling the curtain open, the boys gazed out, determined to unravel
the mystery once and for all. The night was perfectly still except for
the buzzing noise, and a bright moon showed them the snow lying white
and undisturbed about them.

The sound did not proceed from the ground, that was evident, but from
the air. The atmosphere seemed filled with it.

"What can it be?" exclaimed Harry.

"Look--look there!" shouted Frank, at the same instant clutching his
brother's arm in his excitement.

Both boys gazed upward and as they did so a dark, shadowy form passed
above them far overhead. For an instant a brilliant light gleamed from
it and then it vanished, going steadily eastward with the strange
thrumming sound growing fainter as it receded.

The boys looked at each other in amazement and the words of Captain
Hazzard flashed across Frank's mind.

"WE HAVE SOME VERY UNDESIRABLE NEIGHBORS AT CLOSE QUARTERS," the
captain had said. Undoubtedly he was right.

"What did you make it out for?" asked Harry at length.

"A dirigible and no small one," was the reply, "and you?"

"Same here. You can't mistake the sound of an airship's engine. The
question is what is the explanation of it all?"

"Simple."

"Simple, well I--"

"That aeroplane is the one which was bought in Europe. It is specially
provided with radiators which electrically heat its gas, allowing it
to navigate in these regions without fear of the gas condensing and
causing the ship to descend."

"Yes, but whose is it? What are they doing in it?"

"The first question is easy to answer. That ship is the ship of the
rival expedition."

"The Japanese one, you mean?"

"That's it. It must have been the light of it that I saw during the
winter. I suppose they were experimenting with it then."

"Experimenting--what for?"

"For the work they are using it on to-night."

"And that is?"

"To forestall us in the discovery of the Viking ship and the South
Pole."




CHAPTER XXIV.

SWALLOWED BY A CREVASSE.


The early morning following the discovery of the night trip of the
dirigible saw the Golden Eagle rising into the chill air and winging
her way to the camp. The boys, as soon as they descended, hastened to
Captain Hazzard's hut and detailed their adventures. As may be
supposed, while both the leader of the expedition and the captain of
the Southern Cross were deeply interested in the account of the
flaming mountain and the prehistoric seal-like creatures, they were
more deeply concerned over the boys' sighting of the airship.

"It means we have earnest rivals to deal with," was Captain Hazzard's
comment, "we must set about finding the Viking ship at once. The
search will not take long, for if she is not somewhere near where I
have calculated she ought to be it would be waste of time to seek her
at all."

Full of excitement at the prospect of embarking on the search for the
ship, before long the boys dispersed for breakfast only to gather
later on in Captain Hazzard's hut. The officer informed them that they
were to fly to the position he indicated the next day and institute a
thorough search for the lost craft. The Golden Eagle was to carry her
wireless and a message was to be flashed to the camp's wireless
receiving station if important discoveries were made.

In the event of treasure being found, the boys were to at once
"wireless" full details and bearings of the find and a relay of men
and apparatus for saving the treasure would be sent from the ship to
their aid on the motor-sledge. In the event of their not discovering
the Viking ship they were to spend not more than three days on the
search, wirelessing the camp at the end of the third day for further
instructions.

The rest of that day was spent in putting the Golden Eagle's wireless
in working order and stretching the long "aerials" above her upper
plane. The instruments were then tested till they were in tune for
transmitting messages from a long distance. The apparatus, after a
little adjustment, was found to work perfectly.

Captain Hazzard warned the boys that, in the event of the rival
expedition discovering them, they were on no account to resort to
violence but to "wireless" the camp at once and he would decide on the
best course to pursue.

"But if they attack us?" urged Frank.

"In that case you will have to defend yourselves as effectively as
possible till aid arrives," said the commander.

Early the next day, with a plentiful supply of cordite bombs and
dynamite on board for blasting the Viking ship free of the ice casing
which it was to be expected surrounded her, the Golden Eagle soared
away from the camp.

The boys were off at last on the expedition they had longed for. The
professor accompanied them with a formidable collection of nets and
bottles and bags. He had had prepared a lot of other miscellaneous
lumber which it had been explained to him he could not transport on an
aeroplane and which he had therefore reluctantly left behind. The
engine worked perfectly and Frank anticipated no further trouble from
it.

As they sped along Harry from time to time tested the wireless and
sent short messages back to the camp. It worked perfectly and the
spark was as strong as if only a few miles separated airship and camp.
Nor did there seem to be any weakening as the distance between the two
grew greater.

They passed high above snow-barrens and seal-rookeries and colonies of
penguins, the inhabitants of which latter cocked their heads up
inquiringly at the big bird flying by far above them. Their course
carried them to the eastward and as they advanced the character of the
scenery changed. What were evidently bays opened up into the land and
some of them seemed to run back for miles, cutting deep into the many
ranges that supported the plateau of the interior on which they had
found the volcano.

These bays or inlets were ice covered but it was easy to see that with
the advance of summer they would be free of ice. At noon, Frank landed
the aeroplane and made an observation. It showed him they were still
some distance from the spot near which Captain Hazzard believed the
Viking ship was imprisoned. After a hasty lunch, cooked on the stove,
the aeroplane once more ascended and kept steadily on her course till
nightfall.

As dark set in, the boys found themselves at a spot in which the water
that lapped the foot of the great Barrier washed--or would when the
ice left it--at the very bases of the mountains, which here were no
more than mere hills. They were cut into in all directions by deep
gulches into which during the summer it was evident the sea must
penetrate.

"We are now not more than one hundred and fifty miles from the spot in
which Captain Hazzard believes the ship is ice-bound," announced Frank
that night as they turned in inside the snugly curtained chassis.
Sleep that night was fitful. The thought of the discovery of which
they might be even then on the brink precluded all thought of sound
sleep. Even the usually calm professor was excited. He hoped to find
some strange creatures amid the mouldering timbers of the Viking ship
if they ever found her.

Dawn found the adventurers up and busily disposing of breakfast. As
soon as possible the Golden Eagle rose once more and penetrated
further into the unknown on her search. Several wireless messages were
sent out that day and the camp managed to "catch" every one of them.
The wireless seemed to work better in that dry, cold air than in the
humid atmosphere of the northern climes.

The character of the country had not changed. Deep gullies still
scarred the white hills that fringed the barrier, but not one of these
yielded the secret the boys had come so far to unravel.

"I'm beginning to think this is a wild goose chase," began Billy, as
at noon Frank landed, took his bearings, and then announced that they
were within a few minutes of the spot in which the ship ought to lie.

"She seems as elusive as the fur-bearing pollywog," announced the
professor.

"You still believe there is such a creature?" asked Harry.

"Professor Tapper says so," was the reply, "I must believe it. I will
search everywhere till I can find it."

"I think he was mistaken," said Billy, "I can't imagine what such a
creature could look like."

"You may think he was mistaken," rejoined the professor, "but I do
not. Professor Tapper is never wrong."

"But suppose you cannot find such an animal?"

"If I don't find one before we leave the South Polar regions, then,
and not till then, will I believe that he was mistaken," returned the
man of science with considerable dignity.

This colloquy took place while they were getting ready to reascend
after a hasty lunch and was interrupted by a sudden cry from Frank,
who had been gazing about while the others talked.

"What's that sticking above the snow hill yonder?" he exclaimed,
pointing to a spot where a deep gully "valleyed" the hills at a spot
not very far from where they stood.

"It looks like the stump of a tree," observed the professor, squinting
through his spectacles.

"Or-or-the mast of a ship," quavered Harry, trembling with excitement.
"It's the Viking ship--hurray!"

"Don't go so fast," said Frank, though his voice shook, "it may be
nothing but a plank set up there by some former explorer, but it
certainly does look like the top of a mast."

"The best way is to go and see," suggested the professor, whose calm
alone remained unruffled.

The distance between the boys and the object that had excited their
attention was not considerable and the snow was smooth and unmarked by
impassable gullies. The professor's suggestion was therefore at once
adopted and the young adventurers were soon on their way across the
white expanse which luckily was frozen hard and not difficult to
traverse.

The boys all talked in excited tones as they made their way forward.
If the object sticking above the gully's edge proved actually to be a
mast it was in all probability a spar of the ship they sought. The
thought put new life into every one and they hurried forward over the
hard snow at their swiftest pace.

The professor was in the lead, talking away at a great rate, his long
legs opening and shutting like scissor blades.

"Perhaps I may find a fur-bearing pollywog after all," he cried; "if
you boys have found your ship surely it is reasonable to suppose that
I can find my pollywog?"

"Wouldn't you rather find a Viking ship filled with gold and ivory,
and frozen in the ice for hundreds of years, than an old fur-bearing
pollywog?" demanded Billy.

"I would not," rejoined the professor with much dignity; "the one is
only of a passing interest to science and a curious public. The other
is an achievement that will go ringing down the corridors of time
making famous the name of the man who braved with his life the rigors
of the South Polar regions to bring back alive a specimen of the
strange creature whose existence was surmised by Professor Thomas
Tapper, A.M., F.R.G.S., M.Z., and F.O.X.I.--Ow! Great Heavens!"

As the professor uttered this exclamation an amazing thing happened.

The snow seemed to open under his feet and with a cry of real terror
which was echoed by the boys, who a second before had been listening
with somewhat amused faces to his oratory, he vanished as utterly as
if the earth had swallowed him--which it seemed it had indeed.

"The professor has fallen into a crevasse!" shouted Frank, who was the
first of the group to realize what had occurred.

Billy and Harry were darting forward toward the hole in the snow
through which the scientist had vanished when a sharp cry from the
elder boy stopped them.

"Don't go a step further," he cried.

"Why not,--the professor is down that hole," cried Harry, "we must do
something to save him."

"You can do more by keeping cool-headed than any other way," rejoined
Frank. "A crevasse, into one of which the professor has fallen, is not
'a hole' as you call it, but a long rift in the earth above which snow
has drifted. Sometimes they are so covered up that persons can cross
in safety, at other times the snow 'bridge' gives way under their
weight and they are precipitated into the crevasse itself,--an
ice-walled chasm."

"Then we may never get the professor out," cried Billy in dismay. "How
deep is that crevasse likely to be?"

"Perhaps only ten or twenty feet. Perhaps several hundred," was the
alarming reply.




CHAPTER XXV.

THE VIKING'S SHIP.


Suddenly, from the depths as it seemed, there came a faint cry.

It was the professor's voice feebly calling for aid. Frank hastened
forward but dared not venture too near the edge of the hole through
which the scientist had vanished.

"Are you hurt, professor?" he cried, eagerly, and hung on the answer.

"No," came back the reply, "not much, but I can't hold on much
longer."

"Are you at the bottom of the chasm?"

"No, I am clinging to a ledge. It is very slippery and if I should
fall it would be to the bottom of the rift, which seems several
hundred feet deep."

Even in his extreme danger the professor seemed cool and Frank took
heart from him.

Luckily they had with them a coil of rope brought from the Golden
Eagle for the purpose of lowering one of their number over the edge of
the gulf onto the Viking ship--if the mast they had seen proved to be
hers.

It was the work of a moment to form a loop in this and then Frank
hailed the professor once more.

"We are going to lower a rope to you. Can you grasp it?"

"I think so. I'll try," came up the almost inaudible response.

The rope was lowered over the edge of the rift and soon to their joy
the boys felt it jerked this way and that as the professor caught it.

"Tie it under your arms," enjoined Frank.

"All right," came the answer a few seconds later. "Haul away. I can't
endure the cold down here much longer."

The three boys were strong and they pulled with all their might, but
for a time it seemed doubtful if they could lift the professor out of
the crevasse as, despite his leanness, he was a fairly heavy man. He
aided them, however, by digging his heels in the wall of the crevasse
as they hoisted and in ten minutes' time they were able to grasp his
hands and pull him into safety.

A draught from the vacuum bottle containing hot coffee which Frank
carried soon restored the professor and he was able to describe to
them how, as he was walking along, declaiming concerning the
fur-bearing pollywog, the ground seemed to suddenly open under his
feet and he felt himself tumbling into an abyss of unknown depth.

As the chasm narrowed, he managed to jam himself partially across the
rift and in this way encountered an ice-coated ledge. One glance down
showed him that if he had not succeeded in doing this his plunge would
have ended in death, for the crevasse seemed to exist to an unknown
depth beneath the surface of the earth.

"And now that I am safe and sound," said the professor, "let us hurry
on. The fall hasn't reduced my eagerness to see the wrecked Viking
ship."

"But the crevasse, how are we to pass that?" asked Frank.

"We must make a detour to the south," said the professor, "I noticed
when I was down there that the rift did not extend more than a few
feet in that direction. In fact, had I dared to move I might have
clambered out."

The boys, not without some apprehension, stepped forward in
continuance of their journey, and a few minutes later, after they had
made the detour suggested by the professor, realized to their joy that
they had passed the dangerous abyss in safety.

"And now," shouted Frank, "forward for the Viking ship or--"

"Or a sell!" shouted the irrepressible Billy.

"Or a sell," echoed Frank.

With fast beating hearts they dashed on and a few minutes later stood
on the edge of the mastmarked abyss, gazing downward into it.

As they did so a shout--such a shout as had never disturbed the great
silences of that region--rent the air--

"The Viking ship at last. Hurray!"

The gully was about thirty feet deep and at the bottom of it, glazed
with the thick ice that covered it, lay a queerly formed ship with a
high prow,--carved like a raven's head.

IT WAS THE VIKING SHIP.

After all the centuries that had elapsed since she went adrift she was
at last found, and to be ransacked of the treasure her dead sailors
had amassed.

The first flush of the excitement over the discovery quickly passed
and the boys grew serious. The problem of how to blast the precious
derelict out of the glassy coat of ice without sinking her was a
serious one. Frank, after a brief survey, concluded, however, that the
ice "cradle" about her hull was sufficiently thick to hold her steady
while they blasted a way from above to her decks and hold.

It was useless to linger there, as they had not brought the needful
apparatus with them, so they at once started back for the Golden
Eagle. Frank's first care, arrived once more at the aeroplane, was to
send out the good news, and it was received with "wireless acclaim" by
those at Camp Hazzard.

"Will be there in two days by motor-sledge. Commence operations at
once," was the order that was flashed back after congratulations had
been extended. As it was too late to do anything more that night, the
boys decided to commence work on the derelict in the morning. After a
hearty supper they retired to bed in the chassis of the aeroplane, all
as tired out as it is possible for healthy boys to be. Nevertheless,
Frank, who always--as he put it--"slept with one eye open," was
awakened at about midnight by a repetition of the noise of the
mysterious airship.

There was no mistaking it. It was the same droning "burr" they had
heard on the night following their discovery of the flaming mountain.
Waking Harry, the two lads peered upward and saw the stars blotted out
as the shadowy form of the air-ship passed above them--between the sky
and themselves. All at once a bright ray of light shot downward and,
after shifting about over the frozen surface for a time, it suddenly
glared full on to the boys' camp.

Both lads almost uttered a cry as the bright light bathed them and
made it certain that their rivals had discovered their aeroplane; but
before they could utter a word the mysterious craft had extinguished
the search glare and was off with the rapidity of the wind toward the
west.

"They must be scared of us," said Harry at length, after a long
awe-stricken silence.

"Not much, I'm afraid," rejoined Frank, with a woeful smile.

"Well, they hauled off and darted away as soon as they saw us,"
objected Harry.

"I'm afraid that that is no guarantee they won't come back," remarked
Frank, with a serious face.

"You mean that they--"

"Have gone to get reinforcements and attack us," was the instant
reply, "they must have trailed us with the powerful lenses of which
the Japanese have the secret and which are used in their telescopes.
They are now certain that we have found the ship and are coming back.
It's simple, isn't it?"

The professor, when he and Billy awakened in the morning, fully shared
the boys' apprehensions over the nocturnal visitor.

"If they think we have discovered the ship they won't rest till they
have wrested it from us," he said soberly.

"I'm afraid that we are indeed in for serious trouble," said Frank, in
a worried tone. "You see, Captain Hazzard and his men can't get here,
even with the motor-sledge, for two days."

"Well, don't you think we had better abandon the ship and fly back to
the camp?" suggested Billy.

"And leave that ship for them to rifle at their leisure--no," rejoined
Frank, with lips compressed in determination, "we won't do that. We'll
just go ahead and do the best we can--that's all."

"That's the way to talk," approved the professor, "now as soon as you
boys have had breakfast we'll start for the ship, for, from what you
have related, there is clearly no time to be lost."

The thought that their mysterious enemies might return at any time
caused the boys to despatch the meal consisting of hot chocolate,
canned fruit, pemmican, and salt beef, with even more haste than
usual. Before they sat down to eat, however, Frank flashed a message
to the camp telling them of their plight.

"Will start at once," was the reply, "keep up your courage. We are
coming to the rescue."

This message cheered the boys up a good deal and they set out for the
Viking ship with lighter hearts than they had had since the sighting
of the night-flier. They packed with them plenty of stout rope, drills
and dynamite. Harry carried the battery boxes and the rolls of wire to
be used in setting off the charges when they were placed.

Arrived at the edge of the gully, a hole was drilled in the ice and an
upright steel brace, one of the extra parts of the aeroplane, was
imbedded in it as an upright, to which to attach the rope. It was soon
adjusted and Frank, after they had drawn lots for the honor of being
the first on board, climbed down it. He was quickly followed by the
others, but any intention they might have had of exploring the ship at
that time was precluded by the ice that coated her deck with the
accumulation of centuries of drifting in the polar currents.

With the drill several holes were soon bored in the glassy coating and
sticks of dynamite inserted. These were then capped with fulminate of
mercury caps, and Harry climbed the rope to the surface of the narrow
gully with the wires which were to carry the explosive spark. The
others followed, and then, carrying the battery box to which the wires
had been attached, withdrew to what was considered a safe distance.

"Ready?" asked Frank, his hand on the switch, when all had been
adjusted.

"Let 'er go," cried Billy.

There was a click, and a split of blue flame followed by a roar that
shook the ground under their feet. From the gully a great fountain of
ice shot up mingled with smoke.

"I'm afraid I gave her too much," regretted Frank apprehensively, as
the noise subsided and the smoke blew away. "I hope we haven't sunk
her."

"That would be a calamity," exclaimed the professor, "but I imagine
the ice beneath her was too thick to release her, even with such a
heavy charge as you fired."

"Let's hope so," was the rejoinder.

Billy led the others on the rush back to the gulf.

All uttered a cry of amazement as they gazed over its edge.

The explosion had shattered the coating of ice above the vessel's
decks and had also exposed her hold at a spot at which the deck itself
had been blown in.

"I can't believe my eyes," shouted Billy, as he gazed.

"It's there, right enough," gasped Frank, "the old manuscript was
right after all."

As for the professor and Harry, they stood speechless, literally
petrified with astonishment.

Below them, exposed to view, where the deck had been torn away, was
revealed the vessel's hold packed full, apparently, of yellow walrus
ivory and among the tusks there glittered dully bars of what seemed
solid gold.

Frank was the first down the rope. The explosion had certainly done
enough damage, and if the ice "cradle" beneath the vessel's keel had
not been so thick she must have been sunk with the shock of the
detonation. The ice "blanket" that covered her though had been
shattered like a pane of glass--and, with picks thrown down onto the
decks from above the boys soon cleared a path to the door of a sort of
raised cabin aft.

Then they paused.

A nameless dread was on them of disturbing the secrets of the long
dead Vikings. Before them was the cabin door which they longed to open
but somehow none of them seemed to have the courage to do so. The
portal was of massive oak but had been sprung by the explosion till it
hung on its hinges weakly. One good push would have shoved it down.

"Say, Billy, come and open this door," cried Harry, but Billy was
intently gazing into the hold, now and then jumping down into it and
handling the ivory and bar gold with an awe-stricken face.

"Well, are you boys going to open that door?" asked the professor at
last. He had been busy in another part of the ship examining the
rotten wood to see if he could find any sort of insects in it.

"Well--er, you see, professor--" stammered Harry.

"What--you are scared," exclaimed the professor, laughing.

"No; not exactly scared, but--," quavered Frank, "it doesn't seem just
right to invade that place. It's like breaking open a tomb."

"Nonsense," exclaimed the scientist, who had no more sentiment about
him than a steel hack-saw, "watch me."

He bounded forward and put his shoulder to the mouldering door. It
fell inward with a dull crash and as it did so the professor leaped
backward with a startled cry, stumbling over a deck beam and sprawling
in a heap.

"W-w-what's the matter?" gasped Harry, with a queer feeling at the
back of his scalp and down his spine.

"T-T-THERE'S SOMEONE IN THERE!" was the startling reply from the
recumbent scientist.




CHAPTER XXVI.

CAUGHT IN A TRAP.


"Someone in there?" Frank echoed the exclamation in amazed tones.

"Y-y-yes," stammered the scared professor, "he's sitting at a table."

"It must be one of the long dead Vikings," said Frank, after a
moment's thought, "in these frozen regions and incased in ice as the
ship has been, I suppose that a human body could be kept in perfect
preservation indefinitely."

"I reckon that's it," exclaimed the professor, much relieved at this
explanation, "but, boys, it gave me a dreadful start. He was looking
right at me and I thought I saw his head move. Perhaps it was Olaf
himself."

"Nonsense," said Frank sharply, who, now that the door was actually
open, had lost his queer feeling of scare; "come on, let's explore the
cabin. That poor dead Viking can't hurt us."

Followed by the others he entered the dark, mouldy cabin and could
himself hardly repress a start as he found himself facing a man who
must have been of gigantic stature. The dead sea rover was seated at a
rough oak table with his head resting on his hand as if in deep
thought. He had a mighty yellow beard reaching almost to his waist and
wore a loose garment of some rough material. Had it not been for a
green-mold on his features he must have seemed a living man.

The cabin contained some rude couches and rough bunks of dark wood
lined its sides, but otherwise, with the exception of the table and
chairs, it was bare of furniture. Some curious looking weapons,
including several shields and battle axes, were littered about the
place and some quaint instruments of navigation which Frank guessed
were crude foreshadows of the sextent and the patent log, lay on a
shelf.

"How do you suppose he died?" asked Billy in an awed whisper,
indicating the dead man.

"I don't know--frozen to death perhaps," was Frank's reply.

"But where are the others? The crew,--his companions?"

"Perhaps they rowed away; perhaps they went out to seek for food and
never came back--we can't tell and never shall be able to," was the
rejoinder.

The bare, dark cabin was soon explored and the boys, marveling a good
deal at the temerity of the old-time sailors who made their way across
unknown seas in such frail ships, emerged into the air once more. They
determined to throw off in work the gloomy feelings that had oppressed
them in the moldering cabin of the Viking ship.

"The first thing to do," announced Frank, "is to get all we can of
this stuff to the surface." He indicated the hold.

With this end in view a block and tackle was rigged on the surface of
the plateau, and the ivory and gold hauled out as fast as the boys
could load it. The professor at the top attended to the hauling and
dumping of each load. Soon a good pile of the valuable stuff lay
beside him and he hailed the boys and suggested that it was time for a
rest.

Nothing loath to knock off their fatiguing task for a while, the boys
clambered up to the surface by the rope and soon were busy eating the
lunch they had brought with them. They washed it down with smoking hot
chocolate which they had poured into their vacuum bottles at breakfast
time. The hot stuff was grateful and invigorating in the chill air,
and they ate and drank with keen appetites.

So excited were they by the events of the morning, and so much was
there to talk about, that the big dirigible had entirely slipped from
their minds till they suddenly were jolted into abrupt recollection by
a happening that brought them all to their feet with a shout of alarm.

FROM HIGH IN THE AIR A VOICE HAD HAILED THEM.

They looked up with startled eyes to see hovering directly over them
the mysterious dirigible.

Her deck seemed to be supporting several men, some of whom gazed
curiously at the boys; but what caught the adventurers' attention, and
riveted it, was the sight of several rifles aimed at them.

"Keep still, and we will not shoot," shouted a man who appeared to be
in command, "we do not wish to harm you."

"Hum," said Billy, "I don't see what they want to aim those shooting
irons at us for, then."

"It would be useless to try to run, I suppose," said the professor.

"It would be dangerous to try it," decided Frank, "those fellows
evidently mean to kill us if we try to disobey their orders."

As he spoke the dirigible was brought to the ground by her operators
and as she touched the snow several of her crew gave a shout of
surprise at the sight of the pile of treasure already excavated by the
boys. They started to run toward it; but were checked by a sharp cry
from their officer. They obeyed him instantly and marshaled in a
motionless line waiting his next command, but he left them and strode
through the snow toward the boys.

He was a dapper little brown man, dressed in the uniform of the
Mikado's Manchurian troops. A heavy, fur collar encircled his neck and
a fur cap was pulled over his ears.

"Don't make any hostile move or it will mean your death," he warned as
he advanced toward them.

The boys stood motionless, but the professor, in a high, angry voice,
broke out:

"What do you mean, sir, by approaching American citizens in this
manner? If it is the Viking ship you are after we have already claimed
it in the name of the United States."

"That matters little here,--where we are," said the little officer,
with a smile, "we are now in a country where might is right; and I
think you will acknowledge that we have the might on our side."

The boys gazed at the twelve men who stood facing them with leveled
rifles and could not help but acknowledge the truth of these words. It
seemed that they were utterly in the power of the Japanese.

"Your government shall hear about this," sputtered the professor
angrily. "It will not countenance such a high-handed proceeding. We
are not at war with your country. You have no right under the law of
nations, or any other law, to interfere with us."

"You will oblige me by stepping into the cabin of my dirigible," was
the response in an even tone. The others had paid not the slightest
attention to the professor's harangue.

"And if we refuse?" demanded the professor.

"If you refuse you will be shot, and do not, I beg, make the mistake
of thinking that I don't mean what I say."

There was nothing to do, under the circumstances, but to obey and,
with sinking hearts, they advanced in the direction of the big
air-ship. With great courtesy the interloper ushered them inside.

They found a warm and comfortable interior, well cushioned and even
luxurious in its appointments. Once they were well inside the little
man, with a bow, remarked:

"I now beg to be excused. You will find books and the professor
something to smoke if he wishes it. Don't make any attempt to escape
as I should regret to be compelled to have any of you shot."

He was gone. Closing the door behind him with a "click," that told the
boys that they were locked in.

"Prisoners," exclaimed Billy.

"That's it, and just as we have accomplished our wish," said Frank
bitterly; "it's too bad."

"Well, it can't be helped," said the professor, "let's look about and
see if there is not some way we can get out if an opportunity presents
itself."

They approached a window and through it could see the new arrivals
examining the edge of the gulf and peeping down at the Viking ship.
But as soon as they opened the casement and peered out a man with a
rifle appeared, as if from out of the earth, and sharply told them to
get inside.

"Well, we've got to spend the time somehow, we might as well examine
the ship," said the professor closing the window.

Somewhat cheered by his philosophical manner, the boys followed him as
he led the way from the main cabin through a steel door which they
found led into the engine-room. The engines were cut off, but a small
motor was operating a dynamo with a familiar buzzing sound. This was
the sound the boys had heard when the ship passed above them at night.

"What have they got the dynamo going for?" demanded Harry.

"I don't know. To warm the ship by electric current, or something I
suppose," said Frank listlessly. "I wonder where the engineer is? The
ship seems deserted."

"I guess he's out with the rest looking over OUR treasure," said the
professor bitterly.

"Ours no longer,--might is right, you know," quoted Harry miserably.

Frank had been examining the machinery with some care. Even as a
prisoner he felt some interest in the completeness of the engine room
of the Japanese dirigible. He bent over her twin fifty-horse-power
motors with admiring appreciation and examined the other machinery
with intense interest.

The purring dynamo next came in for his attention and he was puzzling
over the utility of several wires that led from it through the engine
room roof when a sudden thought flashed into his mind. With a cry of
triumph he bent over a small lever marked "accelerator," beside which
was a small gauge. He rapidly adjusted the gauge, so that it would not
register any more than the pressure it recorded at that moment and
then shoved the lever over to its furthest extent.

"Whatever are you doing?" demanded Harry, much mystified at these
actions, at the conclusion of which he had strolled up.

"You know that the gas in the bag of this dirigible is heated by
electric radiators in order to avoid condensation of the gas?" was the
seemingly incoherent reply.

"Yes," was the astonished answer, "but what has that--?"

"Hold on a minute," cried Frank, raising his hand, "and that gas when
expanded by heat soon becomes too buoyant for its container, and will,
if allowed to continue expanding, burst its confines."

Harry nodded his head.

"Well, then," Frank went on, "that's what's going to happen on this
ship."

"Whatever do you mean? I suppose I'm dense, but I don't see yet."

"I mean," said Frank, "that I've fixed the gas-heating radiators so
that in a few hours the bag above our head will be ripped into tatters
by a gas explosion. The resistance coils are now heating and expanding
the gas at a rate of ten times above the normal and the gauge I have
adjusted so that an inspection of it will show nothing to be the
matter."

"But what good will that do us?" urged Harry.

"It may save our lives. In any event the Viking treasure will never be
taken from here by another nation."




CHAPTER XXVII.

THE FATE OF THE DIRIGIBLE.


"Have you any idea what time the explosion will take place?" asked
Harry, anxiously, almost dumbfounded by the other's cool manner.

"Soon after dark has fallen. Don't be scared, it won't hurt us; at
least I think not, but in the confusion that is certain to follow we
must make a dash for the Golden Eagle."

"It's a desperate chance."

"We are in a desperate fix," was the brief reply.

An hour later something occurred which caused Frank, who had in the
meantime communicated his plan to the others, considerable anxiety.
The despoilers of the adventurers' treasure hoard returned to the ship
laden down with bar gold and ivory and, from what the captain was
saying to his minor officers, it seemed, though he spoke in a low
tone, that it was planned to sail right off back to the camp of the
men the boys had now come justifiably to regard as their enemies.

"If they do that, we are lost," said Frank, after he had whispered his
fears to Harry.

"You mean they will discover the trick we have played on them?"

"No, I mean that the explosion will come off in midair and we shall
all be dashed to death together."

"Phew!--Would it not be better to tell them what we have done and take
our chances?"

"If the worst comes to the worst I shall do that. It would be
imperiling our lives uselessly to go aloft with the overheated gas
that is now in the bag."

But the "worst did not come to the worst." The little captain who had
paid small or no attention to his prisoners, evidently realizing that
they could not get away, didn't like the look of the weather, it
seemed, and made frequent consultations of the barometer with his
fellows. The glass was falling fast and there was evidently a blizzard
or sharp storm of some kind approaching.

At this time a fresh fear crossed Frank's mind. What if the Japs had
destroyed the Golden Eagle? So far as he could judge they had not
molested her, evidently not thinking it worth while to waste time they
judged better spent on looting the Viking ship of its treasure. But if
they had disabled her, the boy knew that in the event of his
companions escaping they faced an alternative between death by
freezing and starvation, or being shot down by the rifles of their
captors. However, Frank resolved to put such gloomy speculations out
of his mind. It was useless to worry. Things, if they were as he half
feared, would not mend for thinking about them.

Supper, a well-cooked, well-served meal, was eaten under this painful
strain. The boys and the professor put the best countenance they could
on things, considering that their minds were riveted on the great
gasbag above them which even now, as they knew, was swollen almost to
bursting point with its superheated gases.

"It is too bad that the weather threatens so," remarked their captor,
who was politeness itself, to his prisoners; "otherwise we should now
be in the air on our way back to my camp. In three more trips we shall
be able, however, to carry off the rest of the treasure. We were well
repaid for keeping our eyes on you."

The boys answered something, they hardly knew what. Frank in his
nervousness looked at his watch. The strain was becoming painful. At
last, to their intense relief, they rose from supper and the little
officer shut himself in his own cabin. Outside, the boys could hear
the feet of the two armed sentries crunching on the snow.

"The outrush of gas will stupefy them," whispered Frank, "we shall
have nothing to fear from them after the explosion takes place."

"When is it due?" gasped Billy, with a ghastly attempt at a smile.

"At any moment now. It is impossible to calculate the exact time. But
within half an hour we should know our fate."

Silently the boys and the professor waited, although the scientist was
so nervous that he strode up and down the cabin floor.

Suddenly the silence was shattered by a loud shout from the engine
room.

"The gas! The gas! We are--"

The sentence was never finished.

There was a sudden convulsion of the entire fabric of the big
dirigible--as if a giant hand from without were shaking her like a
puppy shakes a rat.

She seemed to lift from the ground in a convulsive leap and settled
back with a crash that smashed every pane of glass and split her stout
sides.

At the same instant, there was an ear-splitting roar as if a boiler
had exploded and a flash of ruddy flame.

The exploding gas had caught fire--possibly from a spark from the
electric radiators as the bag and their supporting framework was
ripped apart by the explosion.

Dazed and half stunned, the boys groped about in total darkness; for
the explosion had extinguished every light on the ship.

"Boys, where are you?"

It was Frank calling.

"Great heavens, what a sensation!" gasped the professor, half choked
by the powerful fumes of the hydrogen gas which filled the air.

Rapidly the others answered to Frank and groped through the darkness
toward his voice. Before them was the shattered side of the cabin.
Through the gap was the sky. They could see the bright antarctic stars
gleaming. Beyond the rent they knew lay freedom, provided the
marauders had not molested their aeroplane.

It was the work of a second to stagger through the opening made by the
explosion and gain the fresh air, which they inhaled in great
mouthfuls. Then began the dash for the aeroplane.

In the wild confusion that reigned following the explosion, their
absence, so far as they could perceive, had not been noticed. As Frank
had guessed, the two sentries were knocked senseless by the explosion
and the fugitives stumbled over their unconscious figures recumbent on
the snow.

Gasping and staggering they plunged on in the direction they knew the
Golden Eagle lay. It was not more than a mile distant, but before they
reached their goal the professor gave out and the boys had to
half-drag, half-carry him over the frozen surface. They were bitterly
cold, too, and the thought of the blankets and warm clothing aboard
the Golden Eagle lent them additional strength--as much so, in fact,
as the peril that lay behind them.

"Can you see her?" gasped Harry, after about fifteen minutes of this
heart-breaking work.

"Yes. I think so at least. There seems to be a dark object on the snow
ahead. If only they have not molested her," panted Frank.

"If they have, it's all up," exclaimed Billy Barnes. At the same
moment Harry breathed:

"Hark!"

Borne over the frozen ground they could hear shouts.

"They have discovered our escape!" exclaimed Frank, "it's a race for
life now."

[Illustration: "It's a Race for Life Now."]

His words threw fresh determination into all. Even the professor made
a desperate struggle. A few more paces and there was no doubt that the
dark object ahead was the Golden Eagle. Only one anxiety now remained.
Was she unharmed?

Bang!

It was a shot from the men of the dirigible.

"They are firing after us," exclaimed Billy.

"They can fire all they want to if they come as wide of the mark as
that," said Frank; "they are shooting at random to scare us."

A few seconds later they gained the side of the Golden Eagle and, worn
and harried as they were, they could not forbear setting up a cheer as
they found that the aeroplane was in perfect shape.

Hastily they cranked the Golden Eagle motor up, blue flame and sharp
reports bursting from her exhausts as they did so. The engine was
working perfectly,--every cylinder taking up its work as the sparks
began to occur rhythmically.

"We've put the fat in the fire now," exclaimed Frank, as he took his
seat at the steering wheel. "If they could not locate us before, the
noise of the exhaust and the blue flame will betray us to them."

"Well, it can't be helped," shouted Harry, above the roar of the
engine. "We've got to get every ounce of power out of her to-night."

The other lad nodded and as he did so a sound like a bee in flight
fell on the adventurers' ears--a bullet.

It was followed by several reports.

"They've got the range," cried Harry.

"They won't have it long," said his brother as he threw in the clutch
and rapidly the Golden Eagle sped forward, crashing faster and faster
over the frozen surface as her young driver worked the engine up to
full speed.

In a few seconds more they felt the aeroplane begin to lift and soar
into the night air.

They were exploding skyward to safety, while far below them their
baffled captors were firing aimlessly in the hope of a random shot
shattering some vital part of the aeroplane.

But no such thing happened and as the boys sped toward the west, bound
for Camp Hazzard, they sent out a wireless message. Again and again
they tried but without success. They could not raise an answer.

"Of course we can't raise them. They are on the march!" shouted Frank
suddenly.

"On the motor-sledge bound for the Viking ship," cried Billy, "they
should be there to-morrow."

"Say, fellows, we have done it now," cried Frank, with a sudden
twinge.

"What's the matter?" inquired the professor.

"Why, they will arrive there to find the others in possession and no
sign of us. They'll think we ran away without even putting up a
fight."

"We'll have to try to pick them up in the daylight," was the reply;
"we know about the route along which they'll drive and from this
altitude we can't miss them if they are anywhere within miles of us."

The boys were then at a height of about 1,500 feet. The air was bitter
chill and warm wraps and furs had been donned long before. Suddenly
the aeroplane gave a sickening sidewise dip and seemed about to
capsize. Frank caught and righted her just in time. The gyroscopic
balance whizzed furiously.

A curious moaning sound became perceptible in the rigging and a wind,
which they had not noticed before, lashed their faces with a stinging
sensation. The recollection of the falling barometer flashed across
Frank's mind. They were in for a storm.

The boy gazed at the compass beneath its binnacle light. As he did so
he gave a gasp.

"We are way off our course," he cried, "the wind is out of the north
and it is blowing us due south."

"Due south!" exclaimed Harry.

"That's it. And the worst of it is I can do nothing. With this load on
board I don't dare try to buck the wind and it's freshening every
minute."

"But if we are being blown due south from here, where on earth will we
fetch up?" cried Billy, in dismayed tones.

They all looked blank as they awaited the reply. Frank glanced at his
watch and then at the compass and made a rapid mental calculation.

"At the rate we are going we should be over the South Pole, roughly
speaking, at about midnight," he said.




CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC.


The professor was the first to break the tense silence that followed
Frank's words.

"Into the heart of the Antarctic," he breathed.

There seemed to be something in the words that threw a spell of awed
silence over them all. Little was said as on and on through the polar
night the aeroplane drove,--the great wind of the roof of the world
harassing her savagely, viciously,--as if it resented her intrusion
into the long hidden arcana of the polar Plateau.

It grew so bitter cold that the chill ate even through their furs and
air-proofed clothing. The canvas curtains were hoisted for a short
distance to keep off the freezing gale. They dared not set them fully
for fear they might act as sails and drive the ship before the gale so
fast that all control would be lost.

At ten o'clock Frank, his hands frozen almost rigid, surrendered the
wheel to Harry.

It now began to snow. Not a heavy snowfall but a sort of frozen flurry
more like hail in its texture. Frank glanced at his watch.

Eleven o'clock.

"How's she headed?" shouted Harry, above the song of the polar gale.

"Due south," was the short reply as the other boy bent over the
compass.

"Well, wherever we are going, we are bound for the pole, there's some
grim satisfaction in that," remarked Frank.

On and on through the cold they drove. The snow had stopped now and
suddenly Billy called attention to a strange phenomenon in the
southern sky.

It became lit with prismatic colors like a huge curtain, gorgeously
illuminated in its ample folds by the rays of myriad colored
searchlights.

"Whatever is it?" gasped Billy in an awed tone as the mystic lights
glowed and danced in almost blinding radiance and cast strange colored
lights about the laboring aeroplane.

"The Aurora Australis," said the professor in an almost equally
subdued voice, "the most beautiful of all the polar sky displays."

"The Aurora Australis," cried Frank, "then we are near the pole
indeed."

Half past eleven.

The lights in the sky began to dim and soon the aeroplane was driving
on through solid blackness. The suspense was cruel. Not one of the
adventurers had any idea of the conditions they were going to meet. A
nameless dread oppressed all.

Suddenly Frank, after a prolonged scrutiny of the compass, voiced what
was becoming a general fear.

"What if we are being drawn by magnetic force toward the pole?"

"And be dashed to destruction as we reach it?" the professor finished
for him.

Brave as they were, the adventurers gave a shudder that was not born
of the gnawing cold as the possibility occurred to them. Frank glanced
at the barograph. Fifteen hundred feet. They were then holding their
own in altitude. This was a cheering sign.

Ten minutes to twelve.

The strange lights began to reappear. Glowing in fantastic forms they
seemed alive with lambent fire. As the boys gazed at each other they
could see that their features were tinted with the weird fires of the
polar sky.

Twelve o'clock.

Frank gave a hurried dash toward the compass and drew back with a
shout.

"Look," he shouted, "we are within the polar influence."

The needle of the instrument was spinning round and round at an almost
perpendicular angle in the binnacle with tremendous velocity. The
pointer tore round its points like the hands of a crazy clock.

"What does it mean?" quavered Harry.

"The South Pole, or as near to it as we are ever likely to get,"
exclaimed Frank, peering over the side.

Far below illuminated fantastically by the lights of the dancing,
flickering aurora he could see a vast level plain of snow stretching,
so it seemed, to infinity. There was no open sea. No strange land.
Nothing but a vast plateau of silent snow.

"Fire your revolvers, boys," shouted Frank, as, suiting the action to
the word, he drew from his holster his magazine weapon and saluted the
silent skies.

"The South Pole--Hurrah!"

It was a quavering cry, but the first human sound that had ever broken
the peace of the mysterious solitudes above which they were winging.

Suddenly in the midst of the "celebration" the aeroplane was violently
twisted about. Every bolt and stay in her creaked and strained under
the stress, but so well and truly had she been built that nothing
started despite Frank's fears that the voyage to the pole was to end
right there in disaster.

The adventurers were thrown about violently. All, that is, but Frank,
who had now resumed the wheel and steadied himself with it. As they
scrambled to their feet Billy chattered:

"Whatever happened--did a cyclone strike us?"

For answer Frank bent over the compass and gave a puzzled cry.

"I don't understand this," he exclaimed.

"Don't understand what?" asked Harry, coming to his side.

"Why look here--what do you make of that?"

"The needle has steadied and is pointing north!" cried Harry, as he
gazed at the compass.

"North," echoed the professor.

"There's no question about it," rejoined Frank, knitting his brows.

"What is your explanation of this sudden reversal of the wind?" asked
the professor.

"I know no more than you," replied the puzzled young aviator, "the
only reason I can advance is that at the polar cap some strange
influences rule the wind currents and that we are caught in a polar
eddy, as it were."

"If it holds we are saved," cried the professor, who had begun to fear
that they might never be able to emerge from their newly discovered
region.

Hold it did and daybreak found the aeroplane above the same
illimitable expanse of snow that marked the pole, but several miles to
the north.

"I'm going down to take an observation," said Frank, suddenly, "and
also, has it occurred to you fellows that we haven't eaten a bite
since last night?"

"Jiminy crickets," exclaimed Billy Barnes, his natural flow of spirits
now restored, "that's so. I'm hungry enough to eat even a fur-bearing
pollywog, if there's one around here."

"Boys," began the professor solemnly as Billy concluded, "I have a
confession to make."

"A confession?" cried Harry, "what about?"

"Why for some time I have entertained a doubt in my mind and that
doubt has now crystallized to a certainty. I don't believe there is
such a creature as the fur-bearing pollywog."

"Then Professor Tapper is wrong?" asked Harry, amazed at the
scientist's tone.

"I am convinced he is. I shall expose him when we return--if we ever
do," declared the scientist.

A few minutes later they landed on the firm snow and soon a hearty
meal of hot canned mutton, vegetables, soup, and even a can of plum
pudding, warmed on their stove and washed down with boiling tea, was
being disposed of.

"And now," said Frank, as he absorbed the last morsels on his plate,
"let's see whereabouts on the ridgepole of the earth we have lighted."

The boy's observation showed that they were at a point some two
hundred miles to the southwest of the spot in which they had left the
crippled dirigible and the Viking ship. The wind had dropped, however,
and conditions were favorable for making a fast flight to the place
they were now all impatient to reach Frank, after a few minutes'
figuring, announced that dusk ought to find them at the Viking ship
and, if all went well, in communication with their friends.

No time was lost in replenishing the gasolene tank from the reserve
"drums," and carefully inspecting the engine and then a long farewell
was bade to the Polar plateau. Without a stop the Golden Eagle winged
steadily toward the northeast, and as the wonderful polar sunset was
beginning to paint the western sky they made out the black form of the
disabled dirigible on the snow barrens not far from the Viking ship's
gully.

As they gazed they broke into a cheer, for advancing toward the other
dark object at a rapid rate was another blot on the white expanse,
which a moment's scrutiny through the glasses showed them was the
motor-sledge packed with men on whose rifles the setting sun glinted
brightly. The Golden Eagle ten minutes later swooped to earth at a
spot not twenty yards from her original landing place and a few
moments later the boys were shaking hands and executing a sort of war
dance about Captain Barrington and Captain Hazzard, while Ben Stubbs
was imploring some one to "shiver his timbers" or "carry away his
top-sails" or "keel-haul him" or something to relieve his feelings.

Eagerly the officers pressed for details of the polar discovery, but
Frank, after a rapid sketching of conditions as they had observed them
at the world's southern axis, went on to describe the events that had
led up to their wild flight and urged immediate negotiations with the
rival explorers. Both leaders agreed to advance at once, convinced
that their force was sufficiently formidable to overcome the Japs.

"Steady, men, and be ready for trouble but make no hostile move till
you get the word," warned Captain Hazzard, as the somewhat formidable
looking party advanced on the stricken dirigible. At first no sign of
life was visible about her, but as they neared the ship Frank saw that
the wrecked cabin had been patched up with canvas, and parts of the
balloon bag that had not burned, till it formed a fairly snug tent.
They were within a hundred paces of it before anyone appeared to have
taken any notice of their arrival and then the little officer, who had
directed the capture of the adventurers, appeared.

As Billy said afterward, he "never turned a hair," over the conditions
that confronted him. He was a beaten man and knew it; but his manner
was perfectly suave and calm.

"Good evening, gentlemen," was all he said, with a wave of his hand
toward the Viking ship and the pile of ivory and gold that still lay
on the edge of the gully, "to the victors belong the spoils and you
are without doubt the victors."

He gazed at the array of armed men that backed up the two officers and
the boys.

"We have come to take formal possession in the name of the United
States, of the remains of the Viking ship," said Captain Hazzard,
somewhat coldly, for, after what he had heard from the boys, he felt
in no way amiably disposed toward the smiling, suave, little man.

"If you have pen and ink and paper in your cabin we will draw up a
formal agreement which will hold good in an international court,"
supplemented Captain Barrington.

A flash of resentment passed across the other's face but it was gone
in an instant.

"Certainly, sir, if you wish it," he said, "but, if it had not been
for those boys we should by this time have been far away."

"I do not doubt it," said Captain Barrington, dryly, "and, now, if you
please, we will draw up and sign the paper."

Ten minutes later, with the boys' signatures on it as witnesses, the
important document was drawn up and sealed with a bit of wax that
Captain Hazzard had in his pocket writing-set. And so ended the
episode of the attempt to seize the treasure of the Viking ship.

Now only remains to be told the manner of its transporting to the
Southern Cross and the last preparations before bidding farewell to
the inhospitable land in which they had spent so much time. First,
however, the castaways of the dirigible were given transportation on
the motor-sledge to their ship which, to the astonishment of all the
American party, they found was snugly quartered in a deep gulf, not
more than twenty miles to the westward of the berth of the Southern
Cross. This accounted for the light and the buzzing of the air-ship
being heard so plainly by the Southern Crucians. The defeated Japs
sailed at once for the north, departing as silently as they had
arrived.

It took many trips of the motor-sledge before the last load of the
Viking ship's strange cargo was snugly stored in the hold of the
Southern Cross. At Captain Hazzard's command the dead Viking was
buried with military honors and his tomb still stands in the "White
silence." Then came the dismantling of the Golden Eagle and the
packing of the aeroplane in its big boxes.

"Like putting it in a coffin," grunted Billy, as he watched the last
cover being screwed on.

All the time this work was going forward the nights and days were
disturbed with mighty reports like those of a heavy gun.

The ice was breaking up.

The frozen sea was beginning to be instinct with life. The time for
the release of the Southern Cross was close at hand.

At last the tedious period of waiting passed and one night with a
mighty crash the ice "cradle" in which the Southern Cross rested
parted from the ice-field and the ship floated free. The engineers'
force had been busy for a week and in the engine-room all was ready
for the start north, but another tedious wait occurred while they
waited for the field-ice to commence its weary annual drift.

At last, one morning in early December, Captain Barrington and Captain
Hazzard gave the magic order:

"Weigh anchor!"

"Homeward bound!" shouted Ben Stubbs, racing forward like a boy.

A week later, as the Southern Cross was ploughing steadily northward,
a dark cloud of smoke appeared on the horizon. It was not made out
positively for the relief ship Brutus till an hour had passed and then
the rapid-fire gun crackled and the remainder of the daylight rockets
were shot off in joyous celebration.

In the midst of the uproar Billy Barnes appeared with a broom.

"Whatever are you going to do with that?" demanded Captain Hazzard,
with a smile, as the lad, his eyes shining with eagerness, approached.

"Please, Captain Hazzard, have it run up to the main-mast head,"
beseeched Billy.

"Have halliards reeved and run it up, Hazzard," said Captain
Barrington, who came up at this moment, "the lads have certainly made
a clean sweep."

So it came about that a strange emblem that much puzzled the captain
of the Brutus was run up to the main-mast head as the two ships drew
together.

"That's the Boy Aviators' standard," said Billy, proudly surveying it.
"We win."

Shortly afterward a boat from the Brutus came alongside with the mail.
"Letters from home," what magic there is in these words to adventurers
who have long sojourned in the solitary places of the earth! Eagerly
the boys seized theirs and bore them off to quiet corners of the deck.

"Hurrah," cried Billy, after he had skimmed through his epistles. "I'm
commissioned to write up the trip for two newspapers and a magazine.
How's your news, boys, good?"

The boys looked up from their pile of correspondence.

"I'm afraid we're going to have a regular reception when we get home,"
said Frank rather apprehensively.

"Hurray! Brass-bands--speeches--red-fire and big-talk," cried Billy.

"None of that for us," said Harry, "I guess we'll retire to the
country for a while, till it blows over."

But they did not escape, for on the arrival of the Polar ships in New
York the boys and the commanders of the expedition were seized on and
lionized till newer idols caught the popular taste. Then, and not till
then, were they allowed to settle down in peace and quiet to tabulate
the important scientific results of the expedition.

As for the Professor, what he wrote about Professor Tapper--a screed
by the way that nearly caused a mortal combat between the two
savants--may be read in his massive volume entitled "The Confutation
of the Tapper Theory of a South Polar Fur-Bearing Pollywog, by
Professor Simeon Sandburr." It weighs twelve pounds, and can be found
in any large library.




CONCLUSION.


And here, although the author would dearly like to detail their
further adventures, we must bid the Boy Aviators "Farewell." Those who
have followed this series know, however, that the lads were not likely
to remain long inactive without seeking further aerial adventures.
Whether the tale of these will ever be set down cannot at this time be
forecast. The Chester boys adventures have been recorded, not as the
deeds of paragons or phenomenons, but as examples of what pluck, energy,
and a mixture of brains, can accomplish,--and with this valedictory we
will once more bid "God speed" to "The Boy Aviators."


THE END.












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