← catalogue

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

by John Henry Goldfrap · English · Gutenberg #6973 · 333,574 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash; or, Facing Death in the Antarctic
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

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

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6973

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 protec

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/6973