Chapter XXIX: A Land of the Heart’s Desire 243 (5)

The sun went out. The black wall—the black sea—the great black Antarctic Night and cold closed in, but within and about us lay the ineffable glory that has lighted the world and warmed it since man first looked on woman and found her fair.

XX.
THE LONG DARK.

I cannot attempt to picture the vast Antarctic Night. The words I have learned were never intended to convey the supreme mightiness of the Polar Dark. Chauncey Gale has referred to it as “Creation’s Cold Storage.” I am willing to let it go at that.

In the electric blaze of the Billowcrest we made merry, and occupied ourselves usefully. When the cold without was not too severe we went snow-shoeing over Bottle Bay, where a crust of ice had eventually formed, and where snow grew ever deeper until we half expected to be overwhelmed. Sometimes we heard the roaring of the pack outside, but in our snug harbor we felt little of its grinding discontent. How much we were warmed by our current beneath the ice we could not know, but the thermometer at no time showed more than 30° below zero. I have seen it as cold in northern Nebraska.

Neither was it wholly dark in clear weather. We had the stars, and at regular intervals, through our harbor gateway, the moon looked in. Often it was a weird, distorted moon—flattened and wrinkled by radiations of cold from the far-lying ice—but always welcome. More than once it was doubly and even trebly welcome, for the atmosphere was responsible for some curious effects. Once Gale came down hastily to where Edith and I were deep in a game of cribbage.

“I want you and Johnnie to come on deck a minute,” he said with some urgency, “I want you to look at the moon.”

We arrayed ourselves and obeyed. Gale led the way and pointed to the harbor entrance.

“Nick,” he commanded, “I want you and Johnnie to tell me how many moons you see there.”

My hand lay on Edith’s arm and I gave it a significant pressure.

“Why,” I said, “I see one moon, of course. How many do you want me to see?”

“I hope, papa,” said his daughter gravely, “that you haven’t been taking too much wine. You know that it doesn’t agree with you. It makes you too stout, and now that it affects your eyes this way, I should think you would at least moderate your appetite for strong waters.”

“Johnnie,” said Gale severely, “you’re a goose, as usual. But on the dead, now, I want you and Nick to tell me how many moons you see there. I see three. If you only see one, then this cold storage, or something else, has got into my eyes, and it’s time I was doing something for it.”

We assured him, then, that we saw what he did, one real moon and two false ones, the result of some strange condition of the air. When we descended to the cabin, Gale followed singing,

“Three moons rose over the city where there shouldn’t have been but
one.”

Besides these things we had the Aurora Australis, though from our position under the ice-wall we seldom got a direct view of this phenomenon, and we sometimes made excursions into the desolation of the pack to view it. On one of these we were separated from the ship by a wide waterway that opened just outside the harbor. It seemed a serious predicament for a time, but the little telephone, which we always carried, promptly “vibrated” a message to the ship, and our balloon-boat-and-sled combination was first put into actual service as a ferry to bring us safely over. From without, our harbor entrance had seemed a portal to the lower regions. Crossing to it in the boat was like being ferried over the river Styx.

To me the days did not drag, though to others of the party they may have passed less swiftly. Love did not speed the hours for them, unless in the sense that all the ship loved the lovers, and in making our lives interesting for us they found sufficient entertainment for themselves. Gale’s acceptance of the new understanding between Edith and myself had been characteristic and hearty.

“Well,” he said, “’tain’t my fault. Don’t come around now, you and Johnnie, tryin’ to blame it onto me. I told you how it would be. Oh Lord, what’s a circus without monkeys!” He took our hands then, and squeezed them together in one big, splendid palm. “Nicholas Chase,” he went on, “you’ve got the boat, and me, and now a mortgage on Johnnie. If there’s any other outlying and unattached property you’d like to have, just name it. And if you don’t see what you want ask for it. Johnnie’s the only undivided interest I had left that I cared anything about, and if you’re going to get that you might as well have all the rest.” But at this point Edith had thrown her arms about his neck, laughing and crying at once. Happy as I was, there was a moment or two just then in which I did not feel entirely comfortable.

One day, perhaps a week later, when we came in from an hour’s snow-shoeing, he suddenly greeted us with:

“Look here, Johnnie, how did it come you didn’t turn Nick down like the others?”

My sweetheart’s cheeks were already aglow, and her eyes sparkling. But I thought there came an added glow and sparkle at the unexpected question. Her eyes sent a quick look into mine that warmed my soul.

“Why, you see, Daddy, we—we were away off down here, and—and we couldn’t afford to have any unpleasantness on the ship, and——”

“Oh, yes, I see—I see! And you’re going to bounce him when we get back to New York. Great girl! Takes after her Daddy.”

From the hand that rested on my arm she had been withdrawing the little fur mitten. Now a small palm and some cold fingers came creeping up into mine for warmth, and to bestow a reassuring pressure.

“But—but don’t you see, Daddy,—I—I—we can’t afford to have any unpleasantness there, either,” she said.

We had a long series of whist rubbers in the cabin, and entertainments in which the forecastle was frequently invited to join. In turn, we sometimes looked in on the forecastle, or, for exercise, took a hand with the sailors in clearing snow and ice from the vessel. Altogether we were a well-fed, contented little world—a warm, bright spot in a wide waste of dark and cold—and even Zar grew stout and comfortable, and more considerate of my feelings.

“I can stay heah jes’ as long as de boat stays and de perwision hold out,” was her frequent assertion. “Mistah Sturritt certney is a mighty good perwider.” And Mr. Sturritt deserved this compliment, for whatever may have been his eccentricities in the matter of tablets, as our regular commissary, he appeared to be a complete and continuous success.

As spring approached and the return of the sun drew near, preparations for scaling the ice-wall and for the journey inland were perfected. Our balloon, the Cloudcrest, was carefully overhauled, and our boat-car furnished with all the requirements of an extended voyage, should we find, after making observations, such an undertaking to be advisable. The boat was very light and had air-tight aluminum compartments, as well as many water-tight compartments for our stores. Mr. Sturritt’s condensed food lozenges, which we had all tested and voted a success, were variously distributed.

“We don’t want to carry all our pills in one box,” explained Gale, “and say, Bill, don’t you think we’d better leave one place for a few old-fashioned sandwiches? Just to start on, you know; then we can kind o’ taper off onto tablets, as it were. You’ve fed us too well through the winter to jump right into pills at the drop of the hat.”

So a place for sandwiches was left; also places for field-glasses and other instruments, as well as for furs and sleeping-bags, which were likely to be needed, we thought, in the early stages of the journey. For ballast, instead of sand, we filled bags with zinc filings, these to be used later in making hydrogen for replenishing the balloon. It is true we thought it more than likely that we should return in some new fashion, to be provided by the Antarcticans, but we believed it well to be prepared for emergencies. Our propeller for both wind and water was now thoroughly tested, the retorts for making the gas were complete and ready, and all grew impatient at last for the day when we were to make our trial ascension.

Ferratoni, I think, was more eager than the others. He seemed convinced now that not only were there human beings beyond the barrier, but that they knew of us, and waited for our coming. In just what form this had “vibrated” to him he could not quite explain, and in fact rarely attempted to do so. He was quite willing, however, to experiment with us in telepathy, or, as he termed it, in the chording of mental vibrations, through which he could often follow a train of thought in another with a success that was certainly interesting, and even startling.

It appeared in no sense to be a gift with Ferratoni, but a scientific attainment, acquired by patient and gradual steps. He claimed that the principle of it was quite as simple as that of the answering musical or electric vibrations—in fact, the same. We grew to accept this theory in time, though we made little progress in its application. Perhaps our minds were too full of other things.

To Ferratoni all the problems of the ages resolved themselves into Chorded Vibrations.

“There is no change in the individual at death,” he said to me one day. “It is simply a moving out of the old house. The life vibration—the intelligence—remains the same. I shall be able by and by to chord and communicate with those no longer in the Physical House.”

Later, when I saw Edith, I said:

“The long night is telling on Ferratoni. He is becoming a spiritualist.”

Edith Gale looked thoughtful.

“If he does, he will be a scientific one,” she said, “and able to demonstrate reasonably the how and why of his inter-spheric communications. If all he says of his chorded vibrations be true, who shall say how far, and through what dim spaces they may not answer?”

You see, we had had time to speculate on a good many things during the long Antarctic Night. Even in an ordinary night, between the hours of three and five in the morning, strange problems come drifting in and the boundary lines between substance and shadow waver. Keep this up for a period of months, without a break of sunlight, and one’s skepticism on almost any point begins to totter. At the end of the third month, if Ferratoni had announced that he could render himself invisible and transport himself to any point of the compass at will, we would have been less surprised than eager to learn the process; and had Mr. Sturritt suddenly declared that he had perfected a lozenge which would confer eternal youth, I feel certain that any of us would have been willing to accept a trial package.

XXI.
AN ARRIVAL AND A DEPARTURE.

Curiously enough the sun made its first chill, brief reappearance on the anniversary of our sailing. Chill and brief it was, but that thin edge of light skirting the far northern horizon meant to all who saw it new hope, and a new hold on the realities of life.

The sky there had for some time been growing redder each day, and more than once we believed that the Captain’s calculation would be proved at fault, and that the sun itself must appear. But the Captain’s mathematics were sound, and the sun was on schedule time. In spite of Zar’s prophecy we were all there to bid it “howdy,” and there was not a soul on board, from the Admiral to the cook, that sent “regrets” to that reception. Captain Biffer had “bent on” a stiff new shirt for the occasion, and was smiling and triumphant.

“Wheah you reckon dat sun shinin’ _warm_, now?” Zar asked in an awed voice.

“In New York City,” answered her mistress, “just as it was the day we sailed.”

“Shall we be back there a year from now?” I asked.

She held my arm close. Chauncey Gale answered.

“I will. Too far away from the Bowery down here.”

But Ferratoni, who stood next me, said—speaking to himself, and so low that only I heard it—

“Not all of us will return.”

I did not seem to hear, either, and I doubt if he knew that he had spoken; but a thing said like that creates an impression, and it set me to wondering. Then the brief exhibition was over, and we descended hastily to the warmth and feast waiting for us below.

There would be still nearly two months before we were willing to attempt our journey inland. We did not much care to face darkness in unknown wastes, and our continuous day would not begin until late in October. We were determined, however, to make much sooner the trial ascension for the purposes of observation, and to test the carrying power of the Cloudcrest. By the middle of September our days were of good length, and on the twentieth the divisions of light and darkness would be equal. We decided to make our preliminary ascension on that day.

It was only by chance that Edith Gale missed taking part in this momentous event. She had begged to be allowed to do so, and while neither Gale nor I approved of her going, we had more than half consented when Ferratoni came to our rescue by suggesting that we ought by all means to make the carrying test with just those who expected to undertake the voyage later.

This, both Gale and I declared, was a weighty argument, and my fiancée at length yielded, though I must confess with but a poor show of either filial or spousal obedience. She had been quite prepared to undertake a voyage, too, and even this wild notion had not been surrendered without severe reasoning.

“One of this firm’s got to stay with the ship,” Gale had said, finally. “Now, if you’re going with the balloon, Johnnie, who’s going to stay? Nick or me?”

She gave it up, then, and perhaps she had never been really serious in the matter. Only she couldn’t bear the thought of our going away into the undiscovered lands without her. No one but Ferratoni and Mr. Sturritt were to accompany Gale and myself on the voyage inland, and Mr. Sturritt only on condition that the balloon in its trial ascension proved amply buoyant. He had counted on it from the first, having been with Gale in every undertaking for many years. Then, too, he wished to attend personally to our experiments with the food lozenge.

We were astir early on the morning of the twentieth, and had the gas going and the balloon inflated by ten o’clock. It was a clear winter morning, but still, and to us it seemed warm. Our entire population was gathered for the occasion.

“So you gwine to sail off into space, now, is yeh?” observed Zar, as we prepared to start.

“Yes, and your Miss Edith is going along,” I answered, jestingly.

Zar whirled about.

“Look heah, honey! You don’t mean to say you gwine up in dat skiff to pernavigate de skies, does yeh?”

“Of course, Zar. Why not?”

Miss Gale made a move as if to take her place in the boat, but the old woman, with a nimbleness and strength not consistent with her years, suddenly stepped forward and bore her off bodily, as she had so often done in childhood.

“Put me down, Zar!” pleaded Miss Gale, “put me down! I won’t go—I promise!”

The old woman set her mistress upright and regarded her sternly.

“Well, I dess reckon you won’t, honey,” she announced, “lessen you walk ovah my old dead body! You wouldn’t come on dis trip ef I’d knowed wheah we-all comin’ to. I mighty tiahd sech foolishness, an’ dey ain’ gwine be no moah of it! Airskiff! Humph! I guess not!”

We were all ready now. By a short, stout rope, running from a stanchion through a ring in the deck to another ring in the bottom of our boat-car and thus back to the stanchion again, our balloon was held close captive. Coiled on the deck beside us lay twenty-five hundred feet of smaller rope, one end of it attached to the ring beneath the car, and the other lashed firmly about an iron “bit”—thus constituting our anchorage while aloft. The Cloudcrest was very large, certainly, and pulled desperately in the clear, cold air, but it did not seem possible that she would be able to lift all that great length of line. A little more than a hundred yards away was the perpendicular blue barrier of ice, beyond whose lofty summit we hoped soon to look. Our shorter anchorage was all that detained us, and a man stood ready with a keen knife, to sever at the word. When ready to descend we had only to open the valve above and let out the gas. We expected to be back in an hour.

Chauncey Gale took his seat last. He kissed his daughter as if he were starting on a journey. This inclination had seized me also, but not the resolution so I had merely pressed her hand. All except the man with the knife drew back.

“Ready! One, two, three, cut!”

There was a sharp hissing sound, a sudden upward jerk, and a white world fell away beneath us. The cold air rushed by and took our breath. Then presently it passed less swiftly. The weight of our anchor rope was beginning to tell. Like Alice falling into Wonderland we were going slowly enough at length to take in things as we went along. There were no empty jam-pots, but the swift panorama of the stratified wall was interesting. Ferratoni handed me the telephone.

“All right, below?” I called.

“All right!” came the voice of Edith Gale, “but how small you are getting!”

“We feel bigger than we look!”

“Is Daddy all right?”

“Yes, he’s getting out a sleeping-bag, so if he feels cold he can get into it.”

Gale seized the transmitter.

“Slander,” he called. “We’ve already found two hot bricks in Nick’s pocket, and he’s been begging like a stray kitten to be taken home!”

Up, and up, and up! The Billowcrest below grew small, then smaller, and became at last a toy boat tossed into a snowdrift. Nearer and nearer came the verge of the barrier.

“Can’t you see over it yet?” called the voice in the phone. “It looks as if you could.”

“Not yet! Soon, though. We’re half crazy with excitement!”

“Tell me the instant you _can_ see over, and just what you can see!”

“Yes, of course! In another second now—we——”

There was a sudden movement of the car. Looking up I saw that the balloon bag, now lifting above the barrier, had been caught in an upper current of air from the north, and was being carried inward, to the wall. In another instant it struck the jagged edge of the precipice, rebounded, was caught again by the air current and lifted, and with a wild sweep went plunging over the barrier, dragging us almost horizontally behind!

There came some startled cries through the telephone. Then, from behind, a sudden jerk that nearly flung us from the car. We had reached the end of our rope, so to speak, and had been pulled up, short. Too short, for the taut line, drawn across the sharp edge of ice, could not stand the strain. Well for us that it did not. We were already clawing tooth and nail at everything in sight, and our angle was becoming momentarily more precipitous. The car swung suddenly downward into an easier position, and then once more a white world dropped away beneath. We did not need to guess what had happened. We knew. The line had parted, and on the wings of a thirty mile wind we were bound for the South Pole.

XXII.
ON THE AIR-LINE, SOUTH.

It is needless to say that in the few brief seconds required for these things to happen I did not continue the conversation with my fiancée. The reader will understand that I was busy—too busy even to listen to the advice that was coming through the telephone. At least I suppose it was advice—Miss Gale would naturally give advice on an occasion like that, and besides there was nothing else that she could have given, anyway. But as the instrument was at that moment swinging over the side of the car, and would have been lost to us utterly, had not Ferratoni, with great foresight, nailed it securely at the other end, and as we were engaged in holding on to a half-overturned air-boat with everything made by nature for that purpose, the connection was poor, and the advice, or sympathy, or whatever it was, wasted on the snow-clad fields.

For that is what lay below us as far as we could see. The snow, the endless snow, and still the snow. From our far, cold height it seemed a level floor, though we know by what we found later that it must have been heaved and drifted.

We were very high. The dropping away of the greater part of our anchor rope had sent us up like a rocket. We were a bit confused, at first, but presently we faced each other, and the situation. We were bound southward—that much was certain—and at a rapid rate of speed. Gale was first to express himself.

“I’ve boarded a train going twenty-five mile an hour,” he panted, “but I never had to hold on with my teeth before. I haven’t had so much fun since I had the measles.”

“It _was_ rather interesting for a second or two,” I assented.

Mr. Sturritt was examining the compartments where his tablets were stored.

“I feared we might have spilled—that is—been unfortunate with our supplies,” he explained. “They are all right, I see.”

“Oh, they’re all right, Bill. The tablets we have always with us. But how about the sandwiches? You didn’t put any in for this trip, of course!”

Mr. Sturritt looked mildly injured.

“Why, yes, I obeyed—that is—I followed instructions, and prepared for the trial ascension precisely as if we were to make the intended voyage. In order that the weight might—er——”

“Do you mean,” interrupted Gale, “that there are sandwiches in there?” tapping on the compartment reserved for that purpose.

“Yes, sir—or were, when we started.”

“Bill,” declared Gale, fervently, “if we ever get out of this snap, I’ll set you up in a business big enough to supply tablets to the whole civilized world and part of Long Island.”

“I should be quite satisfied to stay—that is, to remain—that is, if we ever get back to it, on the Billowcrest,” said Mr. Sturritt simply.

Gale turned to me.

“How long will it take to get to that warm country of yours, Nick?”

“If we keep on as we’re going, we ought to be in a much warmer climate by night,” I said, “and night won’t come so quickly, either, going in this direction. The continuous day is just beginning at the Pole, you know.”

Gale leaned back.

“All right,” he said, “I’d rather go to the end of the line than to try to get back over that ice-wall. Give us a through ticket and throw her wide open.”

Ferratoni meantime was fishing up the telephone, and after a brief examination passed it with gentle courtesy over to me.

“I do not need it, you know,” he said.

I took it eagerly, though I did not quite gather his meaning. The little bell was already ringing violently. I called hastily into the transmitter:

“Hello! hello! down there! All well up here. All safe and bound for the South Pole.”

Edith Gale’s voice came back joyously.

“Oh, Nicholas! Oh, I was so frightened!”

“Don’t worry a bit. We’re a little ahead of schedule time, but we’re off all right, and have got a clear track.”

There was a brief pause, during which I imagined Miss Gale might be collecting herself after her excitement, and perhaps communicating the news to the others. Then her voice came again, somewhat more calmly.

“Oh, are you sure you’re all right, and how’s Daddy?”

“Supplied with sandwiches, and at peace with all mankind.”

My tone reassured her.

“What can you see up there?” she asked eagerly.

“Nothing, so far, but snow, but there seem to be light fleecy clouds to the south, or maybe they’re snow hills. If clouds, it would mean a warmer country, I think.”

“How high up are you?”

“Well, perhaps a mile or so.”

“Very cold up there?”

“It’s getting cold. We were pretty warm at first, from exercise.”

“Oh, weren’t you frightened?”

“N—no, I don’t think we had time.”

She then asked me about Mr. Sturritt and Ferratoni, but before I could answer Ferratoni said:

“You may tell her that I gain happiness with every mile that passes.”

“Could you hear her question?” I asked, surprised.

“Mentally, yes,” he answered. “Even at this distance there is a perfect chording of the thought, as well as the electrical vibration.”

I knew then what he had meant by not needing the telephone.

“Look here, we’re going down,” declared Gale, suddenly.

I peered over the side of the boat. Certainly the swift-flying waste below seemed to be coming nearer. We were no longer miles above the drifts. I doubted if we were even one mile, and they seemed to be rapidly coming nearer. I looked at Gale. What could it mean?

“I’ll tell you,” he said, “just what’s the matter. We got a puncture when we struck the edge of that ice-wall. We’re leaking gas, and we’re going to be dumped out, pretty soon, right here in the middle of nowhere.”

There seemed no argument against this conclusion. I did not attempt any. The thing to do was to act.

“We’ll have to throw out some of our ballast, quick,” I said, “before we get down where our drag-rope can touch. That would pull on us still more. We must keep going as long as we can, unless you want to try to get back to the ship.”

“And fall off that two thousand foot wall—not much!” said Gale. “We’re going on.”

Our bags of zinc filings were stored in a compartment at the bottom of the boat, under our furs and sleeping arrangements. I lifted the latter quickly and drew out some of the ballast. I passed the bags to Gale, who threw them over, one at a time. There was a slight upward pull as each went over, but still the white surface below remained distressingly near. The five hundred feet that still remained of our anchor rope seemed to cover more than half the distance, though this was, of course, deceptive. We continued to throw out our bags of filings until all were gone, and followed them with our supply of acid, which, without the zinc, would be of no value. Minus the means of making gas, our chances of return were, of course, much lessened, but the needs of the moment seemed all important and imperative. As we drew near the flying surface our speed appeared to increase, though in reality it probably slackened.

Our descent now became less rapid. Perhaps because the pressure of the gas was not so great, and also because the lower air was more buoyant. Still, it was not to be denied that we were drawing slowly, surely, nearer to the white plain below. We had not mentioned our predicament to those on the ship, and we said no word now of the impending disaster. We simply huddled down into our fur wrappings and waited, often looking over the side to note our progress, both southward and downward.

Finally, just after noon, it became evident that our anchor-rope would soon touch, and this would presently drag us down.

“How much does that rope weigh?” Gale asked, looking at me.

“About two hundred pounds, perhaps.”

We remained looking at each other, and though not skilled like Ferratoni in such matters, I could read the thought in his mind. The rope, as I have said, was attached to the iron ring below. I would as soon have jumped over at once, as to have attempted to climb over and cut it. As for Gale, he was much too heavy, and not constructed for such work. But we knew we must get rid of that rope.

“Perhaps I can shoot it off,” suggested Gale.

He drew a revolver from one of the compartments, and leaning over, fired repeatedly at the slender mark. But the end below was touching now, and this made it unsteady. He gave up at last, his hands numb with cold.

“Either I am a poor shot, or the bullets won’t cut it,” he said.

“There is no help for it,” I thought. “I must make the attempt and die.”

“No,” said Ferratoni, “I will go over. You can put a rope around me.”

But at this point Mr. Sturritt ventured to interfere.

“As a boy,” he said, “I was something of a circus—that is—I was somewhat given to gymnastics, and I think I might properly undertake this matter.”

“Bill,” said Gale, fervently, “you’re laying up treasures.”

He was the lightest of the party. We put a small rope securely about him, and made loops to hold to from above. The elderly man laid off his outer furs, and in the icy air stepped nimbly to the edge. Then, knife in hand, he cautiously descended. He first tried holding to the side of the boat with one hand and reaching for the rope with the other. But this would not work, so, at his bidding, we lowered him a few feet further. He gave himself a push outward as he descended. As he swung back under the boat he seized the rope below, and with a few deft cuts, severed it.

There was a sudden upward flight that prevented our hauling in immediately. Then we pulled straight up, and Mr. Sturritt’s hands, and presently his head, appeared over the side. He tumbled in among us and we covered him with furs. We offered him brandy, for he was stiff and blue.

“N—no,” he shivered, “in c—compartment four you will find a brown lozenge especially adapted to such occas—that is—to emergencies of this sort.”

I hastily procured the tablets, and he swallowed two of them.

“Take a little whisky to wash ’em down, Bill.”

But Mr. Sturritt shook his head, and presently seemed to grow quite warm among the furs. Then, closing his eyes, he slept. Gale regarded him fondly.

“Bully old Bill!” he said. “I never knew him to be afraid in my life, or to fail when it came to the pinch!”

XXIII.
THE CLOUDCREST MAKES A LANDING.

We were fully half a mile above the white world now, and greatly encouraged. If we could keep this up for several hours I believed we might get beyond the snow barrier, or at least to a point where the cold was less intense. Already it seemed to me that the air was less keen. We felt little or no wind as we were traveling with it, and while we had started our propeller and kept it going steadily it did not add enough to our speed to cause any perceptible current of air from ahead. By two o’clock we agreed that it was considerably warmer than when we had started. The thermometer, too, showed a difference of several degrees, though this might be due to a variety of causes. At the ship, however, Edith reported no perceptible change, all of which added to our encouragement. Gale, meantime, had investigated the sandwiches, and found them not only safe, but packed to prevent freezing. We each took two, in addition to an allowance of lozenges—all except Mr. Sturritt, who stood by his guns, or rather his tablets, and fared on this food only.

But by three o’clock it became evident that we must soon reach the end of the balloon stage of our journey. The Cloudcrest had done nobly in her crippled condition, but she was settling steadily now, and there was nothing else that we could afford to throw away. It was better, we said, to face the disaster of landing at once with our supplies than to throw them away and land finally with nothing. We believed that we had covered no less than a hundred and fifty miles, a distance which I had hoped would mark the limit of the snow-line, but in this, evidently, I had been mistaken. It was still a white level ahead, over which, if we escaped destruction in making our landing (and this seemed extremely doubtful at the rate of speed we were going), we would now be obliged to proceed, and much more slowly, on foot. I determined, therefore, to stick to the balloon as long as possible, even at the cost of some risk and discomfort.

But as we drew near the surface we saw that what had appeared to us a smooth level was billowed and drifted like the sea. We braced ourselves for the moment when we should strike. The chances were that we would be flung out with violence or dragged to death miserably.

Nearer and nearer we came, rushing down on the marble whiteness beneath.

“Do you know,” said Gale suddenly, “it seems to me we are going down-hill.”

“If we are,” I replied, “it shows that the crust is getting thinner, and proves my theory of a warm country. I have thought it for some time, but I would not mention it until some one else—hi!—Look out!”

There was a sudden shock, and a blinding smash of snow that choked and stunned us. I gasped and coughed to get my breath. When I opened my eyes I saw that we had cut through the peak of the high drift I had seen coming just ahead, and bounded several feet into the air. But presently we settled again, and there was another jerk and smash, and another bound.

“We’re hitting only the high places,” gasped Gale.

“We won’t hit many more,” I gasped back.

We did hit another at that instant, and plowed through still another immediately afterward. Then we appeared to strike a comparatively smooth place, for we felt the rush and bump of the snow beneath almost constantly, though the spray of it became a blinding volume that meant suffocation and death.

“Cut the ropes!” shouted Gale, “and let her go!”

He was seated in the stern, and must have suited the action to the word, for I felt the bow, where I was, rise, and looking back saw Gale holding on for dear life to keep from spilling out behind. He did not look contented, and evidently had changed his mind about a through ticket. Like Uncle Laxart, he was willing to wait for the next balloon, or to walk, or to go in any way that was quieter. Ferratoni and Sturritt were also sawing at the side ropes, and I quickly got my knife ready to sever the single rope at the bow last. Mr. Sturritt succeeded in getting the ropes on his side cut off first, and for some moments our boat, or rather our sled, for it was that now, was pitching or rolling through the drifts on side or bottom, just as it happened. Then we seemed to right, and I guessed, though I could not see, that Ferratoni had in some manner got his ropes cut away. Our sled was being pulled now by its single cord up hill and down dale, helter-skelter, lickety-split, bounding, leaping, plunging, and courting destruction. From out of the madness of it all came Gale’s voice.

“Here we come! Head us, somebody! Dern our fool souls, we’re runnin’ away!” And a second later, “Cut her, Nick, cut her! I can’t stick on any longer!”

“Cut her, Nick, cut her! I can’t stick on any longer!”—Page 202.
]

I had been holding the edge of my knife to the rope, hesitating to cut, for the reason that we appeared to have slowed down somewhat, and were yet making such excellent time. Now, with a slash, we were free.

There was a sudden halting, a plunge, a wild medley of legs and arms and ropes and Antarctic snow, and over all a tightly fitting cover, and blackness.

The cover was the overturned boat. The blackness, the inside of it, where I was. I was half stunned at first, however, and did not realize just what had occurred. Then I heard Gale’s voice outside.

“Ring up the curtain, and let’s see what’s left.”

I braced my back against whatever was above me and it rose. Then the light came under, and I saw Gale. Together we pushed and pulled up the boat and righted it. Under the boat with me had fallen both Mr. Sturritt and Ferratoni. The latter was gasping and getting his wind. The former was white and senseless, but opened his eyes almost immediately, and sat up. Gale, who had rolled out behind into a comfortable drift, was quite merry.

“Look yonder,” he laughed.

I looked to the south and upward, as he pointed, and saw a dark spot against the sky. It was the bag of the Cloudcrest.

“If you get there before we do,” sang Gale.

“Chauncey Gale,” I said, “if every exploring party had a man like you along there would be no such thing as failure.”

“I think we’d better talk a little to Johnnie if the telephone’s working,” he said. “She may think we’ve gone to sleep.”

We found the apparatus buried in the snow, but apparently uninjured. The little bell on it rang as soon as the snow was poked away.

“Hello,” called Gale, “that you, Johnnie? Matter? With us? Why, nothing. We’ve been busy, that’s all.—No, not quite so loud as it was.—Yes. Bell didn’t ring, maybe.—Noise you heard? Oh, slacking down the propeller I guess. Or maybe Nick singing. We’ve camped for the night.—No. Nick thought it best now we’ve got where it’s warm. Didn’t know what we might get into, you know.—Yes, bully!—Yes, had to let out some gas. We’ll have to throw out ballast of course in the morning.—Good place? Oh, yes,—nice and clean.—No, not _too_ warm.—No, no trees yet.—Oh, why—we—we hitched it to—that is—we tied it to—to”—Gale slipped his hand over the transmitter and turned to me helplessly. “Nick, what under heavens did we hitch the balloon to, for the night? Tell me quick!”

“A—a peculiar petrified formation,” I said hastily. “Might have been a tree, at one time, you know.”

“Nick says it’s a petrified tree.—Yes, only a few of ’em left.—No. Tell Biff to hold the fort.—Yes, we must camp, now. Good-by!” He turned to me again. “Nick,” he said, “that was a good petrified lie of yours, and it worked in bully. No use to worry the little girl,” he added, “she’ll think about us enough, anyway.”

We prepared for the night. There was still a feeble sun in the west, and we made haste to get into comfortable quarters before it left us. I had learned something of navigation on the vessel, and securing an angle I calculated that we had made somewhat more than one hundred and sixty miles during the five hours of aerial travel. We were convinced now that the snow surface sloped to the southward. Our horizon showed this when we ascended to the top of the highest drifts, and the temperature also indicated our approach to a warmer zone. That the frozen crust was getting thinner we had no doubt, but the end of it seemed yet far distant, and the temperature about us was by no means of a sort to suggest a summer wardrobe.

The mechanical skill of Chauncey Gale now became manifest. Inverting our boat once more, there appeared folded legs which when pulled down formed short uprights. Also, there was a canvas that dropped around these, and made a continuous wall, with a flap door in front. On the snow floor inside we spread our furs, and at the opening there was presently a little electric stove going, on which Mr. Sturritt was busily melting snow and preparing tea. This with some sandwiches and a generous round of lozenges formed our evening meal. We ate it, reclining on our furs, and were really quite cozy and comfortable. I had a presentiment that I could not adopt Mr. Sturritt’s condensed food as a continuous diet. It would have been treason, however, to say so at this stage. Gale was very delicate in the matter.

“What’s a picnic without peanuts!” he said, as he lit a cigar, and lay back in the darkness. “And, by the way, Bill, how many of those sandwiches have we got?”

“Why, I think plenty for—er—to-morrow—that is—at the present rate of consumption.”

“Um—well, maybe we’d better begin tapering to-morrow then. One a meal, instead of two. We don’t want to break in on tablets too suddenly, you know.”

We crept into our sleeping bags—Gale and I together. We heard the clatter of fine drifting snow on our roof and canvas wall. We were not cold, and drowsiness presently came stealing over me—the reaction after all the excitement of the day.

Then out of the darkness came the face of Edith Gale. We were far apart for the first time in a year. Long, desolate, frozen miles lay between us. To-morrow night the distance would be still greater. She did not know our plight—of that I was glad. Yet, in the end, it might be no worse than hers. The Billowcrest might never escape from her ice-locked harbor. And it was I who had brought all of this to pass. We were both isolated in this great frozen world, and all through a mad dream of my boyhood. I had an inclination to toss on my pillow, but the limits of the sleeping-bag did not permit this luxury. From out of the darkness at the other end of the boat came the voice of Ferratoni.

“It will avail nothing to disturb yourself,” he said gently, “and a good-night word would be comforting.”

I had forgotten the telephone. I reached out an arm for it now, and touched the call button. Almost immediately it answered, and then came Edith’s voice.

“Hello! Who is it?”

“It’s me—we’re just going to sleep and want to say good night.”

“Are you really warm and nice? And is Daddy comfortable?”

“Yes, he’s asleep, I think.”

“No, he isn’t,” said Gale. “Give me that phone a minute.”

“Hi, Johnnie, that you?—Yes. You better go, too.—Can’t sleep? Why?—Oh, pshaw! we’re snug as a bug. Go on, now. Say your prayers over twice, and get Zar to sing ‘Brown Cows’ to you! Good night!”

He handed me the transmitter.

“Good night,” I said.

“Good night, dear,” she called, “and God bless you!”

A sweet peace and comfort came upon me.

“Ferratoni,” I said, “you deserve a crown!” But he did not answer.

Drowsiness once more came down like a soft curtain. Then the sleepy voice of Gale:

“Bill!”

“Yes, sir.”

“How did it happen, when you cut the rope to-day and the balloon shot up, that your weight didn’t jerk us all out? I didn’t feel any jerk.”

“No, sir—I—I—had grabbed—that is—seized hold quite firmly of the bit of rope above, sir.”

There was another silence, and then I half-heard, mingled with a dream that was just beginning, the far-off sleepy voice of Gale, whispering,

“Bully old Bill!”

XXIV.
THE GREAT WHITE WAY.

Sept. 21. All day we have been pushing our boat-sleigh, and to-night we are between fifteen and twenty miles farther south than last. We made fairly good progress in spite of the drifts, because of the general down-slope, which in some places was such that we got into our boat and the wind carried us along. Gale and Ferratoni are fixing up a sail to use to-morrow. It will be rigged between two of the uprights, forward. The wings of our propeller were smashed in the fall. We are all very tired to-night, and very hungry, for our light ration of sandwiches does not go far, and the food lozenges become unpleasant when eaten in any quantity. Mr. Sturritt explains that we do not quite follow instructions, but I noticed this evening a very sad look on his face, so perhaps he is experiencing some difficulty with them himself, as a steady diet, for he still persistently declines the sandwiches. I hope we shall reach somewhere or something to-morrow. Otherwise we shall be in very bad straits in the matter of food. Fortunately we have plenty of tea and coffee. The air has grown warmer, and a soft snow is falling. It is what we would call good winter weather in northern Nebraska.

Sept. 22. Another day of pushing and sailing our boat-sledge. The sail is a success, and a great help. We have made good time, but there is no sign of dry land yet, and our last sandwiches are gone. To-morrow it will be tablets or nothing. We have not confessed it to each other, but I think it will be _nothing_. Even Mr. Sturritt looks wretched when it comes mealtime. He steadily refuses the sandwiches, however.

It is clear and cold to-night, but it was much warmer through the day than yesterday. We are almost too warm, in fact, when we are pushing the boat. Gale never loses heart. He keeps up the deception with Edith, though this is not so easy as it would seem. He told her to-day that we were “laying up,” because of adverse winds. Her voice in the telephone seems weaker than it was, perhaps because of our reaching a lower level, and the increasing distance. Like the Marconi system, this may require that one end of the circuit should be much higher than the other in order to get the best results. Ferratoni thinks the jar of our fall may have affected the instrument, too. I hope and pray that it will not fail us altogether, for the voices from the ship are our greatest comfort. Last night, just as I was dozing off I heard my name called gently.

“Nicholas!”

It was Edith’s voice, and close to my ear. I answered softly, for the others were already sleeping. Then she said:

“Nicholas, Zar is going to sing to me, don’t you want to hear, too?”

“Oh, yes, I should love to.”

There came a mumble of protest in the receiver. Evidently Zar did not altogether approve of singing us both to sleep at once, even though so many frozen miles lay between. Then this ceased, and a moment later, vibrating across the wastes in a rich, crooning chant, came her song of the “Old Brown Cows.”[2]

Footnote 2:

Words and Music, Copyright, 1901, by the Author.

“Dark come down an’ dey ain’ come home—
Dark come down an’ dey ain’ come home—
Dark come down an’ dey ain’ come home-
Ole brown cows.
Ole brown cows—
Straying away from de mastah’s gate,
Ole brown cows.

“Look way down to to de pastur’ lot—
Call way down th’ough the clovah fiel’—
Hunt way down by de cattle pon’
Foh ole brown cows.
Ole brown cows—
Call ’em home to de mastah’s gate,
Ole brown cows.

“What dat tinkle-in’ th’ough de wood?
What dat browserin’ ’long de haidge?
What dat shuffle-in’ down de lane?
Ole brown cows.
Ole brown cows—
All come home to de mastah’s gate—
Ole brown cows.”

Sept. 23. The wind keeps with us, and whenever we find a decently smooth place we can sail. Otherwise, we should make little progress, for we are too weak from weariness and lack of food to do much at pushing the boat. We kept up to-day on coffee and tea. We can’t eat any more tablets, and Mr. Sturritt, who forced down a number of them, had something like nervous spasms afterwards. To-night, when he stopped for camp, he sat down and cried. Gale comforted him.

“Poor Bill,” he said “poor old Bill. _Don’t_ break down. We’ll get out of this mess some way. We always have, you know.”

“It isn’t that,” moaned Sturritt, “I’m not afraid. It’s the tab—that is—the lozenges. They’ve failed me. I—I can’t eat ’em, myself!”

Sept. 24. Strange what will come out of this white desolation. Last night, after the others were asleep, Ferratoni and I talked softly of evolution and immortality. He believes in transmigration, and that the horse is the next step before man. I was barely awake at last, and closed my eyes to a vision of four jaded horses that were dragging a heavy boat across the sun-bright snow.

Sept. 25. This morning a white bird—the first life we have seen—lighted near our camp, and Gale shot it with his revolver. It was a fine shot, for the bird was not large—barely a good bite apiece. It revived us more than would seem possible, and encouraged us in the belief that we are nearing bare ground. We pushed on to the south, though very slowly. We have made no more than twenty miles in the past three days. Other birds passed, but neither Gale nor the rest of us could hit them. We were soon wretchedly hungry again, and desperate.

About noon Gale was taken quite unexpectedly with a religious turn, and offered a prayer. It seemed fervent enough, but on the whole I did not think much of it. He said:

“Oh, Lord, we seem to have run the lines of this addition wrong. We’ve made a poor survey and we can’t find any corner-stones. There’s no use trying to get back to the ship, and we don’t seem to be able to get anywhere else. We’re hungry, Lord, too, and we can’t eat any more of Bill’s tablets. He can’t eat ’em himself. I’ve tried to shoot birds, but I only hit one, and I think that was an accident. I’ve shot and shot and used up about all my ammunition. I can’t hit a thing, Lord, and the other boys shoot worse than I do. It’s your turn now, Lord. Amen.”

It may be that this prayer did some good, for in the afternoon a whole flock of birds lit near us, and Gale threw his revolver among them, killing two. We feel sure these birds indicate bare earth not far away. But we must reach it soon. Gale is, as ever, full of cheer. Ferratoni does not seem to flag, while I am buoyed up by hope, and still have, though it comes each day more faintly, the voice of the woman I love, to give me strength and courage. But poor old Sturritt, who is heart-broken over the failure of his food lozenge, won’t last long as things are. I gave him my part of the last birds to-day. I divided them, so he didn’t know the difference.

XXV.
WHERE THE WAY ENDS.

But now came a great day.

It began with a discovery. My pockets had been full of lozenges which I could not eat, and I had emptied them out on the snow. It seems, however, that I had left two in my coat pocket—a white one and a brown one. I had such a gnawing hunger after we started that when I felt these there, I put them both in my mouth together, thinking to hold them a moment and then take them out before they sickened me.

But, strangely enough, they did not do so. As they dissolved I swallowed them, and when they were gone I felt strengthened. Then I asked Mr. Sturritt if he had ever tried this particular combination. He shook his head sadly and said no, but that it was no use. I then told him what I had done, and he made the experiment. Presently we were all consuming brown and white lozenges, and satisfying what the advertisements refer to as a “long-felt want.” Mr. Sturritt was almost mad with delight. He grew ten years younger in as many minutes, and capered about in the snow until he caught his foot in one of the runners and fell head-first into a drift. Then we all laughed, and got hold of the boat and sent it ahead faster than it had gone since we landed. The brown was the medicated lozenge, intended for extreme cold and exhaustion. Combined with the white soup lozenge, it formed an acceptable nourishment, and we had an ample store of both colors.

The next event of the day came about eleven o’clock. Gale, who was looking ahead, stopped suddenly.

“Hey! Black snow on the port bow!” he called.

We all looked where he pointed. Then I gave a whoop.

“Not snow!” I cried, “but land!”