The Airship Boys Due North

Roy Glashan's Library
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H.L. SAYLER

THE AIRSHIP BOYS DUE NORTH
or, BY BALLOON TO THE POLE

ILLUSTRATED BY S.H. RIESENBERG

First published by The Reilly & Britton Co., Chicago, 1910

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2022
Version Date: 2022-01-27

Produced by Keith Emmett and Roy Glashan

All content added by RGL is proprietary and protected by copyright.

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Chapter I. Through The Golden Gate
Chapter II. Where Are We Going?
Chapter III. The Boys Meet Mr. Osborne
Chapter IV. The Plan Of The White North
Chapter V. A Pre-Glacial Romance
Chapter VI. The Aleutian's Cargo
Chapter VII. Bob's Interview
Chapter VIII. A Tale From The Wheelhouse
Chapter IX. The Treasure-Ship In The Ice
Chapter X. Alan Speaks Up
Chapter XI. The "Wireless" Outfit Discovered
Chapter XII. The Wireless Picks Up A Call
Chapter XIII. A Riddle And Its Solution
Chapter XIV. Mr. Osborne Shows Concern
Chapter XV. The Mystery Of The Aleutian Explained
Chapter XVI. A New Theory Of Arctic Navigation
Chapter XVII. A "Wireless" Stops The Voyage
Chapter XVIII. The Revenue Cutter Thetis To The Rescue
Chapter XIX. Ned's Daring Proposal
Chapter XX. The "Spirit Of The Frozen North"
Chapter XXI. A Libation To The Totem
Chapter XXII. Crossing The Line
Chapter XXIII. A Fight With A Walrus
Chapter XXIV. Beset In The Ice
Chapter XXV. A Polar Picnic
Chapter XXVI. The Balloon To The Rescue
Chapter XXVII. Over The Polar Ice Cap
Chapter XXVIII. Beneath The Pole Star
Chapter XXIX. Stranded On The Ice
Chapter XXX. In The Shadow Of The Pole
Chapter XXXI. In The Lee Of The Berg

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Illustration 1. Spinning along above the white chaos below.
Illustration 2. Bob sprang forward, his oar again in the air.
Illustration 3. Then further advance was stopped by a shot.
Illustration 4. Aboard the wreck.

CHAPTER I
THROUGH THE GOLDEN GATE

WHEN the three thousand-ton steamer Roger C. Waldo, out of Boston in the Nova Scotia trade, was purchased and sent on her long journey around the Horn to San Francisco, it was for the purpose of overhauling and refitting her. Early in the following spring when she came into commission again, it was under a new name and a new commander. On a certain afternoon in late April, rechristened the Aleutian and with Captain Thomas McKay, recently of the Alaska coastwise trade, on the bridge, the staunch sixteen-knot vessel lay in one of the slips near the old India dock at San Francisco ready for sea once more.

The steamer flew no company flag to indicate in what part of the world her new course might be and no list of "sailings" in the papers of that date called attention to her departure. Only her own increasing smoke, a squint-eyed man in a pilot cap at the starboard end of the bridge, and a tug standing by with steam up indicated that the vessel was about to put to sea.

But these signs had attracted the attention of one person. A young man, who had just been refused permission to ascend the landing ladder, had run forward along the dock until he was beneath the bridge. As he stopped for breath and looked up, the squint-eyed man in the pilot cap on the bridge smiled in greeting.

"Tom," called the young man, "who's the skipper o' this vessel and where is he?"

"What's the matter with you?" shouted the young man, who was apparently in no pleasant frame of mind. "Tell him the shipping reporter o' the Chronicle wants to come aboard."

Before the pilot could reply, a ruddy-faced man with close-cropped grey whiskers and sandy hair stepped to the end of the bridge.

"I'll be Captain McKay," he exclaimed with a smile. "What might I be doin' for ye?"

"I'm sorry," replied the officer. "'Tis no time for veesitin'. We'll be soon sailin'."

"An' I'll be Captain McKay o' the Aleutian. Verra glad to meet ye," was the reply in a soft Scotch burr.

At this moment and before the young man could further vent his anger a cab rattling up to the dock entrance attracted his attention. As a tanned, military looking man using a cane alighted and made his way toward the ladder of the steamer the reporter hurried forward and intercepted him.

"Ah," exclaimed the reporter looking back and upward with some exultation toward the non-committal captain on the bridge. "In the Alaska trade?" he continued.

"She certainly carries a lot of junk," the reporter added, sweeping his eyes over the well laden amidship's deck.

"I hope it isn't," calmly retorted the man. "It has been selected with considerable care and at some cost."

"Say, look here, Captain," suddenly exclaimed the reporter. "What's the use of all this mystery? I only want to know what's usually told. Your voyage is certainly regular, isn't it?"

"Quite irregular," responded the new arrival with a laugh. "Perhaps I should say 'unusual.'"

At that moment the squint-eyed man in the pilot cap on the bridge, who had been an amused spectator of the proceedings below, roused himself, glanced at his watch and turned toward the sandy-haired skipper.

"Captain," he exclaimed, "it's a bit after two o'clock. The tide is full on the bar at three. Time for all ashore."

Captain McKay advanced to the forward rail of the bridge. Just below, and on what had been the promenade deck of the old Waldo, two officers and two young men were leaning over the port rail conversing in low tones.

"Mr. Wales," exclaimed the captain, "see that all going are aboard. Clear the ship of those not going. Then stand by to cast off."

The two officers sprang to their duties and the boys turned and faced each other.

"In his cabin, writing," answered the other. "I've done mine." As he said this he exhibited a bulky letter.

"I'll have to wait until we get back, I guess," added the first speaker a little sadly. "I'd like to tell the world what we hope to do, if I could," and he shrugged his shoulders. "But I guess the public can wait. It ought to be worth waiting for."

The next moment both boys were on the pier side of the Aleutian. In the midst of a few dock employees and a dozen or so idlers they saw, amidships, the late comer and the perplexed reporter. At sight of the two boys the reporter's chagrin broke out again.

"My young friend," he observed, "you are wholly wrong. This vessel is not a training ship. Your persistence is excusable, of course. But I must refuse you any details of our voyage. This I will say, and it must satisfy you. My name is Honeywell—Major Baldwin Honeywell, late of the U. S. Army—"

The Chronicle reporter sprang forward, glanced quickly again at the two boys leaning over the rail above him, grasped the speaker excitedly by the arm and almost shouted:

"Are you the gentleman who sent those Chicago lads into the Arizona mountains in a dirigible balloon?"

"And are these the kids?" exclaimed the young journalist, pointing to the boys at the rail above.

At this point Major Honeywell laughed outright. Then, glancing upwards and extending his arm, he exclaimed:

"On our left," pointing to the younger of the two boys, "Mr. Alan Hope, who has the undeniable distinction of being one of our justly famed young aeronauts." The reporter did not join in the general laughter, and the Major continued: "On our right, his friend and but little less famed associate, Robert Russell of the Kansas City Comet."

As the reporter recovered himself and made an attempt to turn the joke into a formal introduction, he turned suddenly upon the Major once more.

"Right on deck when called!" replied a new voice, and a third young man suddenly obtruded his form between Hope and Russell.

"What's wanted?" exclaimed the newcomer, a smiling-faced, tousled-headed youngster with ink-besmeared fingers. "You aren't the pilot, are you?" he added, leaning over the rail and exhibiting a bulky envelope.

"No," answered the reporter slowly, "I'm not." Then, breaking into a laugh, he added, "I'm certainly no pilot. I can't even steer myself, let alone a ship. But," he continued in a resigned tone, and turning again to Major Honeywell, "I interrupted you."

"As I was about to remark," continued the Major in a kindlier tone, "my name is Honeywell. In conjunction with a few other gentlemen, who do not desire to be known, I have purchased this steamer and sent her to this port from the other side of the continent. Further than that, all that can be said is this: 'The three thousand-ton steamer Aleutian, Captain Thomas McKay, sailed to-day for Unalaska. She crossed the bar at three o'clock. Major Baldwin Honeywell, one of her owners, and a few friends were aboard.'"

At this moment the sharp cry, "Cast off your stern line," rang out aft, and Major Honeywell made his way to the ladder, where waiting hands were ready to assist him up.

There was a short blast of the tug's whistle on the far side of the steamer and then in quick succession came the orders to cast off the breast and bow lines. Ingersoll of the Chronicle, balked but yet determined, rushed forward as if to throw himself on the now ascending ladder and wrest from the big, gray, silent vessel the secret that he now knew was there. Three mournful, hollow blasts from the hoarse siren of the Aleutian told him that he was too late.

"Say, Russell!" he shouted, putting his hands to his mouth funnel-wise. "If you'll loosen up and do us a story the Chronicle'll give you extra space on it."

While he yet pleaded, the Aleutian slid into the open waters of the bay and a few moments later the sudden ceasing of the tug's "chug chug" and three more blasts of the steamer's whistle indicated that the mysterious craft was forging ahead under her own power.

At half speed the deep-laden Aleutian made her way up the great bay. In half an hour the tall buildings of the city, and soon afterward its villa-topped hills, had dropped astern. The gay pleasure craft, lying low before the fresh breeze, and the bustle and cheer on the larger vessels entering port were in marked contrast to the serious faces of those on the gray steamer.

"A cheer or two and a few toots of a whistle would help a little, wouldn't it, boys?" exclaimed Ned Napier. "But it's what we wanted. We ought to be satisfied."

"Wait," interrupted a voice just behind them. It was Major Honeywell's. "Yonder is Fort Point."

As the Aleutian altered her course and the swell of the Pacific swept in through the Narrows this last western post of Uncle Sam's outlined itself on the rocks to the right. At a smile from Major Honeywell, Captain McKay gave the word and an instant later the stars and stripes went sailing aloft at the stern. Almost instantly a white ball of smoke rolled from the parapet and then the boom of a cannon came over the water.

Major Honeywell smiled again. "It is Captain Hearne," he said, lifting his hat toward the fort. "I have known him for twenty-five years. I dined with him last evening."

"Somebody must," thoughtfully answered their elder. "He is my brother officer. It is his 'Good luck!' and 'Farewell,' the first and last salute our expedition will receive."

Then the Narrows opened out into the wide Pacific; the Golden Gate—that Mecca of mariners for centuries—passed astern and the engines of the already rolling steamer came to a pause abreast the pilot schooner. A small boat came alongside and Tom, his pockets laden with the last letters and messages of the voyagers, made ready to drop overboard. On the bridge he took his farewell of the skipper:

"Captain McKay," he said, "I never had the honor o' meetin' ye afore but I give ye good luck and safe voyage. When ye return it's me hope to bring ye in—"

"Thankee now," answered, the soft-accented officer, "but I misdoubt it." And then, in a yet lower voice: "We'll hardly be comin' this way, again."

There was nothing more to be said. The discreet pilot descended to the deck, raised his cap to the group assembled there and scrambled nimbly over the rail. For a few moments the steamer rose and sank idly on the long heave of the Pacific. Then Major Honeywell, standing alone and thoughtfully gazing shoreward, turned and nodded to Captain McKay standing at the signal wheel. The soft-voiced skipper faced the pilot room just above.

Mr. Wales and the wheelman on watch threw the wheel over, Captain McKay gave the signal lever a turn, the answering arm flew to "full speed ahead" and the Aleutian forged slowly onward—finally at sea on her unheralded voyage of peril and mystery.

CHAPTER II
WHERE ARE WE GOING?

WHEN Major Baldwin Honeywell made known his name to the Chronicle man on the dock just before sailing, it was not surprising that the reporter instantly recognized his identity. The exploits of Ned Napier and Alan Hope, "The Airship Boys," and their friend, Bob Russell, the reporter, had received more than passing mention in the newspapers. To newspaper men the adventures of the boys with their dirigible balloon in search of the "Aztec Treasure" and their subsequent remarkable rescue from drowning in the Pacific when they were "Saved by an Aeroplane" were both recent stories. And Major Honeywell, as one of the promoters of these enterprises, was not less well known to the public.

The long letter that Ned Napier had finished just before the Aleutian left her dock was addressed to his mother.

I can now tell you a little more about our plans, [the letter ran], "but I can't tell you all. We haven't even yet been told just where we are finally going and what we are to do. As you know, we are headed to the far north and directly into the Arctic Seas. Somewhere up there, Alan and I are to assist, somehow, with our aero-sledge. We hope to return late this fall.

My best news is that Bob Russell is with us. At our request and on the endorsement of Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje, Mr. Osborne consented and in four days Bob made the trip from Kansas City. He has an indefinite leave of absence from the "Comet," and, like those of us who are members of the expedition, he is taking pretty much everything on faith. Undoubtedly we are going to have strange adventures, and probably perils are ahead of us. But remember the old saying: "Nothing venture, nothing have."

I have been told at last how the expedition came about and the real originator of it. The man most deeply interested in it financially is Mr. James W. Osborne of Boston, a millionaire manufacturer of rubber boots and overshoes. Although he is nearly seventy years old, he is sailing with us.

Mr. Osborne has more the appearance of a student than a business man. He is smooth-shaven and wears small nose glasses. At time he has the look of a man who is thinking of something far away. Certainly he has a big idea of some kind, but what it is I can't yet tell you.

Early last summer Mr. Osborne spent some weeks in San Francisco arranging for the "Waldo's" arrival. On his way back East from Seattle he came by way of Denver and was a passenger on the same train that carried Major Honeywell, Colonel Oje, Bob Russell and Elmer to Chicago, after they had given up the search for Alan and me in the mountains. Between Denver and Chicago the Major and the Colonel and Mr. Osborne became acquainted. Before they separated Mr. Osborne invited them to join him on this voyage.

A few weeks later when Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje were in the East disposing of the metal and the other Mesa treasures, they visited Mr. Osborne in Boston. I don't know what argument was made to persuade Colonel Oje to go, but he finally consented to do so if allowed to defray part of the expenses. So he too has an idea.

Major Honeywell, as an ex-military man with some scientific knowledge, was urged to go and take charge of the expedition. He too consented on condition that he also become a financial partner. And it was also one of his conditions that Alan and I be employed to take charge of a balloon and aeroplane equipment which he insisted should be added to the outfit.

At least, when Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje became partners in the voyage, there were new plans made, or the first one was charged. When the "Waldo" reached San Francisco she was completely overhauled and two months ago Captain McKay arrived here and took charge of her. I have already written to you describing her stores and the immense quantities of coal in her. Because she is full of coal, not only in her bunkers but in much of her freight hold, there is a mass of material on deck.

As it is time to cast off I must bring my letter to a close. Don't worry, for we shall come back safe and sound.

As the Aleutian at last got into free sea-room and settled on her course, Ned, Alan and Bob all became suddenly thoughtful. The excitement of the departure was over, and the steamer seemed strangely silent. There were no enthusiastic passengers rushing about, locating steamer chairs; the few members of the crew under Mr. Wales went noiselessly at their tasks of stowing odd ends and lashing fast the harbor boat; and even Captain McKay had disappeared from the bridge. Only a solitary sailor paced back and forth on the bow watch and when the austere figure of Mr. Osborne appeared suddenly from the deck stateroom just adjoining Captain McKay's quarters, the three boys went aft.

There, near the unused wheel on the upper deck, they took station at the rail. At last Bob, who had been watching the distant Cliff House drop lower and lower into the horizon, aroused himself and with a glance over his shoulder as if to be sure he was not overheard, exclaimed:

"I suppose we are at least entitled to a guess." The other boys looked up. "Where are we going?"

Bob, leaning forward and striking the rail, exclaimed, with some emphasis: "It must be the North Pole! What else can it be?"

"If this was an old whaling craft with double oak decks and steel bows I'd say the Pole," interrupted Alan. "But whoever heard of a passenger steamer touring to the top of the world?"

"I've heard of them going pretty far that way, off Spitzbergen," answered Ned in a low voice. "But I don't think Mr. Osborne cares much about the North Pole. And I'm sure Colonel Oje doesn't."

"Then what's that aero-sledge of yours for?" exclaimed Bob. "You say you can use it as an aeroplane or as an ice yacht. Doesn't that look like a dash over the ice and snow?"

"There are nearly three million square miles of ice and snow in the unknown polar regions," replied Ned. "The Pole is only a point in that waste."

"You can be sure of one thing at least," put in Alan. "Everything we are going to do has been thought out. Every preparation has been made for some systematic work. And we are three mighty lucky boys to have a chance to share in it."

Ned turned and looked seaward. The sharp spring air had a sea tonic in it; the long roll of the ocean breaking on the Aleutian's low sides sent a soft spray over the boys.

"Isn't it great?" Ned exclaimed, pulling off his cap and thrusting his face into the breeze. "It's worth even the risk of the unknown. I hope—" and he faced about with a happy twinkle in his eyes—"I hope we do it—whatever it is."

"And I hope," exclaimed Bob in turn, "that, at least, we go where white men have never been before."

Just then the Aleutian's bow, plunging through an extra high swell, settled quickly and with a side motion into the hollow beyond. Righting herself on the next roller, the steamer stuck her nose in the air and then struck the sea again with a crack and a shiver. Bob, who had released his hold on the rail, lost his balance, stumbled forward and then brought up sitting on the edge of the skylight, his face, suddenly, very pale.

"Never," answered Bob slowly. And then, looking up with a ghostly smile, he added: "I guess I've got it."

The other boys were just suggesting that he go forward to his stateroom and lie down when Mr. Wales, the first officer, appeared. Without noticing Bob's condition he exclaimed:

"Young gentlemen, Mr. Osborne's compliments and his request that you come forward."

"I was," exclaimed Bob with grit. "But if Mr. Osborne is ready to talk I'm cured."

CHAPTER III
THE BOYS MEET MR. OSBORNE

THE old Waldo being a passenger steamer, and originally in the West India service, her cabins were large and well ventilated. Captain McKay's room just abaft the pilot house was particularly large, extending the width of the upper works.

Mr. Wales beckoned the boys toward the open door, within which Ned was surprised to see Captain McKay and the three owners of the vessel. Mr. Osborne and Major Honeywell occupied two chairs on either side of the deck, attached to the forward wall. Colonel Oje, the wealthy ranch and sheep owner, was sprawled on Captain McKay's berth over which he had thrown a blanket. The captain sat on a camp stool, his cap on the desk, with a sailing chart crumpled over his knees.

Mr. Osborne sat looking toward Captain McKay as if partly listening and partly thinking. As the boys blocked the doorway Captain McKay paused. Major Honeywell nodded his head, spoke in a low voice to the abstracted Mr. Osborne, and, with a smile, signaled to the newcomers to enter.

With a laugh and a careless flip of his cigar ash on the floor, Colonel Oje sprang up.

"Here, young men," he exclaimed, "a couple of you sit here. I'll get out in the air. Excuse me, gentlemen," he added, addressing all, but apparently more for Mr. Osborne's benefit.

As Colonel Oje picked up his wide, white plainsman's hat, which he had not yet exchanged for maritime gear, and breezily left the cabin, Captain McKay arose and made room for the boys.

It was only then that Mr. Osborne bowed from his chair. Captain McKay was rolling up his chart. While he did this Ned detected Mr. Osborne glancing from himself to the other boys as if making an inventory of them. The task of rolling the chart finished, Captain McKay stowed it away, and with a look first at Major Honeywell and then at Mr. Osborne exclaimed:

"Well, gentlemen, what'll it be? We can do fourteen knots, I 'm thinkin' but it'll call for coal. An' if we miss the collier—"

"That is an 'if' we need hardly consider, Captain McKay," interrupted Mr. Osborne. "You may push the engines to their limit, Mr. McKay."

"Verra good, sir," the trim little Scotchman replied. "Unless I'm meestaken we'll find oursel' a roundin' Cape Kalighta in seven or eight days."

Captain McKay, apparently accepting this as his dismissal, left the room. For a moment all sat without speaking. Then Ned, assuming the role of representative, exclaimed: "You sent for us, sir?"

"We have quite a voyage before us," said Mr. Osborne, without making direct answer. "It occurred to me that we ought to have some general understanding." As he said this he glanced at Major Honeywell. "Which is Mr. Russell?" continued Mr. Osborne in the same calm tone. Ned indicated the still qualmish reporter and Bob bowed.

"Ordinarily, I am told," went on the reserved speaker, "on an expedition of this sort all participate in the ship's duties. I see no need for such an arrangement on the Aleutian. Captain McKay has a small crew, but one able, I understand, to care for the steamer. Mr. Napier and Mr. Hope will have, in time, quite likely, certain professional duties. Until that time arrives you are both free to spend your time as you please.

"Mr. Russell," he continued, turning to Bob, "the owners of the Aleutian extend to you their hospitality. As our guest you will also make yourself free on board. I believe each of you has been assigned a stateroom?"

Seeing that the interview was at an end the boys arose. Ned, speaking again for the others, said, a little awkwardly: "We thank you, sir."

Before they could leave the cabin Mr. Osborne, who had also arisen, turned to Bob and added:

"I have great respect for the press of our country, sir," exclaimed Mr. Osborne, "and I trust you may find your voyage with us both instructive and interesting."

"I'm sure it will be both," answered Bob. "I'm certainly grateful for the honor you do me in permitting me to join you. I hope you will call on me for any task that is in my power to execute."

"I believe you are assigned to Colonel Oje," answered Mr. Osborne, dropping again into an abstracted air. The boys looked quickly from one to the other and then, Mr. Osborne dropping once more into his chair, they bowed in turn and left the cabin. Outside, without speaking, they moved quickly toward the stern.

"Well, by the Great Horn Spoon," ejaculated Alan at last. "Assigned to Colonel Oje! You—" he added pointing to Bob and laughing.

"We dine this evening at seven," said Bob, his face a puzzle. "The secret is out at last!"

Ned was too astonished to join in the laughter. "Well," he exclaimed at last, "what do you expect? We are all hired hands, aren't we?"

"I should say not," retorted Bob, laughing, "not I. Representing the honored and respected press of our nation, I'm a guest."

For a long time the boys hung over the rail, hugging to their breasts the joy of the sea. They speculated and they theorized, but it was to no end. Finally it was wholly dark.

The dining saloon of the former Waldo had been on the main deck. This part of the ship had now been cleared, and the space, together with that once devoted to staterooms on this deck, was packed with freight. The new dining room was on the upper deck in the space between the large staterooms, formerly the "social hall." The cook's galley was retained on the main deck below.

On the forward upper deck Captain McKay's room adjoined the wheel house. Then came Mr. Wales' and the second mate's rooms. Adjoining these were four special staterooms, two on each side of the vessel, in three of which Mr. Osborne, Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje were located. On each side of the "social hall" aft were six single and two double staterooms. The boys had their choice of these. Bob selected Number 27, a single room, and Ned and Alan took 29 and 31, double rooms connecting. The engineer, Jackson, and his assistant were in 33 and 35; the cook and the steward in 34 and 36; four wheelmen were in the double room 30 and 32, and 28 was unoccupied.

When the boys entered the social hall and dining saloon, they found it aglow with electric lights. In the gold painted ornamentation of the ivory white woodwork scores of bulbs sparkled and brought out the warmth of the heavy crimson carpet. On the snowy cloth of the long table a bowl of roses gave additional color to the picture. At the entrance the boys paused while a Japanese boy in a white jacket drew himself up and saluted.

The first meal on the Aleutian began under somewhat of a strain. For the time there were only formalities, for Mr. Osborne, on Captain McKay's right, seemed to make some ceremony of dining. Until after the fish was served Mr. Osborne, next to whom Ned was sitting, gave little attention to his neighbor. At last, turning unexpectedly, he remarked, almost casually:

"We were discussing your aero-sledge this afternoon, Mr. Napier. Are you quite convinced that it is practical?"

"Not wholly," he answered at last. "But I have tested so many of the theories applied in it that I am convinced that it is well worth a trial. Of course," and he smiled, "I couldn't actually test it, as it has never been assembled. I know the balloon will fly. We need no longer consider the aeroplane a theory. And as for the sledge idea, I can only say I believe it is practical."

Finally the coffee and cigars were reached. Ned and Alan, partaking of neither, were about to retire, when to Ned's renewed surprise, Mr. Osborne addressed him again in his usual low voice:

"Mr. Napier, would it be too much trouble for you to tell me about your new idea in air navigation?"

CHAPTER IV
THE PLAN OF THE WHITE NORTH

"I DON'T know that I can call it our idea," Ned began. "There is so much that is now understood in aeronautics—so many practical, worked-out ideas, that we haven't done much but put together other persons' work."

Ned hesitated and then added: "But I can show it better with a blue print." Hastening to his stateroom, he returned with a folded sheet of plans. As he spread it on the table those about him drew their chairs closer; all except the reserved Mr. Osborne. Ignoring the blue print he sipped his coffee and seemed indifferently waiting.

"When we learned," went on Ned, "that the balloon would probably be used in very high latitudes we decided that a dirigible would not do. Unless the bag is rigid, you can't drive a wide-surfaced balloon against a wind blowing thirty miles an hour."

"You could go forward with a thirty-mile wind, but you couldn't come back. We decided to attach to the balloon an aeroplane instead of the usual car. In that way the craft could go forward with the wind and, if it couldn't come back against it, the balloon might be abandoned and the aeroplane used.

"But the trouble with this was," went on Ned, "that if the balloon drifted several hundred miles from the fuel supply and you counted on returning with two or three passengers in your aeroplane, the gasoline capacity would be so reduced that you couldn't fly all the way back. That is why we determined to fly part way back and sail the rest."

"We merely took another step. Having turned a dirigible frame into an aeroplane, we altered the aeroplane into a flying sledge."

"Let me see," interrupted the millionaire manufacturer. Ned took up the blue print and held it before him.

"You recall the two long, landing skis or runners under the center of the Wright aeroplane?" continued Ned. "Well, we make these actual runners strong and elastic and heavy enough to bear up the car."

"When you've gone as far as you can in the balloon," resumed Ned, shaking his head and smiling, "the useless bag will be cut away and your aero-sledge will rest on the ice or snow. When the wind comes fair you turn the top and bottom surfaces of the aeroplane vertically on their hinged fronts and, well, why can't you sail just as you would in an ice boat?"

"You can see," interrupted Alan, indicating on the plan, "that the vertical guiding planes in the rear become the rudder and that the horizontal guiding planes in front, with slight readjustment, can act as a jib."

While the astounded Mr. Osborne and Captain McKay leaned back and listened Ned gave them a brief summary of the apparatus. The device for regulating ascent and descent without ballast was a distinctly novel feature. Five small resistance coils were to be hung within the gas bag and connected with a small dynamo operated by one of the propeller motors. These coils were safeguarded from igniting the gas by being encased in aluminum cylinders, in which they were insulated—and by fuses on the feed wire outside the bag.

"After the loss of an appreciable amount of hydrogen," explained Ned, "the heating of the remainder increases its volume, forces the heavy atmospheric air out of the balloonet and the balloon ascends. The shutting off of the current and the reinflation of the balloonet obviously increases the weight of the balloon, and it descends."

The bag of the White North was an oblong sphere, 69.5 feet in its longest and 27.4 feet in its shortest diameter. The envelope was made of two layers of Japanese silk with a middle and interior coating of rubber, and had a capacity of 87,750 cubic feet. The lifting capacity was nearly 5,000 pounds.

In selecting motive power another innovation was made. This was the use, for the first time on an air vehicle, of the long dreamed of and hoped for gyroscopic or revolving motor. In this motor, although it operates on the four-cycle principle, as do most gasoline motors, the cylinders are allowed to revolve instead of the crank shaft. The shaft is secured to a base and the motor revolves. This engine not only furnishes a steadying, gyroscopic influence over the car, but it solves a difficult problem.

In a temperature of thirty-five or forty degrees below zero water could not be used to cool the motor cylinders. In this motor the cylinders revolved rapidly through the air without water jackets, radiator or even a fan. Incidentally, there was no fly wheel. These motors had a rating of thirty-six horse-power, a normal speed of 1500 revolutions per minute and weighed 97-1/4 pounds each. The cost of the two was $2400.

"The aeroplane itself," said Ned, "is the result of a close examination of the Wright Brothers, Farman and Curtiss machines. Some feature of each is used. Although the propelling power is of almost twice the weight generally provided, and the planes of the car might have been considerably lessened in square feet, we recognized that more weight would have to be carried. Therefore Farman's area of 560 square feet was selected. This provides a frame 42.9 feet long and 6.7 feet wide.

"The steering apparatus is copied from the Wright machine; a horizontal rudder in front fifteen feet long and three feet wide and a vertical rudder in the rear five and a half feet long and one foot wide. The two propellers, because of the divided and increased power, were modeled after the Curtiss pattern, each six feet two inches in diameter, with a pitch of 17 degrees and designed to be run at about 1200 revolutions per minute.

"The aeroplane is divided into seven sections, each 6.12 feet long, except the center one, which is 6.18 feet. The center sections, protected by aluminum-coated silk, lined with felt, is reserved for the operators. The two motors are mounted at the far sides of the sections, to the right and left of the center section.

"The propellers are set on the vertical framework opposite each motor and operated by chain gear. The balloonet blower and dynamos are next to the middle section frame and connected with the motor shafts by belts. The gasoline reservoir is attached to the top of the center section and both it and the feed pipes are thickly encased with felt. Levers to operate the rudders are patterned after the Wright Brothers' design and operated from the enclosed section in which are isinglass-covered port holes.

"The silk planes on both the top and bottom of the end sections are fixed. The planes on all the other sections, except the bottom of the middle compartment, are hinged in front and can be elevated vertically. These surfaces, when in that position, give a sail area of 369.43 square feet. The planes on the bottom of the car are raised and locked into a vertical position by hand. On the top of the car the sections are provided with controlling arms of aluminum resembling the breaking joints in buggy tops. The frames, once pushed into place, hold themselves automatically rigid until a pull from beneath breaks the joint, when they fall again into place and are retained by snap bolts.

"The sledge runners are shod with vanadium steel, increased in number, materially strengthened and given elasticity by the installation of stout steel springs as shock absorbers on each vertical brace.

"They afford a foundation for a most important contrivance. Braced into one rigid body, the middle runners are also strutted so as to provide a small front and rear platform. Here surplus stores can be lashed and carried until air flights are attempted. Then, of course, they are cleared. These platforms also give access to the front and rear rudders.

"Although these aeroplane rudders are braced independently of the sledge platform and operated directly from the center section, the front or vertical rudder is also supported by the sledge platform. On this it is pivoted so that, from the platform, its vertical movement can be thrown, by a lever, into a horizontal motion. In this manner, while operating as a sledge, the rudder can be turned into a jib for the control of the sledge in the wind."

When the White North made her remarkable flight after the steamer Aleutian was finally beset in the ice, she carried considerable additional weight in instruments and tools. This included:

There were, when flight was finally made, in addition to the two heavily clad passengers 125 pounds of provision which included a spirit stove and ten pounds of fuel. The provisions on board included pemmican, salt pork, steak, corned beef, baked beans, and preserved butter in tins; biscuits, tea and cocoa, sugar, salt, cheese and raisins.

The total weight of the balloon, car and equipment, exclusive of the operators, was 4,298.9 pounds. The theoretical buoyancy of the balloon was nearly 5,000 pounds. But, after the two daring young operators were aboard, the condensation of the hydrogen in the extreme cold was found to be so great that but little ballast was needed.

When Ned had finished his explanation, Mr. Osborne relighted his cigar and said:

"I am sure you are going to be of assistance to us. We shall certainly be in the vicinity of ice."

Ned glanced quickly and surreptitiously at Alan and Bob and then, very boldly, he exclaimed:

"I believe, with good luck and a favoring wind, that we could reach the North Pole in this craft."

The other boys instantly realized what Ned meant. It was a desperate probe at the secret that was holding them in suspense.

Not changing his expression, and barely glancing toward Ned, who could scarcely conceal the alarm he felt at his own boldness, Mr. Osborne slowly replied:

"Indeed? It's too bad we can't try it. I'm almost sorry we're not going toward the Pole."

CHAPTER V
A PRE-GLACIAL ROMANCE

WHEN dinner was at an end the boys went on deck. But the spring wind was raw and the sky was overcast; and as it was easier to talk in their staterooms, all three returned to the double apartment. Here they made themselves comfortable and theorized and gossiped to their heart's content. Until Mr. Osborne made his positive statement there was a general and growing belief that the voyage could mean but one thing—some novel and daring sally into the much debated and almost unknown polar region. But, with that eliminated, the boys could think of no reasonable substitute.

On his trip west Bob had been reading a volume on Arctic research and he was full of the wonders of the New Siberian Islands.

"If we can't go to the Pole, I'd like to go there, if I had my 'ruthers'," suggested the reporter.

"Why not?" answered Bob. "I think the most wonderful thing in life is to find that some astounding thing you never did believe, is really true after all. I'll never believe until I see it that the flesh of these thousands-of-year-old mammoths is still firm and hard meat that dogs can eat."

"He means," explained Ned, "that up there in the New Siberian Islands, north of Siberia, is the fountain head of paleocrystic ice—"

"Well, eternal ice; ice that has existed so long that it is like rock; paleocrystic ice they call it—"

"That's one that escaped me," laughed Bob. "I'm much obliged. It's a dandy word. I'll file it away."

And while Ned went on to explain somewhat of the Siberian Islands, Bob made a note of "paleocrystic" in his memorandum book along with a lot of other Arctic adjectives that he had been compiling.

"These islands are the home of the mammoth," Ned explained. "I'm like Bob," he went on. "I used to read about these extinct, ice-preserved beasts in the geographies, look at the pictures of the tremendous ivory tusks and their coats of long, coarse hair and then pass them by in the same way that I did pictures of fairies with wings."

Alan shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't," he said. "What's the use of doubting such things? I never thought them so wonderful as all that."

"What?" interrupted Bob, somewhat excitedly. "You don't see anything wonderful in those old mammoths?"

It was Alan's time to smile. "I give it up," he said. "Just as I give up the question how did the ice get there?"

"That's the point," judicially broke in Ned, pretending to separate the two boys. "How did the ice get there? The mammoth was there before the ice—he couldn't have lived there after the ice came. Once this animal and many others now ex-long extinct in that part of the world—bears horses, tigers—"

"And even monkeys roamed what are now the tundra wastes of Siberia. There is evidence that these present wastes were then tropic-treed."

"Wait a minute," broke in Bob. "He's going to give you worse than that. I've read the same thing."

"Well, I don't. And if you fellows think you can string me with any such stories of flower-scented North Pole romances you're off. That's all."

"Again," exclaimed Ned after he and Bob had had a laugh at Alan's skepticism, "I must repeat what I have often said—you are a great mathematician, Alan, but a mighty poor poet. Now let me tell you something—something for you to dream over to-night. It isn't any the less true or less plausible because you don't happen to know anything about it."

"All ready, Professor," retorted Alan throwing himself on a berth and shutting his eyes. "But call me when the lecture is done."

"Before the days of the great glacial period that we read so much about," began Ned, seating himself on the edge of Alan's berth and winking at Bob, "the North Pole was not where it is now. That is, according to some daring thinkers. A few French geological savants—" Alan opened his eyes quickly—"a few French savants," repeated Ned, slowly rolling the word over his tongue boldly and unctuously, "have figured it out that the North Pole was somewhere in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico."

"What are you talkin' about?" exclaimed Alan springing up. "You'll have to show me the books on that."

"I can," laughed Ned, forcing the doubter back into the berth, "but not now. Please attend. After ages and ages the poles as they then were became overloaded with ice. While this was going on the lands of the present North and South Poles were temperate if not partly tropic. Mexico and Central America were icy wastes and Siberia was a flower- and tree-covered region of animal life. Monkeys flitted from tree to tree and the mammoth roamed at will."

"If you'll excuse me I think I'll go out and get some real air," broke in Alan, making an effort to rise.

"You didn't think a mammoth wonderful," went on Ned. "You'll wait until you hear something that is. After the North Pole out there in the Pacific became so loaded with ice that it got top-heavy something broke loose. Some geologists say that was the real glacial period. Any way, our French savants say that this overloaded world of ice upset things and the world wobbled."

"Precisely," went on Ned, "and when it did, everything joggled around until it settled into a new place—until the great polar caps broke up and scattered themselves in bits over the land and sea. Then, relieved of its overbalancing loads, the great ball of this world found that it had two new poles. What had been polar regions were now thrown nearest the sun, and the earth had new tropics. And what had been tropic regions now became the lands of the long night, of everlasting cold and paleocrystic ice."

"Well," added Bob somewhat soberly, "I don't know that I believe it. But that is probably because my teachers never told me anything about it. Anyway," and he slapped his leg, "it's a dandy theory and it explains a good many strange things that I'm told are to be found in the polar regions."

"Coal," answered Bob, "coal good enough for steamers. Found where no vegetation grows today, as far north as the 75th degree. And fossil tree trunks."

"That's what we could do," persisted Bob enthusiastically, "if we had you in the Siberian Islands."

"Do you know," interrupted Ned thoughtfully and addressing both boys, "the one thing that makes this shifting of the poles theory seem a probability?"

"If," went on Ned, smiling, "the North Pole was ever in the Pacific, off Mexico, and the South Pole somewhere corresponding to that on the other side of the world, and you drew an equator between the two, it would pass through present Egypt."

"Nothing, except that the present equator passes just south of Egypt. That being true, Egypt would be one place on the globe that this world-wrecking deluge of ice would least affect. Perhaps that is why we have specimens of the handiwork of man in Egypt that are so much older than those found anywhere else in the world."

"Say," exclaimed Alan, forcing his way out of the berth at last. "Maybe Mr. Osborne has this same 'bug'. Do you reckon he's going up there to look for fossils and cold storage mammoth skins?"

"You'll find it the trip of your life if he is," persisted Bob. "Think of those great walls of—of—paleocrystic ice on which even the sun has no effect. Why, that's where the icebergs come from—some of them," he added guardedly. "Anyway, I can imagine the Aleutian steaming up to those flint-like, steel-blue glacier walls in which are hidden the mysteries of ages, of some of which man has as yet, perhaps, no hint. I could write it now," he went on, bubbling over with enthusiasm, "how, just within its crystal sepulcher, we first caught sight of the mountain-like shape of a perfect mammoth. Encased in its glassy tomb we could yet make out its erect form—the ivory white tusks, the extended tree-like legs, and the hair-draped hill of flesh. There is a crack, a crash and with a roar of an avalanche the face of the glacier parts; a new iceberg is thrown into the sea and from its heart the mammoth falls at our feet—"

"You spring forward," interrupts Alan in mock enthusiasm, "and your quick reportorial eye detects an implement or weapon protruding from the left foreleg of the beast. With feverish energy you pluck it forth. It is a stone hatchet. And on the side is carved 'A. Sussoski, trapper of mammoths'."

Alan had to laugh in spite of his assumed soberness. "Anyway," he went on, "since there are such notions in existence—and I'll say frankly it's all news to me—I really wonder if our bosses are headed to that part of the world?"

"I hardly think so," suggested Ned. "If they are it would have been easier to lave outfitted in Denmark or even in Russia, and have started from that corner of the world."

"So near the present that it's fresh," answered Bob, smiling. "We all want to know where we are going. I'm going to find out."

"Easiest thing in the world when you get to it," answered Bob, "I'm going right to headquarters and ask."

"Never been more than frost-bitten yet by any man," laughed Bob. "They say I'm a fair reporter."

CHAPTER VI
THE ALEUTIAN'S CARGO

THE Aleutian carried three masts, all bearing light canvas. The foremast and mizzenmast also carried a wireless outfit, the operating end of which was now in what had been the purser's room amidships on the main deck. No operator was carried, but the outfit as used on the old passenger steamer had not been disturbed. The upper deck between the foremast and mizzenmast had been cleared of all superstructure—a galley, smoking saloon, the chief engineer's and his assistant's rooms having been thus demolished.

In this cleared position of the deck was an orderly array of cargo that the Chronicle reporter had referred to as "junk." In this "junk" were the crated sections of a small steamboat, a portable wood-burning boiler and an engine for the same; a rebuilt whaleboat carrying a powerful looking gasoline engine and two auxiliary masts of the Mackinac rig—unshipped, of course—and not less than twenty steel drums of gasoline, all housed beneath a board and canvas protecting covering.

Next to these, and familiar enough in appearance to the boys, stood the old oak casks for generating hydrogen gas. These had been forwarded on Ned's order from Clarkville, New Mexico, and were now ready for use once again. In the vicinity were the carboys of sulphuric acid and the sacks of iron filings to be used in making hydrogen gas. Apart and under a separate covering of tarpaulin were the boxes and crates containing Ned's and Alan's pride—the big balloon bag, its rigging, the aero-sledge and the light but powerful engines for the latter. "And what's this," asked Bob, indicating several large bundles of snowy duck canvas and a heap of cordage"—a circus tent?"

"Our balloon house," answered Ned. "We haven't the time to build a steel house, as Mr. Wellman did. But we've got to have protection to fill a balloon, if there is any wind. From the upper yards of the foremast and mizzenmast we are going to extend rope stays. From them we expect—if we are ever called on to inflate the balloon—to hang our four canvas walls. We'll lace them together at the corners as they are drawn aloft, and there's your canvas balloon house open at the top and snug as a chimney shaft on the sides."

Bob took a quick glance at the towering masts and fragile yards. Then he shook his head. "I don't mind ballooning," he exclaimed, "but excuse me from rigging up that contraption."

On the lower main deck, what had been the old dining saloon was now almost completely filled with goods that would answer as well for an extended hunting trip as for an Arctic voyage. There were provisions of varied kinds; preserved meats, vegetables in glass, flour, and sweets even in the form of confectionery. Three of the aft staterooms that had not been removed were crowded with ammunition and firearms. The latter included not only pocket and holster automatic revolvers of the latest patterns but an assortment of magazine express rifles and shot guns.

At sight of these the youthful investigators wondered what use Colonel Oje could find for his own assortment of gun cases, for that gentleman had in his own cabin a gun trunk, whose contents were a marvel.

Conveniently near, in the cargo space, were unopened boxes of heavy blankets, sleeping bags and felt boots. Two rooms were packed with flat pasteboard boxes labeled variously: Mackinac woolen coats; extra heavy shirts; woolen socks and stockings; woolen and deerskin mittens; moccasins and many other articles of winter apparel, most of them such as timber men in the Northwest or the voyageurs of the Canadian North wear.

Amidships, on this desk, next to the purser's office and the wireless outfit in what had been the "valuable baggage" room were dozens of cotton-encased boxes which, Mr. Wales, the first officer, explained, held "the most elaborate set of instruments" he had ever seen.

"I don't know that we will bother this room very much," remarked Ned. "We've got, under the berth in our stateroom, a good many more registering and measuring appliances than the old Cibola ever had and, goodness knows, we had more on her than we ever used."

"Dandy!" exclaimed Bob. "But say—what if she doesn't go to the 'white north'?"

The usual smile went out of Ned's face for a moment and a glint of determination seemed to dart from his half-closed eyes.

The words had so much of force and thrill in them that both Alan and Bob looked up in astonishment. Ned had passed on.

"By cracky," whispered Alan, "I believe he'll make it a polar expedition of some kind."

"Sounds as if he had an idea or two," whispered Bob, "even if he is a hired man."

The adjoining room was a photographic shop—with everything ready for setting up; dark room equipment, cameras, tripods, flash-light apparatus and cases of plates and films.

"Here's where I live," exclaimed Bob, thinking of his own new personal outfit—two beautiful and powerful film cameras that he had brought aboard.

Ned was a few steps ahead. As he looked back he remarked, banteringly, as he pointed to the open door of the purser's office:

"Oh, I don't know," answered the reporter. "We newspaper fellows have to make ourselves handy at a good many things."

At the moment the remark had no particular significance to Ned and Alan. Later they understood.

In the bow on this deck was the crew's mess and bunks. In the stern, on the same deck and aft of the now cargo-crowded dining saloon were the colliers' bunks. The lower or cargo deck and the steamer's hold forward and astern of the engine room were packed with coal. Such was the Aleutian's burden.

Alan, in the afternoon, stood for a long time with his hands gripped on the idle wheel at the stern, and as the steamer lunged and sank, he leaned forward as if holding the steel hulk on its course. Bob, hanging over the taffrail, amused himself with the clicking log. Ned had disappeared. Later his two friends found him in the pilot house above the bridge. And, to their surprise, his companions found him firmly grasping the real wheel.

"Let's find the engineer and have a look at the engines," suggested Alan, anxious not to be wholly outdone by Ned. But Bob shook his head.

"Plenty of time coming for that," he answered. "I'm getting my sea legs and it's too fine out here. You go. With you in the engine room and Ned at the wheel I'll take the deck. I guess the three of us can run her all right."

In this manner the boys separated. Alan's stay in the engine room was not protracted. The heat and hot oil soon drove him out. On deck, although he made several circuits of the steamer, he could find no trace of Russell. Feeling a trifle shaky in his knees Alan went into his own stateroom for a nap.

Perhaps an hour and a half later he was aroused by the somewhat excited entrance of Bob and Ned.

This was better than a dash of cold water. Alan slipped off the berth like a fish.

Through the stateroom windows it could be seen that the raw breeze was turning into a foggy wind. When Bob insisted that he could talk only in the open air the three boys donned rain-coats and were soon on what they had already come to consider their part of the deck—the extreme stern of the steamer. Bob had accomplished something and he showed it. Pulling his cap down over his radiant face, he leaned proudly back against the rail.

"That's my climax," he answered, "I've got to work it up to that. I'm going to tell you from the beginning."

CHAPTER VII
BOB'S INTERVIEW

"IT took all the courage I had, but I'd said I would. After you fellows disappeared I figured out my campaign. Persuading the Jap to act as a messenger I got out the cleanest card I had and sent it to Mr. Osborne's stateroom. The card had 'Kansas City Comet' on it. I had a notion that the representative of the press might have a chance.

"He sent word to come in. When I did so I found him standing by the table with a chart in his hand. Before I could begin he stopped me by saying in the nicest tone:"

"'I thank you. But it is only a moment I want, Mr. Osborne,' I explained, 'I asked to see you because I feel that my being on the Aleutian warrants some explanation. You lave been good enough to permit me to accompany you. I want to thank you for that—'"

"He interrupted me. 'We are honored to have a representative of the press as a guest.'

"'And,' I continued, "'I want you to know that I appreciate the confidence you have placed in me. We all appreciate that, whatever the mission of your voyage may be, its purpose solely concerns you and your associates.'

"At this he shrugged his shoulders as if surprised. Then be again motioned to a chair and I took it, but I sat on the edge as if I had but a moment to stay—that's an old reportorial trick, you know—" added Bob. "'I hope,' I went on after we were both seated, 'you won't misunderstand me. But if I do not impress you as having sufficient loyalty to you and the voyage, I want you to ask me to withdraw from the expedition at Unalaska.'

"If I had any notion he was going to fall over himself to ask me to stay I got a chill right there."

"Wait," added Bob. "He looked at me without any expression for a moment. Then he said:

"I have never yet been deceived by a reporter—and I have known many. Your profession is a sufficient guarantee of your character."

"Say," broke in Alan, throwing the accumulated water from his folded arms, "what's this? A book? Tell as how it came out! You'd got a fine call down from your city editor for all those 'says I' and 'says he.'"

"'We asked you to come because we had use for you,' he went on. 'I see no reason to feel we have not made a wise choice. That is, unless you are averse to roughing it and hunting.'

"'He hopes to have the greatest hunting trip a sportsman ever made,' Mr. Osborne answered, as calmly and easily as if he wasn't telling a thing. 'Perhaps he has not yet spoken to you of his plans. He will probably seek an early opportunity to do so,' continued Mr. Osborne. 'He should do it before we reach the islands. You might not care to go on.'

"'I know Colonel Oje,' I answered in a hurry. 'He's the best shot in America. I'll be only too glad to help him in any way I can.'

"'In that event,' explained Mr. Osborne, 'I have no doubt you'll help take our little steamboat up the McKenzie River. I understand that that part of Northern Canada is the greatest big game region in the world—'"

"Don't hurry me," pleaded Bob. "But I was just as excited, I guess, for Mr. Osborne went on and let the cat right out of the bag."

"He told it so naturally and easily that it seemed as if I knew it already," explained Bob.

"From Unalaska we are going to sail directly up through Bering Sea, into the Straits and into the Arctic Ocean—"

"That's where the Pacific steam whalers winter when they are caught in the North," explained Bob with a great show of erudition. "But there's nothing there except land and fresh water. And it lies off the month of the McKenzie River."

"And that's all?" broke in Alan ruefully. "What's the use of an aero-sledge there?"

"I'm the one who ought to feel disappointed," he continued. "Only I don't. Colonel Oje and I and some others are going ashore there and that's where I tell you good bye."

"That's the program. I can't give details but when we've killed caribou and musk ox, wood buffalo, elk, bear and deer to Colonel Oje's content we're going to get to civilization again by going on up the McKenzie River to Great Slave Lake and then by lakes and rivers I don't know to Edmonton in Canada, twenty-four hundred miles away."

"And the rest of us and the aero-sledge?" urged Alan, who did not yet realize the novelty and wonder of this daring and hazardous journey through the almost unexplored wilderness of Northern British America.

"And I didn't hesitate to ask. 'Do we all go with Colonel Oje?' I asked directly after I sort of got my senses.

"'We may remain a week at Herschel Island,' Mr. Osborne said, 'for that is where we meet our collier.' I was getting a little used to surprises now, but I suppose he saw that this, too, was news to me. So he added, 'I forwarded a cargo of coal there last summer in a steam whaler.' Then he told me where you fellows come in. 'We have not said anything of our plans,' he explained, 'as the expedition is a business secret. But,' he went on, 'there is no reason why you young gentlemen should not know now where you are going. Mr. Napier and Mr. Hope will remain with us. It is not unlikely that they may be of great assistance to Major Honeywell.'"

"I just sat and looked at him and said nothing. Then he got up and took down the big map he had rolled up. It was the northern section, of British America and the polar lands and seas next to it—"

"You are going to sail along the north end of America, south of Prince Albert Land and Banks Land until—"

"Until you find a settlement of white Eskimos!" Ned and Alan drew back again as if struck.

"What do you want?" exclaimed Bob. "Didn't you hear me? White Eskimos, I said. That's your job while I'm pushing a wood-burner boat after musk ox."

"What's this mean?" put in Ned at last. "Is Mr. Osborne out after freaks? Who wants white Eskimos?"

"You will when you stop to think," exclaimed Bob, almost breathlessly. "But particularly Major Honeywell does."

"Oh, I see," muttered Ned with disappointment yet uppermost. "The ethnologist still. Having exhausted the south end of the continent he is now bound for the northern extreme. But who ever heard of white Eskimos?"

"I have; from Mr. Osborne. You remember the Sir John Franklin polar expedition? The one that lost over a hundred men? Well, some folks don't believe all those men died—at once. Mr. Osborne says there is reason to believe that some of those bold English explorers, after being beset in the ice for two winters, left their ships and made their way to Eskimo settlements."

"In 1848," answered Bob, fresh with his new information. "They wouldn't be alive now, but their descendants might."

"I don't see yet where we come in with that sledge we figured on all winter to say nothing of the balloon," almost wailed Alan.

Bob ignored him. "As I understand it, Major Honeywell is taking advantage of Mr. Osborne's fortune and Colonel Oje's hunting project to see if he can't learn something about the Eskimos in this part of the world. I guess he's got an Eskimo fad," explained Bob. "Anyway his big hope is to push the Aleutian eastward along the British American shores as far as he can toward King William Land. That's where the Franklin runners were last seen. And on his way he's going to look into every Eskimo camp he sees in the hope of finding some traces of the descendants of the Franklin crews. Probably grandchildren if there are any," laughed Bob.

"Eskimos who have never been below the Arctic Circle talking English," exclaimed Ned in a low voice, as if talking to himself and entering at last partly into the secret dream of his friend, Major Honeywell. "White Eskimo boys and girls, perhaps," he went on to himself.

"So that's it," he almost sneered, "hunting deer from a steamboat and looking for half-civilized Eskimos with a spyglass. No wonder they made it a blind chase and bottled up their secret."

"Well," added Bob, after a moment, "I see you are both tickled to death. But that's the story. I told you I'd get it and I have. As far as I'm concerned I'm game—I'm satisfied."

"And I'll just say this," Bob continued, "from what I've seen of Mr. Osborne, if you fellows don't like your contract, I'll bet you he'll let you quit the boat at Unalaska and give you tickets back home besides. As for me, I'm going to stick."

CHAPTER VIII
A TALE FROM THE WHEELHOUSE

"I suppose that's what you call a clever piece of reportorial work?" he remarked.

"I should say not," answered Bob. "I don't believe I've yet referred to myself as 'clever'. But what's the matter with it? Doesn't it cover the case?"

"One moment," exclaimed Ned, with an unexpected smile. "You feel certain that the Aleutian has been outfitted to take Colonel Oje after musk ox and Major Honeywell after white Eskimos."

"No, I don't," said Ned. "I don't pretend to be much of an interviewer, but I'd like to ask you a question or two."

"Do you know when Mr. Osborne started his coal supply to Herschel Island?" continued Ned.

"Since he sent it on one of the Pacific steam whaling vessels it must have started last spring," answered Bob, doubly puzzled.

"Now," he went on, "when did Mr. Osborne first meet Colonel Oje and Major Honeywell?"

"That's why I'm wondering," exclaimed Ned. "Can you tell me just why Mr. Osborne bought a steamer, sent it all the way round South America and arranged to transport a cargo of coal nearly five thousand miles to accommodate men he did not know, never saw and never heard of until six months afterward?"

"I mean," said Ned, "that your friend, Mr. Osborne, isn't as easy as you think. I mean that you are smart enough, but that the gentleman who is engineering this trip is a little smarter."

"Certainly," answered Ned, his smile broadening. "Every word of it. Only that isn't all. That's what I mean."

"I've looked," chuckled Ned. "And I see just what you'll see in a second. Were not the big things of this trip arranged for before Mr. Osborne ever heard of Major Honeywell or Colonel Oje? Tell me—weren't they?"

Bob's chagrin was passing, and as the jovial young journalist saw that he had left out a link in his chain of reasoning he resumed his smile. Then he pulled himself together and laughed outright. He surrendered at once to the logic of the situation.

"I guess we'd better go in and think it over," he said at last. "We've been thinking Mr. Osborne was a sort of big, quiet, polar bear. I'll tell you what he is; he's a sharp-eyed fox."

"Between you fellows, where do I stand?" he interrupted. "First I'm up; then I'm down. Now I'm at sea."

At that moment Ned laid a hand on the arm of each of the other boys and started across the deck with them.

"I don't like to knock a good thing without offering something in its place," he began. "Let's go into our stateroom, get out of these wet togs, make ourselves comfortable and then I've got a little theory of my own."

Despite their protests he would say no more until the stateroom was reached. The chill of the later afternoon made the warmth of the spacious cabin grateful. Ned took from a rack a small package.

"I guess I'd better brace you fellows up a bit," he explained with a smile. "Here's a five-pound box of pretty fine candy. A friend gave it to me—"

Ned colored. "Stuff your mouths full of it," he exclaimed, hurriedly, "for I don't want to be interrupted. My theory doesn't just fit in with Bob's, but it's a corker just the same."

"Is this going to be another 'says he' and 'says I' narrative," asked Alan, as the contents of a cream chocolate oozed over his lips and he threw himself on a berth. "If it is, tell it backwards. I'm getting sleepy."

"I'll wake you up," said Ned. "Here's the title of my tale: 'The Treasure Ship on the Ice.'" Alan rolled over and faced him, open-eyed. Bob nodded his head in unctuous approval.

"That's the stuff," he whispered, "I can see the sails of the White North headed toward it right now. Pray hasten thy tale."

"'The Treasure Ship on the Ice'," repeated Ned, squatting upon the floor after snapping on the electric light bulb, "or 'The Remarkable Adventures of Captain Thomas McKay, as related by Andrew Zenzencoff, Mariner.'"

"Say, Ned," interrupted Alan, springing up in his berth. "If this is a fairy tale I've had enough for one day. Excuse me," he added, turning toward Bob, "nothing personal."

"Shut up," exclaimed the latter, frowning. "Don't you know a good thing when you hear it?"

"Or," continued Ned, not heeding either, "making it plain for children, 'A Story told me this Afternoon by Andy Zenzencoff concerning our Skipper, Captain McKay.'"

"That's really a part of the story," Ned replied. "But I'll anticipate a little. He is a Russian sailor who made a remarkable voyage with Captain McKay."

A pillow came banging from the upper berth and Bob's broad shoulders lunged over the side.

"Shut up, I tell you. What does that matter? It'll come out, maybe. Go on, Clark Russell," pleaded Bob.

"Go on?" laughed Ned. "Certainly, if the audience is seated at last. But I'm all in on the Clark Russell business already. What's coming now is just my own way of putting it."

"That's rough," was Alan's parting comment. "But remember the 'says he to me' business."

"Andy, the wheelman," began Ned, "is a Russian. He's been sailing in American waters in the Alaska trade from Seattle to Graham Island on a steamer commanded by Captain McKay. Fifteen years ago he was a sailor on a Russian whaler. I can't pronounce the name of his ship. After a winter at Bear Island south of Spitzbergen the whaler got out of the ice and reached Bergen in bad shape. Bergen is in Norway," explained Ned. "This was in the early summer. In port at Bergen was a Scotch whaler, the Lady of Dundee—"

"Should a' been the Lass o' Dundee," he murmured. "But the other is good enough."

"On the Lady," continued Ned, "Captain McKay was then first mate. The captain's name doesn't matter because I can't remember it. The Lady was clearing for walrus and seals north of Nova Zembla and hoped to reach the new sealing grounds south of the Franz Joseph Islands away up on the eightieth parallel. Zenzencoff shipped. At least that's where he thought he was going. But, instead of making for the eightieth parallel, Zenzencoff says, the Lady of Dundee sailed west around the north end of Nova Zembla and on through oceans of ice, in which she was beset—"

"That's the word," interrupted Bob, "always 'beset' in polar work—never 'caught.'"

"In which she was caught for days at a time," continued Ned perversely, "and finally brought up when winter came on in the month of the Tamer River in Northern Siberia."

"Anyway," went on Ned, "that's where they were. Andy says the captain told the crew that they could walk home if they didn't like it. In their winter quarters Andy says he got to knew Mate McKay and to like him. When they broke out the next summer, instead of steering for Scotland they made east again. There was almost a mutiny because six men had died from scurry. But the captain's revolver and Mate McKay's smooth talk settled that. At least they kept things moving for six weeks and then the winter began to close in again.

"They hadn't made another port and they had fought drift ice until scurvy and hard work made things look blue. But the Lady was pushed on, no one knew where—of the crew at least—until it was plain that it meant another winter of walrus meat. Andy says he was scared himself to see how quiet the eight remaining men became and when they brought up at last at Great Liakhof Island 'way around on the other side of the world, he knew something was about to happen. Well, it did. From that island the ship was edged along north until it came to in a cove on another island—and he didn't say what that was," explained Ned, "only that it was one of several."

"I'll have to give the medal to you," exclaimed Alan suddenly, "Bob isn't in it for long-windedness."

"This Liakhof Island is one of the New Siberian group," explained Ned, turning to Bob. "I reckon you can guess what they were after."

"Their tusks, anyway," answered Ned, "and fossil ivory. Andy says it was then that he found out what they were going to do. This snow-covered island was off the mouth of the Yana River. McKay told him they expected, when the summer came again, to fill the Lady of Dundee with ivory—fossil ivory—but ivory just the same.

"Somewhere in that region the captain believed he could mine ivory. Oh, that isn't ridiculous," exclaimed Ned, turning to Alan who had sneered outright, "it has been found since then—mammoth tusks, walrus tusks, narwhal swords—whole beds of them. Where? I don't know. But I know Russia has been using that ivory for years and that some freak of nature put it there."

At that moment there was a tap on the stateroom door. Ned paused and threw it open. Just without was the cabin boy, Yoshina. He pointed to the table opposite. On this was a Russian tea samovar, from which steam was puffing, and at the table's side stood Captain McKay and Mr. Osborne.

CHAPTER IX
THE TREASURE-SHIP IN THE ICE

THE ceremony of drinking tea was prolonged by Mr. Osborne's leisurely actions. Captain McKay, damp from the rain, attacked the refreshment energetically. He consumed two full cups, using in each a slice of lemon.

Mr. Osborne smiled and left the saloon. As the skipper took up his rain-soaked cap and followed the chief proprietor, Alan and Bob turned quickly to Ned.

Ned nodded his head toward Yoshina who was coming for the tea things. When the Japanese had gone—the saloon being deserted—Ned dropped into a chair at the head of the table with his companions to the right and left of him. Before he could resume his narrative Alan slipped into the nearby stateroom and returned at once with his and Ned's little portfolio of maps.

Selecting a map of Northern Russia, the boys traced the extensive and irregular coast line until the Yana River was reached. Following with a pencil the tremendous cape that extends from its eastern shore they soon found the region of the New Siberian Islands. Nearest to the mainland was Little Liakhof. Beyond that, scores of islands dotted the map, all easily reaching into and surrounded by the great wastes of drifting polar ice.

"It's on the ice-bound banks of the Yana that they have found the most perfect specimens of the mammoth," explained Ned, turning to Alan, "and from it, or from some other cause that scientists have never explained, fossil remains have been carried to the islands."

"I've read," broke in Bob, "that in some of them broken-up ivory hones have been found in beds so deep that they have been carried away by the shipload."

"But the Lady of Dundee wasn't looking for broken-up ivory," explained Ned. "She was after the real thing—tusks and narwhal swords. Zenzencoff said Mate McKay finally told him this when they came to anchor off the small island. Andy says the crew was desperate, but he didn't know the worst. This was in September, and winter was on again. The daylight each day was already down to a few hours. But the morning after the whaler anchored he and McKay, with provisions for two days, a tent and the best outfit they could rig up, were rowed ashore.

"This island, as I was just going to tell you when I stopped, was over nine miles across. In summer, and even at that time, a good deal of its surface was exposed. That is, it had an elevation at the south end and gradually sloped toward the north, where it widened out like a fan. To the northwest the slope stopped about halfway across the island and the land turned into a rocky ridge that ended in a long arm reaching out into the sea. On the east and the northeast the rock and ice sloped into what ought to have been the sea, but what wasn't anything but mountains of polar drift ice. This was pushed and crowded into walls you couldn't climb over. Probably because of this the main portion of the island was a solid ice cap. And that is what the mate and Andy had to travel over.

"Mate McKay and Zenzencoff had the instructions in of the captain of the Lady of Dundee to guide them. The skipper had also drawn a chart of the island as it had been reported to him. The work of the two men was to scale the south cliff, reach the ice Gap and proceed along it to its northern extremity. Here the year's effort was to be rewarded or found fruitless.

"By the skipper's account this ice cap was a small glacier which was added to each year by the pressure of the polar ice drift from the east and which ended in an abrupt ice cliff at its northern extremity. From this glacier, the captain believed, great masses dropped off each summer as the pressure of ice on the long slope crowded the cap forward. These icebergs crashing on a beach and shivering themselves carried beneath them, swept up from the ancient soul of the island, the fossil debris— mammoth tusks, narwhal spears and walrus teeth—for which the desperate voyage had been made."

"Humph!" granted Alan, raising himself from his elbows, on which he had been leaning, and drinking in every word of Ned's narrative. "I'd have thought the captain would have been the first fellow to hustle over there and have a look."

"It would have been the wisest thing he ever did," said Ned, "but he couldn't trust the crew. The mate and Zenzencoff left the ice-bound cove at eleven o'clock in the morning. At one o'clock they had climbed the bluff and stopped for a look at the ship down below, over a mile away. The boat had gone back—Andy says the old whaler didn't seem to have a live thing on her. Then they turned and struck out over the down slope. They never saw the Lady of Dundee again."

"They got back to the cove at about the same hour on the next day," went on Ned in a low voice, looking cautiously around, "and, at first, thought they must have lost their bearings. The Lady of Dundee was not in sight. They hastened down to the ice-strewn beach. Behind a heap of ice lay the dead body of the skipper—his skull crushed. The captain had been murdered and the mutinous crew had sailed away. McKay and Zenzencoff had been abandoned on an arctic island."

For some moments the three boys sat in silence. "But the crew left some food, oil, matches, a few tools and one of the whaleboats. The castaways had a gun and some ammunition with them."

"Not until the following summer," went on Ned. "A little more interesting than you thought, isn't it?" he said, turning to Alan who was now listening open-mouthed. "But I've just come to the startling part."

As he spoke the saloon door opened and Yoshina again appeared, a tablecloth in hand. With a common impulse the boys arose and hastened to the deck. The rain had nearly ceased. Bareheaded the same excited youths hastened forward. At the same moment the dark figure of a man, who had been leaning against the rail, straightened up. The light from an open window fell on the face of the wheelman, Andrew Zenzencoff.

"Andy," said Ned, in a low voice, "I've been telling the boys about the voyage you made with Captain McKay."

"The yarn I were spinnin' on my trick at the wheel?" he answered in good English.

"Yes, and I've told them all but what you found when—what you and Captain McKay found at the north end of the ice cap."

Zenzencoff shook his head. Then he stepped across the deck and into the shaft of light coming from the open window of the stateroom. "I tried to tell it once to a newspaper reporter in London." As he said this he opened his coat and from the inside pocket extracted a wallet. "That was about five years ago. He wrote a piece about it," the sailor continued. "Here it is." The old wheelman clumsily picked out a folded newspaper clipping and handed it to Bob. "Give it back when you read it," he said, as Bob and Alan dashed for the saloon door.

Yoshina was busy arranging the table for dinner and the boys sprang into Ned's and Alan's stateroom once more. There Bob read aloud the following story as it had been printed in the London News:

A Russian sailor who has been at the Seamen's Bethel for several days says that somewhere in the Arctic Seas off the Liakhof Islands a Flying Dutchman craft is afloat laden with priceless ivory and furs. Ten years ago, he says, he and another sailor were put ashore on an island of this group by a mutinous crew, after the captain had been murdered, and abandoned to their fate. With only meager provisions which, with a small boat, had been given them, they faced almost certain death. Making a surrey of the island, which was already ice-bound and covered with snow, they came to the brink of a glacier cliff and were astounded to find the terribly battered and weather-worn hulk of a deserted ship. Without masts or even bulwarks it lay half entombed in the remains of an iceberg that had grounded at the foot of the glacier.

Breaking open the hatches and cabin doors of the hull as it lay partly in the belly of the firm ice they found in the cabin the corpse of a man perfectly preserved by the frost with the exception of a light greenish mold which appeared about the eyes and forehead. There was neither log book nor other evidence of the former crew. But they figured that she was a Russian trader and had carried a crew of ten or twelve, and had been provisioned for a long cruise. The floor found aboard tasted like chalk, but the beef was perhaps better than the day it was put aboard. She had been abandoned when frozen in, and the dark color of the woodwork and the growth of moss proved that she had drifted for years.

That the craft had been a trader was evinced from the fact that in her hold was an immensely valuable cargo of ivory which had no doubt been picked up from the natives of the Siberian coasts. Much of it was curiously carven. Eskimo harpoon and spear heads and ivory ornaments of all descriptions showed that nothing in that material had been overlooked. But the richest portion of the cargo was found in what was, according to the Russian castaway, perhaps the only commercial collection of mammoth tusks ever brought together.

Of these there were forty-six specimens. At an average price of $500, which museums are glad to pay for such rare relics, these specimens can be counted to have been worth nearly $25,000. Greater in value, if less interesting, were the narwhal and walrus tusks of which no exact count was made, but which ran over two thousand in number. A narwhal sword brings in the ivory market about $100. In all it is reckoned that the commercial ivory on board was worth not less than $225,000.

In addition to this there were a hundred and twelve bales of cured and rare furs. But these had been damaged, in part at least, by mold. The abandoned sailors, after despairing of rescue, removed their scanty provisions on board the ghost of a ship and, after burying the dead survivor, managed to subsist during the terrors of a long Arctic winter. With the coming of the sun in the following spring, the castaways, desperate with the strain of solitude and the privations of the polar night, debated between remaining on the wreck, in the hope of rescue by some daring whaler, or trusting themselves to almost sure disaster in their small boat.

Unable to come to a decision, when the milder weather arrived they left their winter refuge for a day's trip across the island to inspect the small boat left with them. On their return, to their consternation, they found that a section of the glacier had fallen into the sea, the iceberg had been forced seaward, caught in the polar ice drift, and that their home and refuge was already miles away.

As long as they could see it they stood and watched in despair the ice-entombed treasure ship. And as it disappeared from sight it was once again voyaging, helmless and sailless into the unmapped expanse of the central polar sea. And, if the American Melville's experiments with the casks mean anything, it may some day float ashore again either on the coasts of Greenland or among the maze of islands off the continent of British North America.

The castaways, with only a gun and some ammunition and a supply of fresh walrus meat, were forced to take to the small boat. After perils rivaling those encountered by the survivors of the ill-fated Jeanette expedition, the Russian and his companion reached Cape Kihilyakh on Great Liakhof Island. Here, after recuperating a few days and securing a new supply of walrus and seal meat, they entrusted themselves once more to the mercy of the sea and, partly on drift ice and partly by sailing, reached the mainland at Svyatoi Cape. Through the help of natives at this point they finally reached Ust Yansk on the Yana River where, a year later, they were picked up by a chance sealer.

CHAPTER X
ALAN SPEAKS UP

"I certainly do," exclaimed Ned. "Haven't Zenzencoff and Captain McKay stuck together all these years just for that purpose?"

"Why, to find the 'Treasure Ship in the Ice'—What else?" exclaimed Bob, holding up the printed narrative.

"Don't you understand?" began the latter, energetically. "Here we are, sailing mysteriously into unknown regions. We know this expedition was not planned for polar research. And we can be sure it wasn't planned as a hunting trip or to find white Eskimos. Why is this voyage being made? There must be a big reason back of all these things. Isn't this a good one?"

"You think that Mr. Osborne is going in search of this old wreck and its load of bones?"

"The very best reason," answered Ned, brimming over with growing confidence in his own argument. "Zenzencoff and Captain McKay together! Can't you see they've been waiting for this chance for years—looking everywhere for a man like our millionaire; for some one with nerve and money?"

"Well, they've looked a long time—fifteen years," replied Alan as if talking to himself. "Say," he exclaimed suddenly to Bob "Do you think Mr. Osborne was lying about Colonel Oje's hunting trip and Major Honeywell's white Eskimo search?"

"If you grant that, you can't go breaking through the polar ice looking for a treasure ship and search for white Eskimos at the same time," insisted Alan.

"Right," interrupted Ned, stubbornly "But you can do one right after the other."

"Rot!" retorted Alan with vigor. "You've both lost your heads. Mr. Osborne hasn't any more idea of looking for that mythical old scow than I have."

"Perhaps you'll favor us with a reason for your positive conclusion," exclaimed Ned, sarcastically.

"I'll give you two," replied Alan promptly. "Do you happen to recall Mr. Osborne's talk with Captain McKay while we were having tea? I see you don't—either of you. When Captain McKay said he was fond of tea Mr. Osborne asked him if he had ever traveled in Russia. I reckon Mr. Osborne would have known that the captain had traveled in Russia if he'd ever heard this fairy tale."

"I'll remind you of another thing," continued Alan. "Ned knows Mr. Osborne never heard of Captain McKay until he came west last fall, while the Waldo was on her way to the coast. He'd hardly buy the Waldo to go on a treasure-seeking cruise before he heard of the man who knew about the treasure."

Bob and Ned did not even look at each other, but stood with their eyes resentfully on the unromantic Alan. Then Bob's habitual smile came back and he laughed outright.

"Give a guess yourself, Alan," he suggested, at last. "Do you want to put the whole job on us?"

"I'm going out for a walk about the deck," Alan answered sharply. "You fellows had better come along and clear your brains. My opinion is that we are going somewhere to do something. That's enough."

In the silence that followed Alan closed the door and disappeared. In spite of their ingenuity the Aleutian's secret had so far eluded all of them.

The course of the steamer up to that evening had been a little north of west. This was to escape the northwest winds sweeping down from Alaska. But, directly after dinner, the log showing that the steamer had made nearly four hundred and fifty miles westward, the wheel was put over until the bow pointed almost due northwest. It was now a run of nearly two thousand miles to Akutan Pass between Unalasba and Akutan Islands in the long Aleutian group through which the Aleutian was to make her way into Bering Sea. At the speed she was showing it could be figured that Dutch Harbor would be reached in about seven days. Captain McKay gave eight as the probable time.

The steamer soon gave evidence of the northing she was making. After a bright, snappy, spring-like third day, the Aleutian ran, on the fourth day, into a fog which hung over her and grew heavier as the islands were approached. At times this lifted for a few hours of sunshine, but the mornings were wet and chill. The hours of daylight also increased. On the fourth night out, despite the haze of mist, it was yet daylight at eight o'clock in the evening.

The boys had no idle hours. Ned and Alan, talking little now about the possibility of a polar trip, but secretly thinking and hoping for nothing short of that, were greatly disappointed to find no sledge aboard.

"Why, anywhere we go—if we go ashore—" commented Ned, "we ought to have a dog sledge."

"Perhaps we'll get one at Unalaska," suggested Alan, "and some dogs and some natives," he added wistfully but skeptically.

"Not there," he answered, "that isn't the place. And as it doesn't appear that we are going to stop at any other place before we get to the McKenzie River, I'm going to make a sledge."

Alan, for a wonder, approved the idea. Ned had already discovered a carpenter's bench on the main deck between the lamp room and the space occupied by the steering gear, and to it he carried his tool chest. Taking advantage of his experience in the Southwest when he had been driven to his wit's end to find wood, he had provided a bundle of spruce and ash strips. With these and two volumes of polar narratives and pictures to guide him, he began work to execute his theory of a practical ice sledge.

This enterprise was put under way on the fourth day out. For awhile Bob fancied that he too was interested in this. He helped uncrate the needed material and carry it below from the upper deck, but after the boys had settled down to sketches and measurements his interest waned, and long before noon he had disappeared.

Bob had suddenly thought of a thing that interested him more than carpentering. He went directly to Mr. Osborne's stateroom.

"Mr. Osborne," began Bob, a little awkwardly, "do you care if I look over the wireless outfit down in the purser's room?"

Mr. Osborne smiled. "I really didn't know we had one," he replied. "Is it in working order?"

"Will it be safe for you to experiment with it? Isn't it rather dangerous? Or have you had experience?"

"I haven't," explained Bob, "but I'll be careful and I have had experience as a telegrapher."

"If you think it's safe to do so," Mr. Osborne said at last. "I suppose," he added, half to himself, "it would have been wise to have brought an operator."

Bob's face brightened. "If it is in working order," he hastened to say, "or I can get it in shape, I can do the operating. Perhaps that's where I can be of some service to you!"

"It isn't necessary that you bother yourself about being useful. But you have my permission to examine the apparatus."

Bob was about to hasten away when Mr. Osborne recalled him. As he turned Bob saw that the volume Mr. Osborne had been reading was a scrapbook.

"Are you actively connected with a newspaper at present?" asked the chief owner of the Aleutian.

"I can return to the Kansas City Comet when I like," explained Bob, "I am on indefinite leave for this trip."

"I hope you will not think me too curious," continued Mr. Osborne, "if I ask you the amount of your wages?"

"I have just been reading several articles of yours in Major Honeywell's scrap-book." He pointed to one describing how Ned and Alan had been cast away in Mexico, headed 'Marooned in Mexico.' "They are very creditable," continued Mr. Osborne. "I supposed the ability to write like that would command greater remuneration."

"Oh, we all expect more—some day," laughed Bob. "We all expect to do a big thing eventually that will bring fame and money."

Almost without a pause Mr. Osborne continued: "This expedition of ours is mainly a commercial enterprise. If it turns out as I hope it will, we shall soon be back in America, when, I feel sure, I can use a young man of your ability in my service. If we succeed, I can give you more profitable employment." Bob stammered, hardly knowing what to say, but his elder stopped him. "It is only a suggestion," Mr. Osborne added. "Unless we succeed the thing will not materialize. Meanwhile," and he smiled pleasantly, "the wireless telegraph room is at your disposal."

CHAPTER XI
THE "WIRELESS" OUTFIT DISCOVERED

ABOUT an hour after luncheon, at which, somewhat to the surprise of his friends, Bob did not appear, Ned and Alan were startled by the sudden entrance of the missing reporter into their improvised shop.

"Say," he began, without explanation, "which o' you fellows knows the most about electricity?"

"What we both know wouldn't make a 'most'," responded Alan. "But I know less than Ned. What's the excitement? And where have you been all day?"

"Look here!" began Bob impressively, and he pulled from beneath his dusty coat a begrimed, paper-bound, thick book that had once been white. Both boys saw that it was a copy of the Western Union Telegraph Company's tariff book.

"I am," retorted Bob—"maybe. Look here," and he turned to several pages of maps in the back of the volume. One, of half blue sea and half white land, was labeled "Alaska." The land section reached from Seattle to Cape Prince of Wales in Northern Alaska.

"See that?" continued Bob, pointing with a black forefinger to an irregular red line that reached from Seattle up through British Columbia and the Northwest Territories into Alaska. "Well, that's the government telegraph line. And here," he explained, following the course further with his dusty finger, "you can see where it finally hits the sea. That's St. Michael. That's where the Arctic explorers used to make their last stop."

"No place is out of the world if it has a telegraph wire and you can telegraph home for money," answered Bob.

"I don't know what's coming," interrupted Alan, "but I'd like to know what it costs to send a telegram up there from back home."

"Three dollars and thirty cents a word," responded Bob instantly, "and sender's risk at that."

"I'll just make one observation," continued Alan hastily, "and that is that I never could understand why, when they want to get money to pay for a costly thing, people always think the way to get it is to charge so much that they scare every one away. I'd bet my hat that they would take in more money on that line at thirty-three cents a word—"

"For goodness' sake, Alan, keep still," exclaimed Ned. "What's this all mean," he went on, turning to Bob.

"I suppose you think it didn't cost much to run several thousand miles of wire over snow and icebergs and mountains," Bob retorted to Alan and ignoring Ned.

Without reply Bob turned again to the map. "This is St. Michael," he persisted. "See this other red line stretching across this big bay—it's Norton Sound? Well, that line stops over there at Nome. Heard of Nome, I guess?"

"That red line isn't anything," explained Bob, "but it leads to a wireless telegraph station."

"I suppose there is an extra charge for that," broke out Alan, "say a couple of dollars more a word—"

"There won't be any charge from here," snapped Bob, hanging the hook together. "If either of you fellows know enough about electricity to hook up a generator, I'm goin' to give 'em a free call."

When the disturbed carpenters had given sufficient evidence that this meant nothing to them, Bob went on proudly: "I suppose it never occurred to you fellows that we might use our wireless outfit?"

The Arctic sledge passed out of Ned's and Alan's minds so quickly and completely that it wasn't thought of again that afternoon. In another moment the three boys were in the purser's room, where Bob explained what he had done.

"First of all I knew one thing," he began, "and that was that all the high electric power that goes with this apparatus is used in sending messages and not in receiving them. And I knew that the sending end had nothing to do with the receiving part. Here's the switch," and he pointed to the upper left hand corner of the desk in which the outfit was installed. "It is turned to cut off the generator wire. So I knew it was safe to experiment with the receiver. I've seen operators at work. I put the receivers over my ears and listened. There wasn't a sound. These drum-like glass boxes," went on Bob, pointing to the condensers ranged one beside the other on top of the desk, "are the things you use to tune up your receiving business—whatever that means. I forget the names of them, but I know that when you are listening and trying to detect a current in these ear receivers, if you don't get it, you move the dial arms on these drums back and forth. Somehow that tunes it. I don't know why they have three of them, but I've been sitting here three hours moving them back and forth and I haven't heard a whisper."

"That's just the point," exclaimed Bob. "If it's out of commission we'll never he able to fix it. But if it isn't, why we've only got to sit here and wait. If we pick up anything I can read it—you don't need to worry about that."

"Why don't you try to send!" asked Ned. "That's what I wanted you for," explained Bob. "But first, look at this."

Tacked on the wall to the left of the desk was a card headed "Naval Rules." Bob pointed to one of them which read: "Detector points should be kept in their most sensitive condition and frequently tested by means of the buzzer furnished for this purpose."

"That seems to mean," went on Bob, "that somewhere around here is a 'buzzer.' When there is no sound in the receiver I've figured it out that the operator sets up a little current right here by the machine and, if he can't hear that—if he can't hear a current that he knows is doing business right at his elbow—then he concludes that his machine is out of kilter and he fixes it."

"Any buzzer do?" broke in Alan. Before the other boys could reply Alan ran from the room to the steward's abandoned cabin— now crowded with heavy provisions—secured a small buzzer fastened to the wall over the berth and with two dry batteries hastened back to the wireless cabin.

"The cross of the 'Legion of Honest Endeavor' for you," exclaimed Bob. "It's a pleasure to see you warm up."

"Oh, he warms up all right," put in Ned, "when there's anything practical in sight."

"I can't suggest but one thing," continued Bob. "You fellows rig up the buzzer and I'll listen. You—"

There was a shout from Ned. Underneath the table he had discovered a drawer. Pulling it open, almost the first thing that met his gaze was a little cloth-bound book. On its back was the welcome title: "Operator's Wireless Telegraph and Telephone Hand-Book."

For the next quarter of an hour three busy heads crowded over its pages. In the main it was too complex for hasty reading and the eager would-be operators made little progress. Finally the abbreviations used by wireless operators caught their attention and, lost in the interesting examination of these, the test they had planned was forgotten until Alan aroused his companions.

"Why, 'buzzer', of course," answered Alan. "You can read the other stuff when you've found whether your machine will work."

"Two common dry cells are connected to the buzzer to operate it, with a telegraph key seriesed in the circuit. A ground wire is connected to one of the binding posts of the buzzer and the ground made within a few feet of the telegraph set. To test: Press key which starts buzzer in operation. Listen—in at the receiver and adjust the thumb screw until point is reached where indication is clearest. If indication is not heard apparatus is out of order." Then followed suggestions of vital points to be looked after.

Ned and Alan had extra wire among their aeronautical supplies, but Alan suggested that he could rob the steward's room of enough more to make the ground connection. While he was gone Ned selected a crevice beneath the outer rim of the steel porthole as the place for this, and while he scraped away the paint to afford a perfect connection, Bob kept busy with the book. Turning the pages until he found a diagrammed illustration corresponding to the system in the Aleutian he began to identify the various parts.

"This is called the audion or detector," he exclaimed as Ned and Alan rejoined him. He pointed to a small box-like instrument on the first part of the desk. "You see it has a little switch that can be moved back and forth over three connections. When you move it from right to left over one peg one of those little light bulbs in the rear flares up." He moved the switch and one light glowed. "You see the batteries for these are alive, anyway. Now when you move it to the last peg both lights are lit." He moved the switch to the extreme left and both lights were alive.

"I'm only guessing. But it says it is the audion. That means to hear, you know. Well, we can certainly figure that these lights are to indicate that it is turned on and ready for hearing. It must mean, when you get ready to listen for a message, that you turn this switch on. When you're not listening and trying to send a message, turn it off."

"That's the tuner, then," commented Alan, "the thing they move to get in tune with the currents floating around at large looking for another tune like itself."

"I don't think so," answered Bob, thinking hard. "I think that just opens the door. Those things up there are the tuners— 'condensers', the diagram says. When you know the apparatus is all O. K. you open this door and then, if you don't hear anything, you move the dial arms on the condensers until something begins to snap. Then you listen to the snaps and read the dots and dashes and—there you are."

Ned had begun making the buzzer connections and Bob was again examining the diagram when Alan, after curiously viewing the desk and its maze of wires, asked modestly:

"It couldn't hurt you if it was really working," Bob answered, hardly glancing up.

Alan, gingerly, sat down and, removing his cap, slipped the headpiece over his head. With some apprehension he slowly adjusted the receivers to his ears.

Ned, watching him, leaned over and was about to move the audion or detector switch. But Alan sprang up and snatched the receiver from his head.

But on Ned's reassurance he sat down again, readjusted the receivers and nervously allowed Ned to throw over the switch. The little signal lights flared and Ned turned again to his work.

"Didn't hurt me at all," answered Alan. "I didn't even notice it except the buzzin'."

"You monkey," exclaimed Bob, excitedly. "Buzzin'? Why, it's working and that's a message."

CHAPTER XII
THE WIRELESS PICKS UP A CALL

BOB caught up the headpiece and clapped the receivers over his ears. His face, yet alive with the excitement caused by Alan's discovery took on a strained expression of expectancy. His eyes widened with eagerness and his right hand shot forward toward the switch. Then, sinking to the stool, his eyes suddenly contracted.

"I hear it!" he whispered. "It's working!" The other boys came nearer but the reporter held up a hand in warning. The complex machine before them gave forth to the onlookers no indication that a far distant call was striving to make itself heard. Thus the moments grew into minutes. Bob, unspeaking, sat straining and struggling to catch the elusive signal.

Ned touched the excited reporter on the shoulder and pointed to the condensers. Bob nodded his head, and reached for the condenser arm. Slowly he moved it forward over the indicator a degree or two at a time. Then, intent on the mysterious whisper in the receivers, his elbow slipped and the arm shot over far beyond the 90-degree mark. Chagrin overspread the would-be operator's tense face.

Bob was already doing the thing suggested. The relieved look that came into his face showed that he had again picked up the murmur.

"Sounded like the silent ghost of a baby fly walkin' on velvet to me," whispered Alan to Ned. "I supposed the thing went 'bang', 'bang' on something or a bell rang."

At that instant Bob whistled a quick warning. From the manner in which he leaned forward it could be seen that something was happening. First came a look of relief—of recognition—then his forehead wrinkled. Again his eyes snapped and a look of understanding swept over his face.

"A call," he muttered, and then the look of understanding alternated with doubt. Finally, excited and nervous, he sprang to his feet and tore off the receiver.

"N, O, three dashes, M, E. N, O, three dashes, M, E. There isn't any three dashes," he cried. "It's a code of some kind."

"Out here? At sea?" exclaimed Bob shaking his head. "No, I guess I just don't get it."

Again he threw on the headpiece. His companions could see that he was trying to read the mysterious signals. But he shook his head. Ned, who had picked up the "Operator's Hand-Book" turned to the pages illustrating the code signals. After looking in vain for a three-dash signal in the Morse alphabet his eye fell on a line at the top of the chart. With a sudden smile he quickly touched Bob on the shoulder and pointed to this:

"The Morse Code is used for overland service, while between ships of the Navy and shore stations the Continental Code is used."

Without a word Bob flipped the page over to the Continental Code. Pushing his finger from letter to letter he came to three dashes—O. His perplexed face lit up with relief. Then his finger flew to N.

"'Nome'," he shouted. "There you are. We've picked up Nome. The operator up there is calling. I guess that's something for a starter!" And with a wipe of his black fingers over his perspiring brow he hastily readjusted the receiver. This time, with a pencil and a piece of paper, he prepared to record the signals with which he was not familiar. But apparently he had no use for this material. Over and over again came the faint dots and dashes and then even these ceased. For a long time, much too long for the wearied Alan, Bob sat and strained his ears and then, with a sigh, he took off the apparatus and whirled around on his stool.

"It's a long ways up to Nome, from here, isn't it?" asked Alan stirring noisily about, in his relief.

Ned made a calculation. "We were out seventy-two hours at three o'clock today—that's 1152 miles at the rate we are steaming. We are, I reckon, 1400 miles from Unalaska and that is 700 miles, anyway, from St. Michael. That's this side of Nome."

"Yes, I know," said Alan, dubiously. "But that isn't on the regular bill, is it?"

"Well, usually, they don't attempt to get in touch with Atlantic steamers after they are three days out. That means 1500 miles."

"What the Sam Hill are you driving at?" exclaimed Bob, somewhat resentfully. "Don't you think I heard Nome calling?"

Bob sprang up from the table where he had seated himself. He seemed about to protest when Alan went on:

"I don't exactly know what you mean by 'calling', but I suppose you mean that some one wants to attract attention."

"I see what he's getting at," interrupted Ned. "He thinks some one is calling the station at Nome instead of Nome calling some other place."

"But," persisted Bob, "there's no other station nearer us than Seattle except St. Michael. You mean it might be St. Michael calling across the bay to Nome?"

"St. Michael is about as far away from us as Nome," continued Alan. "Of course it might be St. Michael, but there is a more reasonable explanation. I think it's a vessel or steamer somewhere between us and Nome that wants to get in communication with the land. Why not?"

"And if we had this thing going and could shoot out the numbers 'thirteen' for 'Understand' we might get her message?" broke in Ned.

"No question about it," answered Bob, "That's what we are going to do this minute."

"Won't take but a minute," pleaded Bob. "Here's the thing that makes the current; here in the corner."

"A two kilowatt motor generator," he explained. "It's probably wired up with the electric light dynamo in the engine room. Likely needs oil. We can try it. Here's the switch!"

Bob reached over and turned off the little detector switch and Alan edged toward the door.

"Wait until morning," Alan suggested. "It's late and half dark. You fellows'll start something before you get through."

"I hope so," exclaimed Bob. Then to Ned, as he reached into the desk and threw over the lever that cut out the receiver from the sender he added: "Turn her on."

Slowly Ned moved forward the cut-out switch connecting the generator with the power wire and as it finally sank into complete connection his face took on a blank look.

"Motor may be out of order," suggested Ned. "Or," and his face brightened, "the circuit may be broken somewhere. It's a long way down to the engine room."

And, reluctantly on the part of Bob, the three boys abandoned their wireless experiments for the day. Or at least Ned and Alan did.

"Say, Alan," Ned spluttered, his face smothered with water and soap, "that ship of yours calling for Nome may be a boat in distress. Maybe we ought to try to get in touch with her to-night?"

"Humph!" commented Alan, "like as not some passenger on a steamer trying to reserve a suite of rooms in the Grand Central Hotel at Nome."

While Ned was laughing over Alan's prosaic suggestion there was a bang on the door and Bob, a towel about his shirtless shoulders, burst into the other boys' stateroom.

"Say," he exclaimed, "I forgot to tell you fellows something. Mr. Osborne is going to give me a job if this trip pans out." Before any questions could he asked he continued, speaking very slowly and impressively: "And he told me—I hate to knock any dreams, but it looks as if I must—he told me that we were on a purely commercial enterprise and that if it works out all right we are going to be back home in a short time. What have you got to say to that?"

"But if his commercial scheme doesn't pan out," asked Alan quietly, "what then? We won't be back so soon?"

At dinner the experience with the wireless outfit was described to Mr. Osborne by Bob and, much to the surprise of all, the undemonstrative proprietor showed instant interest in the matter. His remarks revealed that he was familiar with the telegraph service between St. Michael and the interior towns, such as Dawson City. When he was told that it was not unlikely that the Aleutian might at any time get in communication with Nome or St. Michael he turned to Captain McKay and spoke to him quietly.

"Mr. Russell," he remarked, a moment later, "Captain McKay assures me that we shall be in the harbor at Unalaska on the first of May. About that time I expect an important message at St. Michael where we had planned to stop to pick it up. If, about that date, you can get in communication with St. Michael and secure the message for me it will save a stop at that place. And," he added as if it were an afterthought, "it may change our plans. We shall then know whether it is worth while to go on."

Their elders may not have noticed it, but, at these apparently indifferent words, three hearts in as many youthful breasts sank like lead. As soon as is was proper to do so, the owners of these heavy hearts, one after another, excused themselves and sought the deck. Alan was the first to speak. Directing his remarks to Bob he exclaimed:

"I hope you're satisfied. You see what your infernal wireless has done. Go on, get her going. Fix it up so we can turn around and go back."

"Perhaps we can't find the broken connection," suggested Ned as if that were his wish.

"Do you fellows know what a 'hunch' is? A 'hunch' is something you feel and can't explain. I've got a 'hunch'. Wireless or no wireless, commercial trip or whatever this is, we fellows are sailing right into one of the biggest surprises we'll ever know. Do you hear me? Go on with your sledge. If you don't use it I'll eat it."

CHAPTER XIII
A RIDDLE AND ITS SOLUTION

"I'D like to go up above the 75th parallel myself," added Bob, "but, if we don't, I can't see why you fellows feel so sore. We are going to the mouth of the McKenzie River—we are sure of that. And to get there we must round Point Barrow. That ought to satisfy you—it's the most northern point on the American continent."

"But it isn't polar ice," snorted Alan. "That's the only thing we want. That's the only place to use the balloon and the aero-sledge. I'll bet we never unpack either," he concluded. "What's the use of all this mystery, anyway?"

"You can search me," laughed Bob. "But one use of it seems to be that you boys get a good job and I'm half promised one."

Mr. Osborne, Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje lingered some time over their coffee and cigars. When they left the dining saloon Ned and Bob were standing opposite the door. As Mr. Osborne passed he asked if either of the boys played bridge whist.

Bob did not, but Ned confessed to some knowledge of the game. Thereupon he was invited to make up a rubber. Glad enough and a little flattered Ned departed with his elders. Bob found Alan, and the two boys soon sought Ned's and Alan's stateroom. Bob was full of talk, but Alan was out of sorts and finally confessed that he wanted to go to bed and read. Bob took the hint and, laughingly announcing that he would "have to turn up something on his own hook," left the room. Alan had a pet weakness. It was reading in bed and nibbling at something. At home he had to do this surreptitiously. Seeing a chance to regale himself, he searched until he found Ned's box of chocolates, selected a dozen fat-looking pieces, which he spread out neatly on a chair by the side of the berth, and then, getting into his pajamas, he picked out "The Tragedies of the Arctic" from their few books and made himself comfortable in bed. By the time the chocolates had disappeared, Alan's book had fallen on his breast and, with the electric light shining full in his face, he was fast asleep.

But Bob was not asleep. One thing only was on his mind. At last, much like a boy sneaking into his mother's jam pantry, he hurried to the main deck below. An instant later, had anybody taken the trouble to look over the starboard rail, they would have seen two rays of light coming from the portholes of the purser's room—the wireless telegraph terminal.

Soon after eleven o'clock a bareheaded, coatless figure dashed from the hastily opened door of the purser's room. Up the main deck stairs it flew at a bound. In the half gloom of the single lamp in the dining saloon the figure paused for a moment as if in doubt, and then sprang to the door of Ned's and Alan's room. Bob, for it was the persistent reporter, threw open the door. Alan, his face to the wall, was sleeping like a babe.

"Where's that book?" almost shouted Bob, waving a bit of paper before him. Alan turned over, half asleep and dazed.

"Where's that code book?" repeated the excited reporter. And then, as if realizing that his quest was hopeless, he turned and hurried from the stateroom. As quickly as he could reach it he was knocking at the door of Mr. Osborne's stateroom. The whist game was just coming to a close.

"I beg your pardon," began Bob, attempting to compose himself, "but I think I have a message—a message over the wireless. I don't like to disturb you," he went on—now realizing what his appearance was and hastily wiping his perspiring face with his handkerchief—"but I thought you ought to know—right away."

"I can't quite read it," stammered Bob. "But I have it. I was looking for the code book," he went on, hastily turning to Ned.

"It's in my room," exclaimed the latter, and in an instant he had hurried away after it.

"What does it seem to be?" continued Mr. Osborne, apparently much interested in the unexpected development.

"Here it is," answered Bob, handing him the smeared bit of paper. On it were these puzzling marks:

"Well," said Major Honeywell, to whom Mr. Osborne presently handed the paper with a smile, "What is it? Isn't it telegraphing? Can't you read it?"

"Most of it," explained Bob. "There are two ways to telegraph—two sets of signals. This seems to be the one I don't know."

"Then you know part of it," suggested Colonel Oje, who also began to show interest.

"Part of it, yes," Bob answered. "I can read every signal but one. But I don't seem to make any sense out of them. Here, I'll write it out." Selecting a fresh piece of paper, he printed the following characters, inserting a dash for the one he did not know:

He handed the translation to Mr. Osborne. "Doesn't seem to mean much, does it?" said that gentleman, after briefly examining the letters. "Perhaps it's a cipher."

"Fairly long word at least," commented Colonel Oje. "Maybe some Indian chief's name."

"It'll come out all right," broke in Bob, to whom the riddle was not amusing. "I can read it as soon as Ned comes. Those figures don't belong there. I'm mixed on the codes."

But Ned did not come. Ten minutes went by and then the restless Bob could wait no longer. Bushing after Ned he found him and Alan, who was now fully awake, turning their stateroom upside down. At Bob's entrance Ned turned and exclaimed:

He thought again. "I know I took it," he said at last, "but I don't know where I put it. I brought it in here—I think. Anyway, I carried it from the purser's room to read to-night. It must be here."

While a fresh search was being made Bob went back and reported on the situation. To his surprise he found the three men yawning and talking of quite another matter. He could not understand this indifference to the enigma that meant so much to him.

"Never mind," politely suggested Mr. Osborne. "It will probably turn up in the morning. That will be time enough. I wouldn't bother about it to-night. If it is a message it can hardly be meant for us."

"It may be meant for anyone and it may be most important," expostulated Bob, but in a half-hearted way.

"That's all you heard, was it?" questioned Major Honeywell, noting Bob's concern.

"That's all, over and over—several times—for some minutes, and then it stopped. And it was a long time before I heard that—I was in there waiting and listening all evening. That was the first and only sound I heard."

"I'm going to look in the purser's room," added Bob, taking the hint. "If it is important shall I report to-night?" he asked turning to Mr. Osborne.

"It is a little late," remarked the military man, feeling his way along the moist deck with his cane, "but can I help you?"

Despite Bob's feeble protest, Major Honeywell joined the boys in their renewed search. Again Ned's and Alan's stateroom was gone over. The purser's office was ransacked, Bob, taking advantage of the opportunity to sit in at the receiver a few moments. But no sound rewarded him. Then the route to the dining saloon was searched with the aid of a lantern and finally the entire deck promenade was examined in the same way. At the end of the long and fruitless quest Bob looked at Ned indignantly and Ned responded with some show of resentment. Major Honeywell saw it.

"Never mind, young gentlemen. We know it's on the steamer. It's sure to show up somewhere—some time. Go to bed now and make a fresh start in the morning."

There being nothing else to do, in reason, this advice was followed. There was no report to make at breakfast except that the riddle-solving book had vanished and that Ned and Bob meant to get the generator in working condition if they could.

"We'll try then to call old 'A G F' in plain Morse code," explained Bob to Colonel Oje, who usually breakfasted with the boys, "and see if he'll talk back in that language."

As the early breakfast party arose to leave the table Yoshina entered with the crumb tray in his hand and something under his arm. Walking the length of the apartment to the sofa he deposited on it the missing handbook.

The nod of Yoshina's head met with no rebuke. The boys were too alive with other ideas. Catching up the puzzle-solver the boys hastened to the breakfast table, and in a few minutes Bob had made out a new list based on the Continental code. As the three boys and Colonel Oje leaned over the paper slip, Bob's pencil rapidly set down these letters. They read:

"Aground on," exclaimed Bob, exultingly, and then separating the other letters into word groups with pencil marks, he read:

"There, you see," Bob cried as jubilantly as if he had won some victory, "it may mean life or death. Where's Sannak Bank?" he exclaimed excitedly to Ned.

Naturally Ned had no answer, and manifestly the entire thing was now a matter between the steamer owners and Captain McKay.

Before either Mr. Osborne or Captain McKay had had their breakfast there was a consultation. From his charts the latter located the Sannak Banks some fifty miles east of Unimak Pass.

"No matter," added Mr. Osborne. "I think, with the approval of Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje, that the message is genuine and should not be ignored."

"Mr. Russell," added Mr. Osborne, "you have done a most creditable thing. The yacht Gull, if human life is in danger, may have you to thank, Captain," he concluded, "head up for this place and crowd the Aleutian to her limit."

CHAPTER XIV
MR. OSBORNE SHOWS CONCERN

THE boys certainly had enough to engage their thoughts that day. First there was the interest in seeing Captain McKay approximate the present location of the Aleutian and the details of laying out a new course directly for the Sannak Banks.

"We'll be in soundings long afore we get there," the crafty Scotchman explained, "and it'll be some delay. This fog'll be na leadin' us near the islands and that'll mean half speed or less."

Although, calculated by observations and dead reckoning, the Aleutian had steamed eighteen hundred and one miles since leaving the Golden Gate, she was not that far on her way to the pass for which she was headed. The westward course, chosen to avoid the severe nor' westers of the Alaska coast, had taken the steamer materially off a great circle course. At her average rate of fourteen knots or 15.4 statute miles an hour, the expedition was putting behind it nearly three hundred and seventy miles each twenty-four hours. But, as Captain McKay announced, at least one day had been lost by reason of the route taken. The captain would not estimate the distance to Sannak Banks until noon when he hoped to get an observation.

As if to accommodate him there was a glimpse of the sun at twelve meridian and, soon after, Captain McKay and Mr. Wales, working on a double observation, announced a mean reading. The Aleutian was declared to be in 151° 12' 9" west longitude and 47° 45' 20" north latitude. The charts located the bank approximately but indefinitely 161° 30' west and 54° 31' north.

Owing to the narrowing of the degrees of longitude at this high latitude Captain McKay explained that the steamer was then only about two hundred and ninety miles east of, and something over six hundred miles south of the supposed wreck of the Gull. This made the new course about forty degrees on the quadrant, or between northwest and northwest by north, and the distance to be covered in their mission of succor about seven hundred miles. The Aleutian's engines were capable of doing eighteen miles an hour.

"She can do it in thirty-eight hours, Mr. Osborne," said Captain McKay, "but it'll be takin' a power o' coal."

"We have plenty—somewhere—" he replied with a smile. "And it may mean a good deal to some one. Do your best."

"That'll bring us off the banks after midnight to-morrow," expostulated the skipper "an' in soundings."

"Go ahead," ordered the proprietor, "and when you get in dangerous water lay to until daylight."

The new course was laid a few minutes after twelve o'clock. In the meantime the boys had not been idle. Bob was determined to get in communication with the mysterious Gull if possible and he was the more interested in putting the wireless in working order so that he might also reach St. Michael.

Therefore, while Alan began sawing and planing on the sledge, Ned and Bob took up the search for the break in the feed wire of the wireless generator. Such a wire was discovered at once extending from the switchboard above the electric light dynamo in the engine room. But it passed directly into the freight hold of the steamer, and this was now crammed from bulk-head to bulk-head with coal. Hundreds of tons of fuel would have to be moved to get at the wire. That idea was at once abandoned.

When it was conceded that it was impracticable to trace the concealed wire Ned joined Alan in the carpenter shop. Bob spent the morning at the wireless receiver. But there was no trace of a message.

During the afternoon it was only too plain that the Aleutian was rapidly reaching northern regions. The prevailing fog turned into spits of snow. The wind had risen and the steamer was keeling over most uncomfortably. When the younger members of the party were on deck they were glad enough to don their new Mackinac or Klondike jackets in addition to their sweaters.

"And to think," wailed Ned, "this is the heaviest clothing we have in which to tackle polar ice."

"Russian militzas, to begin with," promptly responded Ned. "Then, reindeer boots with the hair inside; sealskin trousers, coats and hoods and mittens. And, most of all, skin sleeping bags. There isn't even a skin sleeping bag on board."

"The only thing that makes me think we are ever going to see ice is a case of snow goggles," broke in Alan, pounding away at the new sledge, for the boys were then in the workshop. "We have some goggles."

"Have you fellows any money?" asked Bob after some thought. Taking inventory the boys found they had three hundred and twenty-five dollars among them.

"I don't suppose I'm going to need any Eskimo outfit," Bob explained, "but if you fellows want to rig yourselves in that style you can do it at St. Michael. That's where all the arctic explorers that go up through Bering Strait get their clothes and sledges and dogs."

"We don't want any dogs," urged Alan. "The aero-sledge will beat the best pack of dogs you can find. But, if your wireless doesn't stop us or the wrecked yacht doesn't run us on a sand bank, and we go to St. Michael, how shall we explain the buying of these things to Mr. Osborne?"

"It's a go," broke in Ned, "and I'm going to wear mine before I get back if I smother in 'em."

"Long enough, anyway," laughed Bob, "to pose for a set of pictures. Both of you," he went on, "and your new sledge. I can see the description beneath: 'Ned Napier and Alan Hope, the daring Airship Boys, ready for the dash to the Pole that they never made.' By the way," continued Bob, "you say you don't want any dogs, because your aero-sledge will take their places. Why are you making your sledge? You can't use it without dogs!"

"It's just an idea," laughed Ned. "I think we'll give it to one of Major Honeywell's white Eskimos. We're just making it to kill time, and to try out a theory."

"I suppose you'll call it the 'Napier-Hope sectional sledge.' Good idea—like a sectional bookcase, eh!"

"You've hit it," answered Ned seriously. "When you've used part of your provisions you can discard a section of your sledge—use it for fuel if you like. But the real reason it is in sections is to get flexibility with stability. That's what all the arctic travelers complain of—sledges that won't stand the strain of rough ice."

The idea was ingenious enough. It called for four three-foot sledges which were to fit together, end to end, and to be joined with lashings of leather. So far the apparatus was but a chaos of bent ash runners and grooved spruce standards and braces. Ned was about to enter into an argument about the practicability of the contrivance when Bob interrupted him.

"Say," he exclaimed suddenly, "if we can't get at that broken feed wire under the coal why don't we rig up a new one?"

This inspiration of Bob's came at about four o'clock in the afternoon. In another moment Ned and Bob were in Mr. Osborne's stateroom to secure consent, and then they hurried below to the engine room and the electrician's bench. There was no electrician on the Aleutian, but Engineer Jackson did the best he could for the young enthusiasts. He got them fifty feet of wire from an arc light circuit between the coal bunkers in the old freight hold. This was not enough for the purpose, but the amount secured was easily pieced out from the exposed ends of the old wire. These were loosened from their insulations and passed through the open ports of the wireless office and the engine room. Outside, the newly provided piece was used to connect the extended ends and then looped along the steamer's sides.

Ned's knowledge of electricity was easily sufficient for this simple bit of work. The wire was protected from a short circuit in the roll of the waves with careful wrapping of tape and several coats of insulating pitch.

"Oh, I guess it's good enough to make more trouble for us," commented Alan. "We mustn't let a day go by without getting busy over something that doesn't concern us."

"Alan," he said, "you are a fine balance wheel and now and then hit on the truth. But if men never bothered themselves with things that didn't concern them the world would make a good deal slower progress."

When the coffee arrived Bob arose. To his surprise Mr. Osborne suggested that he and Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje be present at the test. The boys resumed their seats and when the coffee had been disposed of the entire party, including Captain McKay, made its way to the deck below.

Throwing on the lights while his elders ranged themselves on the table—in the absence of chairs— and lit their cigars, Bob made a final hasty survey of the diagram in the handbook. Then, being sure that the formidable helix and spark gap, which were encased in a cabinet at the right of the receiving apparatus desk, were out of circuit and disconnected from the generator, he asked Ned to throw on the generator feed wire switch.

Bob wet his lips. But a moment later they came together confidently. The generator started at once with a soft purr that in a moment passed into a forceful hum. It was all right.

Slipping to the desk Bob made a final examination to make sure that the receiver was disconnected, and then slowly pulled over the lever of the cut-out that was to throw the intense current from the high tension motor through the helix. All that now remained to be done to know the result of their labors was to press the operating key and bridge the final gap between the generator and the helix. If the helix and spark gap were in order the instant this was done crackling waves would leap from the antennae wires stretched between the masts far above them.

Bob's nervous finger pressed the key. Simultaneously a crash filled the little room as the high voltage current shot through the helix and leaped the spark gap.

Bob smiled. Without farther suggestion he sat down and sent, with the skill of a trained operator, the message: "Yacht Gull. Help coming Friday morning." Then he repeated it several times and, after explaining what he had done, asked what he should add.

"Is it possible to reach St. Michael?" asked Mr. Osborne. "If you can, I'll send a message there— unless it costs too much," he added, laughing.

Instantly Bob sent a call to that far-away settlement—at least fourteen hundred miles distant. After a few repetitions of the name he cut out the sending apparatus and listened. No sound. Again and again he called and again waited for a possible answer. None came. The novelty of the experiment was over and with congratulations the visitors prepared to depart.

At that instant Bob, the receivers still over his ears, straightened up in tense excitement. His arm rose warningly in the air.

"'M-O-R-S-E—M-O-R-S-E,'" he repeated in a whisper. "Some one is spelling 'Morse.' 'M-O-R-S-E.' What's he mean?" he asked, turning to Ned.

"Maybe he is calling the Morse operator?" answered Ned, crouching by Bob's side at the desk.

Bob threw out the receiver and flashed "O. K. Morse" several times. Then, so nervous that his hands were trembling, he forced the receivers over his ears again. In a few moments those present saw that he had some response. All crowded about the desk while Bob, his face pale under the strain, leaned forward as if to intensify the sound.

Alan touched his trembling arm and pointed to the condenser dial arm—the tuning apparatus. A look of relief came into Bob's face and he rose to his feet, leaning heavily on the desk. Slowly he moved the arm forward—then completely over and gradually back. Suddenly his hand paused. He had caught a message and was reading it. To those standing eagerly about him there was no sound, and no sign but the slow moving of the young reporter's head. With a final sway of his body, Bob tore off the receivers and exclaimed:

At the same moment he reached out his band toward the sending key. As he did so Mr. Osborne sprang to his side and caught his arm.

"Is this a message—what you have just repeated—from the vessel we thought needed help?"

"It was repeated four times," exclaimed Bob. And then, with a smile: "It was Morse this time."

Mr. Osborne released his hold on Bob's arm and meditatively drew a long puff on his cigar. Then he said in a low but positive voice:

"Don't communicate again with this yacht. Under no circumstances use this apparatus in such a way that the identity of the Aleutian shall be made known or its progress traced. If you pick up any more messages signed by L. E. Hayes report to me at once."

CHAPTER XV
THE MYSTERY OF THE ALEUTIAN EXPLAINED

AS Mr. Osborne walked from the room Ned mechanically opened the generator switch and Bob moved the little detector lever until the glow in the miniature audion bulbs winked into black.

"I'm glad we have," snapped Ned. "I hope it's started so hard that we bump against something."

And they had. The next day brought a revelation from Mr. Osborne that was more than compensation to the perplexed youngsters. For a time it even drove the dream of the polar regions from Alan's and Ned's thoughts. As for Bob, he immediately fell into a state of ecstatic bliss. The explanation of the mystery of the Aleutian's voyage, when it finally came, thrilled every fiber of Bob's reportorial being.

The next morning Ned and Alan hastened through their breakfast—in honor of the increasing cold there were sausages and pancakes—to get an early start on the sledge which, it was hoped, would be finished by night. Bob's task was to memorize the Continental Telegraph Code. Mr. Osborne, Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje breakfasted together. Bob, in his near-by stateroom, was conscious, from time to time, that the three men were in earnest conversation. And this was protracted long after the usual breakfast period. When it came to an end there was a rap on Bob's door. It was the chief proprietor himself.

"I shall be glad if you and Mr. Napier and Mr. Hope will come to my stateroom in a half hour," Mr. Osborne said. "I have something to say to you."

It was the longest half hour the three boys ever experienced. Sharp on the minute they kept the appointment. Mr. Osborne was alone. The boys entered his apartment like school children and dropped into the proffered chairs expectantly.

"I have invited you here to explain frankly to you the mission of the Aleutian," he began abruptly. "I believe you already know in part," he added, bowing toward Bob and smiling. Bob blushed and the other boys edged forward on their chairs.

"I had no desire to deceive you," he continued seriously. "And, indeed, I have not. What I told you of Colonel Oje's hunting trip and Major Honeywell's plans as to the white Eskimos is quite true. But these do not constitute the real work of the expedition. I am sure you realized that."

"In spite of that, I feel I owe you an apology," went on the millionaire. "If our sailing was cloaked in mystery it was because business prudence demanded it. But at last I have come to share the full confidence that Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje place in you young gentlemen. I have decided that further silence would be unmagnanimous and impolite."

"I have no doubt," he exclaimed, "after yesterday's revelations through Mr. Russell's ingenuity, that the gratitude will be mine. L. E. Hayes," Mr. Osborne exclaimed in another tone, "the man who sent us the message last evening, is my bitterest enemy. The telegram we received last evening means that my rival in business is now attempting to win in a race that may mean millions of dollars to me and those I represent. I must beat him to the McKenzie River."

Every boy present felt like springing to his feet with a shout of allegiance to their leader's cause, but all restrained themselves.

"You must listen to a little story of some big things to understand," continued Mr. Osborne, rising. Opening a drawer he took out a map marked "Dominion of Canada." The upper portion extending from Hudson Bay to Alaska was one wide white expanse interrupted here and there by great blue blotches of lakes and the thick black lines of interminable rivers. In the northwestern corner Mr. Osborne placed the point of his pencil. It was the delta of the McKenzie River.

"Young gentlemen," resumed Mr. Osborne. "If you will look east and south of that point you will see the unknown region of the great Northwest—the Barren Grounds of North British America. Before you young men are middle-aged the sleeping car will have penetrated to every lake and river of this uncharted region; every river and lake now known only to the Indian and the Eskimo will be a highway of commerce, and where ignorance now fancies only the ice bound Arctic Ocean, a few years will bring wharves and steamers laden with new supplies for an exhausted continent."

"You doubt me," he went on. "That is because we live too much in the past. Young men," he added with a strange fervor in his voice, "I can recall the time when we thought Manitoba, in Canada a region of perpetual snow and ice. It is in reality the granary of the world. Wheat has actually been grown one thousand seven hundred miles north of the Canadian Pacific Railway."

"Nor," answered Mr. Osborne quickly, "do they tell you that roses bloom in June on the sixty-second parallel in this land of wonders, where in the summer the sun shines twenty hours each day and in the winter the temperate Chinook winds make life far more agreeable than existence in our raw blizzards."

"Probably not," replied Mr. Osborne, laughing. "But many men know now that some day the great McKenzie River basin will rival the riches of the Mississippi Valley. Mr. Hayes knows it," added Mr. Osborne soberly. "And he knows more. He knows that, far north of this unpeopled land of fertile possibilities lies a mineral region that is to be the wonder of the world. The California of the 'forty-niner' and the Alaska of to-day will pale in comparison with the undreamed-of wealth of the polar shore of America."

"The Arctic Circle is but a geographer's line," continued Mr. Osborne. "As for eternal ice there is not a bay or river on the American continent into which a vessel may not penetrate at some time of the year. But," and the fervent tone of the speaker relaxed, "all this is but introductory. Although one of the objects and, until last evening, the main purpose of the Aleutian was to prove that there is an open sea north of British America from the Pacific to the Atlantic, I am afraid that that is now a secondary object."

"Then you were looking for the Northwest Passage," exclaimed Ned, the great secret at last revealing itself.

"Precisely," was the answer. "But not as a geographer. Ours is a mission of commerce," went on Mr. Osborne. "And that brings me to the matter I have decided to lay before you." He motioned them to their chairs again, and, relighting his cigar, continued.

"Boston, as you may know, is the mining center of America, financially. We finance the copper mines of the continent. Personally I am interested in western lands. But when I was in Edmonton, Canada, a year ago this December, and there heard a tale of an almost mythical copper region in the far North, I showed the Boston weakness. Donald Macoun, a Canadian voyageur and trapper, was the man from whom I heard the story, and I took him to Boston with me. From him I received my first account of the Copper Mine River district."

Mr. Osborne's calmness was again deserting him. Arising, he placed his finger on a deep indentation of the coast line of Northern Canada, and pointed out Coronation Gulf. From the bottom of this great bay he traced the black line of a river bearing generally southwest toward Great Bear Lake.

"This," he exclaimed, "is the great Copper Mine River. It is within the Arctic Circle, in part, but it has upon its banks the richest deposits of copper in the world. In the same region are gold, iron, coal, graphite, ochre, mica, gypsum and petroleum. Eventually these minerals will become the supply of this continent. And," continued Mr. Osborne earnestly, "if the Aleutian can prove what I believe she can—that for three or four months of each year there is an open Northwest Passage to the Atlantic—steamers will soon be carrying these ores to European markets."

"And that's what you want to do?" exclaimed Ned impulsively. "Make a voyage between the Arctic Islands and the continent to see if steamers can do it regularly?"

"That was my main object, but it involved other matters as important. Our interest in an open passage is purely commercial, and is based on our final acquisition of rights and claims to these vast properties. A group of men, of whom I am one, has secretly planned to purchase these properties from the Canadian Government. The descriptions and locations of these should now be in the hands of our agent. This agent and his prospectors, if he has completed his survey, are wintering at the mouth of the McKenzie, or at the mouth of the Copper Mine. It was also a part of my plan to meet and confer with him."

"The waterways in his part of the world do not open until May, and then he is two thousand four hundred miles from civilization. Long before he could make that voyage on foot I hope to be back in the United States or, possibly, in Ottawa, Canada, treating with the Canadian authorities."

"You will appreciate the need of secrecy even more fully when I have finished," added the millionaire. "Also you will see how this voyage came about. When Donald Macoun first told his story I took into my confidence five other men. One of these was L. E. Hayes, a rich mining operator from Nome. An informal partnership was formed and early last spring Conroy Tyrrel, a woodsman and trapper living in Winnipeg, was sent with three assistants and some Indians down the McKenzie to make a definite survey. It was agreed that we should attempt to meet him early this spring by way of Bering Strait. I at once purchased and sent the Waldo to San Francisco where, I supposed, most of the partners would join her this spring. To my surprise this purchase was not approved. Mr. Hayes and another of my associates refused to share in the expense."

"I was as stubborn as Mr. Hayes. When the other two men became lukewarm I announced that I would make the voyage alone. Then I met your friends and they finally decided to accompany me. In short, Colonel Oje and Major Honeywell are now my associates."

"That brings me to the real nub of it all," went on Mr. Osborne. "He is trying to beat the Aleutian to the McKenzie River and to Conroy Tyrrel. When the little Hudson Bay Company steamer Wrigley came up the McKenzie last fall on its return from the one voyage it makes each year, it brought a message to me from Tyrrel. It was written at Fort Norman on the McKenzie, as our representatives were about to start overland for the Copper Mine. In it he said he had already made some sketches of the region in which we were interested, based on trapper and Indian information. These and his definite plans for the winter he had forwarded, he explained, to Mr. Hayes. When I asked Mr. Hayes to show me these reports he denied having received them. In brief," added Mr. Osborne, "at the first meeting of those originally interested, there was a decided division. Those who did not antagonize my purchase of the steamer became incensed over Mr. Hayes's action. I was forced to accuse him of deception. The contemplated Copper Mine Company was abandoned. A week before I left Boston Mr. Hayes, with several others, formally incorporated a Coppermine Company' under the laws of New Jersey."

"And then," repeated Mr. Osborne, "I suspect he hurried to Seattle—probably—chartered some one's private yacht—"

Mr. Osborne nodded his head. "If he does," he said slowly, "it will put him in a way to secure millions of dollars worth of rights to which, I believe, I have a just claim."

"And if we get to Agent Tyrrel first?" asked Ned, breathless at the scent of effort and possible achievement.

CHAPTER XVI
A NEW THEORY OF ARCTIC NAVIGATION

THAT J.W. Osborne, of Boston, a retired manufacturer of rubber boots and shoes and a millionaire, should have a clearly defined idea concerning the acquisition of a fabulously valuable copper territory in Arctic Canada, was not strange. But that this same man should have a clearly defined idea about the conquest of the icy Northwest Passage—the almost unpenetrated barrier for four centuries to daunted navigators, was more than strange. Yet he had both these ideas, and he had evolved both of them ahead of the rest of the world.

`"That's what surprised me," commented Ned, when the boys had withdrawn and had had time to get their breath. "Not so much the ideas, as that this quiet, easy-spoken, practical man should have originated them."

"You can't always tell," exclaimed Bob. "But we started something, didn't we?" he added, turning to Alan.

"You did just what I thought you would," retorted Alan, unabashed. "You've cut out the last chance of our seeing polar ice."

Not less interesting than his account of how he hoped to be the first to reach Tyrrel and circumvent his rival, Hayes, was Mr. Osborne's theory of arctic exploration.

"Never," Mr. Osborne had said, "have I heard of a properly planned arctic expedition. The one idea of arctic travelers has been 'fight the ice.' You can't fight arctic ice and win. You've got to avoid it—run away from it. At no place in the arctic world is the ice permanently anchored. The polar ice cap drifts. But you can't plow through it. You've got to wait and watch. When your chance comes, race for it. And you can't race for it in a four-knot tub or an old whaler loaded to the water's edge. Did you ever stop to think how ridiculous it all is?" he asked. "Select the smallest and heaviest sail vessel you can find; crawl north until you are hemmed in by ice floes; allow yourself to be frozen in, and then wait through starvation and scurvy for some cataclysm of nature to set you free! The Aleutian won't advance that way. With her speed she'll go around. And that's what our coal is for. With a renewed supply of fuel," Mr. Osborne explained, "I believe the Aleutian could steam nearer to the pole than any polar vessel has ever gone."

"To show you how nearly it has been done already," he went on, "I'll relate an incident. A year ago an old-fashioned, pemmican-provisioned polar expedition set out in charge of some Belgians. The plan was to struggle slowly through the ice and then go into winter quarters in order to add to their slow advance by creeping a little further north on the ice the next summer. The west coast of Spitzbergen was selected as the site for the winter camp. Finally, reaching the bay selected, the party landed and, to its surprise, found a carpenter building a home! 'What does this mean?' the commander asked. 'Oh! a good many persons come up here in the summer and I thought I'd put up a hotel,' explained the non-polar carpenter. 'This is certainly no place for a self-respecting arctic explorer,' said the leader, and the expedition re-embarked. For weeks they struggled on to get beyond civilization and possible assistance. At last, on a rocky point, desolate and cold enough, they went ashore again and set up a new camp. The next morning an excursion steamer from Norway sailed by the point and saluted them while the passengers waved their handkerchiefs."

"And the remarkable thing about this story," went on Mr. Osborne, "is that it is true. It may interest you to know," he concluded, "that Dane's Island, off Spitzbergen, where this happened, is five degrees of latitude or three hundred and fifty miles north of the most northern point that the Aleutian will have to reach to demonstrate that there is, for at least several weeks each summer, a practical northwest Passage."

That evening, after dinner, Mr. Osborne honored the young men by calling on them. There had been no talk at the meal concerning the race—perhaps because of Yoshina—but Mr. Osborne soon gave signs that the subject had been keenly discussed by Captain McKay and the associated proprietors.

"I don't see how Mr. Hayes can possibly win," Bob exclaimed when Mr. Osborne brought up the subject. "He has six hundred miles the start of us, but where is he going to get coal? Mr. Wales tells us that he can't count on it at Unalaska—except by chance in meeting a steamer over-supplied. And it's as scarce, almost, at St. Michael."

"Mr. Hayes has plenty of money," said Mr. Osborne. "Ample cash is a great persuader. There may be coal at St. Michael or Nome, and Captain McKay says the Gull will beat us to both places."

"Couldn't you buy any possible fuel at Unalaska or Nome by wireless?" suggested Ned, proud of his idea.

"I've thought of that," replied Mr. Osborne, "but you must remember that the Gull has a wireless outfit too. Mr. Hayes would detect us telegraphing. In Alaska he is a big man— his name is Louis, and on the Yukon he is known as 'Bib Lou.' Such an attempt would be a signal to him. His friends would certainly block us."

Then Mr. Osborne explained the real object of his visit. "I told Mr. Russell," he began, "that I expected a message at St. Michael about May 1. On that date we will be at Unalaska. I give Mr. Hayes credit for hurrying north as fast as he can steam. The knowledge that we are behind him can make no difference in his progress. Therefore, on May 1, wherever we are, I am going to ask you young men to get in touch with St. Michael, if you can, and ascertain whether my message has arrived."

As this message was to contain news that might make the voyage of the Aleutian purposeless, the boys gave ample evidence of special interest. Mr. Osborne added:

"My coal steamer left Seattle last summer. It was not at all certain that the late August ice in Beaufort sea would not catch her. If Captain Campbell, who has her in charge, reached the McKenzie, he was to send word of her arrival over the mountains to Dawson. From that point the message was to be wired to me at St. Michael."

Seeing new wonder on the countenances of his auditors, the millionaire added, in explanation: "He would use Indian and Eskimo half-breeds who winter along the sea. They would sledge the distance, which is not over four hundred miles."

"But," volunteered Ned, "even if you didn't get the message and had to conclude that Captain Campbell had not reached the rendezvous with his coal, wouldn't you go ahead? Wouldn't you want to find your agent even if you had to give up the Northwest Passage idea?"

"If I receive word that the collier is there I may get other news that may make even the voyage to the McKenzie useless," answered Mr. Osborne. "Mr. Tyrrel, our agent, expected to complete the survey of the Copper Mine before the short arctic night of this region came on. If, as he hoped, his task was done by that time, he planned, instead of wintering in that distant region, to snowshoe it across the Barren Land to the mouth of the McKenzie. Here he was almost certain to find a few whalers housed up for the winter. Among them he and his men would pass the worst of the coldest weather. And this summer he would return to civilization on the annual Hudson Bay steamer up the river. If Tyrrel carried out his plan and reached 'Whale City', as the whalers' refuge is called, Captain Campbell, who carried a letter of introduction from me, was to confer with him. If Captain Campbell accomplished his double purpose—reached his harbor and met Tyrrel before his courier was dispatched for Dawson, he was to send me one of two messages: 'Weather pleasant,' or 'Weather cold.' 'Weather pleasant,' is cipher for 'Tyrrel is here and has succeeded.' If I receive 'Weather cold'—it means—well, it means," concluded Mr. Osborne, laughing, "that Mr. Tyrrel has failed, that our project is a dream and that it doesn't matter who sees him first."

As the realization of what "Weather cold" meant, three boys hearts beat a trifle slower. Mr. Osborne could not fail to note the gloom caused by the horrible possibility.

"But," he continued—jovially for him—"although our race with Mr. Hayes would be at an end, the voyage might continue. That would depend on how much store Major Honeywell sets on his white Eskimos and how determined Colonel Oje is to get his musk-ox horns."

The next day dragged, for on the morning of the succeeding day the volcano on Unalaska Island should have been well in sight. The snow had ceased and the weather was clear and cold. But there was no sight of the Gull.

"She'll be making the pass yesterday," explained Captain McKay. "If she stopped, we'll see naught but her heels on the north and lucky to get a glimpse o' them."

The day was marked at least by the completion of the sledge. Zenzencoff and Captain McKay smiled when its four sections were carried on to the deck. But the odd contrivance was to have its use, eventually, and the two boys were to be amply rewarded for the time spent on it.

True to his promise, Captain McKay brought the Aleutian to the Islands in the afternoon of the next day, April 30. The prevailing and celebrated fog of the Aleutians hung over the necklace-like archipelago in low, dense clouds. But, just before noon, above the low-lying mists, the vapory smoke of Unalaska's crater broke into view, and with that as a landmark the Aleutian steamed into Akoutan Pass, between Akutan and Unalaska Islands. When Cape Kalighta hove in sight on the port bow the engines dropped to half speed and, rounding that basaltic granite rock, in a half hour the anchor dropped in Ulliouliouk Harbor.

A half mile distant and half concealed by the chill mist lay a trim low steamer.

"We've won," shouted Bob to Ned and Alan as the boys craned their necks from the starboard end of the bridge. "It's the Gull. She's lost two days' time and the race is over."

CHAPTER XVII
A "WIRELESS" STOPS THE VOYAGE

CAPTAIN McKay and Mr. Wales were busy with the anchoring of the Aleutian. But, in the wheel-house and protected from the chilling mist, Mr. Osborne and his associates were also interested spectators. Major Honeywell had the wheel-house glasses on the other steamer. As Bob shouted that the Gull had been overtaken, Major Honeywell shook his head. Just then Captain McKay, with another squint at the stranger, remarked:

Within a few moments Mr. Wales had lowered a boat and Captain McKay and the three boys rowed to the anchored steamer. It was indeed the cutter Thetis, Captain Gaspard in command. For a time there was the half hope that the Gull might not have reached the island. But this hope was soon dispelled. The Gull had touched at Unalaska forty-eight hours previously, found some native coal, and, after a brief call on the commander of the Thetis, steamed rapidly away on a northern course.

Ordinarily it would have been a treat for the boys to spend some time on a vessel like the Thetis. The natty and formal hearing of the officers and crew—even on its lonesome inspection cruise in this befogged and dreary part of the world— appealed to them. But one other thought was first—the desire to overtake the flying Gull.

When Captain Gaspard asked concerning the destination of the Aleutian, Captain McKay told him: "Nome, St. Michael and the McKenzie." Before the commander of the Thetis had had time to express surprise, Captain McKay invited him to dine that evening on the Aleutian.

"Then we may get away together," said Captain Gaspard. "The Thetis sails for Seattle in the morning. Get your letters ready. We're on our way home."

What Captain McKay had announced was the general plan of the proprietors, although it was feared that there might be a little longer delay. Engineer Jackson had already killed all but one of his fires and was cleaning the boilers. A leak had been discovered in one of them and it had been giving him trouble.

"The Gull is well ahead of us anyway," Mr. Osborne had argued, "and it isn't steam that is going to win now. It's brains."

Nevertheless, the boys would have felt better at sea with a full head of steam on. But care and precaution were the orders and that was the end of it.

Bob suggested that it might be well to make the attempt to get in communication with St. Michael to inquire for the looked-for message. But Mr. Osborne did not agree.

"To-morrow is the date," he said. "If we can make one call of it Mr. Hayes may not catch us at it."

There seemed no reason remaining why the boys should not go ashore. Captain McKay was going officially and, Colonel Oje joining the party, all were soon beached at the long-talked-of Unalaska, the first port on their voyage.

"It certainly won't take long to look it over," remarked Alan, as the little, cross-crowned chapel, one square structure of ship's timber, rocks and turf, and a dozen or so cabins and tents revealed themselves along the rock-strewn beach. But by the time Captain McKay announced the return it was evening, and the boys were just beginning to realize that Unalaska was more than a few cabins. As they rowed back to the Aleutian, each boy burdened with some particular and precious souvenir, Ned remarked:

"That's a curious place. Looks like the end of the world. But it's more like the center of it. You can hear the news of the seas from the Arctic Ocean to Hawaii. Seems as if every vessel in this part of the Pacific left some message here."

"That's what we call it," remarked Captain McKay, "The Post Office of the Pacific."

When the shore party reached the Aleutian, Captain Gaspard and Lieutenant Ames had already arrived. No doubt Mr. Osborne had fully satisfied Captain Gaspard as to the Aleutian's mission, as the matter was not referred to during the dinner. When the officers were about to enter the cutter's gig, Captain Gaspard asked Ned how he liked Alaska islands and fogs. Ned smiled.

"Because, if you don't," he added, good-naturedly, "now is the time to speak up. You'll see worse than this," he continued. "And if you want to back out, this is perhaps your last chance. If you aren't going to enjoy icebergs you can go home with us. The Thetis is not a passenger boat, but we don't draw the line at rescuing castaways. If you feel homesick we'll find a berth for you on the Thetis. That'll put you in Seattle in eight or nine days."

"I'm much obliged, Captain," he exclaimed, "but the only way you could get me would be to shanghai me."

The boys were astir early the next day. The fog had almost lifted and the panorama of snow-cloaked hills stretched out like a long ghostly arm to the west. Black smoke was already rolling from the Thetis stacks but to the surprise of the boys there was almost no smoke from the Aleutian's engines.

"While they were at breakfast they were even more surprised to see Captain McKay, his uniform in disorder, and the begrimed Mr. Jackson, the engineer, pass through the dining saloon on their way from the lower deck. Neither man gave signs of having been in bed. They spoke in passing, but with no cheeriness. Then Bob recalled that the pounding in the engine room had not ceased during the night.

In a short time the three boys were on the deck. Captain McKay and the shirt-sleeved, overalled Mr. Jackson were just coming from Mr. Osborne's stateroom. They hurried by, but said nothing.

"I guess that means something," whispered Bob, when Mr. Jackson soon afterwards came from his cabin with his coat and cap, and with two of the crew lowered a boat and made for the Thetis. "That's no call of ceremony." For a half hour the boys lingered by the rail and speculated on the peculiar actions of the chief engineer. Then the boat was seen returning with a new passenger, a gaunt, big-fisted man in naval uniform.

"It's the Thetis engineer," whispered Ned. "It's all off. If it's the kind of trouble that Mr. Jackson has to hold a consultation about you can bet it's worse than serious."

As the two engineers sprang aboard and disappeared below Mr. Osborne and Major Honeywell came along the deck on their way to the dining saloon.

"By the way, young gentlemen," added Mr. Osborne, after a morning salutation, "isn't this the first of May?"

"If you can get a response from the wireless station at St. Michael," said Mr. Osborne, "ask the operator if there is a message there for J. W. Osborne of Boston. If it is there now—or whenever he gets it—have him repeat it."

Three eager boys rushed into the saloon and disappeared toward the main deck and the wireless room. The visit of the Thetis engineer to the Aleutian necessarily postponed the departure of the revenue cutter. This delay was utilised by Captain Gaspard to make a final call on the owner of the big steamer. He was received in Mr. Osborne's stateroom, to which Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje were also summoned. There the four gentlemen were socially engaged when there was a sound of scurrying footsteps on the deck without. With hardly the ceremony of knocking Bob burst into the apartment. Behind him were two woebegone lads. Bob's face itself was a puzzling picture of victory and defeat.

"I got it," he exclaimed, almost out of breath. "It was there—been there two days."

In his hand he held a scrap of paper. Mr. Osborne took the paper, adjusted his glasses and read the message. Then, handing it to Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje, he calmly took up a match, relit his cigar and leaned back in his chair, his eyes toward the ceiling.

Reached Herschel Island, mouth McKenzie, with t rouble Aug. 26. Vessel and cargo safe. Tyrrel wintered at Fort Norman. Started south on ice March. Expects to reach Edmonton by steamer and canoe early in June. Weather pleasant.

"Excuse me a moment, gentlemen," exclaimed Captain Gaspard, rising; "I wish to see how our engineers are progressing." And with considerate tact he left the apartment.

"The main thing is very plain," answered Mr. Osborne, drawing thoughtfully on his cigar. "That is, that our agent, for some reason, is now hurrying south while we are hastening north."

"I'm afraid not," replied Mr. Osborne, as if yet in a sort of study. "If Mr. Hayes did not hear and understand that message as it came to us just now he'll be in St. Michael to-day. He'll hear it there. He makes it his business to know all that is to be known in this part of the world."

"The race will be on again. But it will be to the south and not to the north. The first man at Edmonton and the one who intercepts Tyrrel as he emerges from the wilderness wins."

"In the firm belief that Mr. Hayes will have that message to-day, if he hasn't it already, and the knowledge that we have at least three full days' start of him on a backwards race, I can see no other course."

"By all means," exclaimed Colonel Oje. "There is but one side to that proposition."

The sense of disappointment that shot through Ned was so keen that things seemed to swim before his eyes. But his youthful figure straightened and he gripped his cap. Months of dreaming and planning; his carefully wrought out aeronautical ideas, and the possibilities of the aero-sledge that he and Alan had worked into a reality had, in a moment, turned into nothing. With a glance at his chum's set and pitiful face Ned turned away. With the same words, the doing and the daring of Bob's nightly dreams had vanished. The happiest dream of a boy's life-adventure in strange lands—the fever of the young reporter's newly awakened ambition to see and know the undiscovered wonders of the great McKenzie and the marvels of the Barren Lands—all these had come to nothing. As for Alan, daring to look at no one, he swallowed the lump in his throat and found solace in bitter thoughts of the wireless room—the source of all their trouble.

"Very clever of the boys," he said in a moment. "Undoubtedly they have saved the day. I suggest—"

There was another sudden knock at the door. Mr. Jackson entered the room. Just without stood Captain Gaspard and the Thetis engineer in earnest conversation.

"Gentlemen," exclaimed Mr. Jackson abruptly, as he passed a sooty handkerchief over his tired and grimy face, "it is worse than I thought. But Captain Gaspard is able to help us out. There are three weak plates in the boilers. We can't go ahead till they are fixed."

"I have enough for one—the Thetis is going to let us have two reserve sheets."

"Oh, yes. We're fixed for that. With the loan of the plates from the Thetis we can make the repairs all right—in time."

Mr. Osborne resumed his seat, relighted his cigar and again looked for a moment at the ceiling.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE REVENUE CUTTER THETIS TO THE RESCUE

SIX days' delay meant that the Gull could leave St. Michael that evening, cover the seven hundred or more miles between that point and Unalaska in forty-eight hours, and be four days ahead on her race to the south before the Aleutian could raise her anchor. It was the death warrant to the aspirations of the boys. But, even in the face of that calamity, they could not fail to be struck by the placid composure of Mr. Osborne—the one person who had most to lose. Unagitated, he still smoked on composedly. As Mr. Jackson hurriedly withdrew with a "Very good, sir," Ned made one last feeble appeal.

"Perhaps the message isn't real. Perhaps Mr. Hayes did hear us and perhaps he made up and sent a message to mislead you!"

Mr. Osborne smiled. "Mr. Hayes knows nothing about my cipher. 'Weather pleasant' makes it genuine."

That was the last straw. Ned, Alan and Bob withdrew almost unobserved. Captain Gaspard greeted them as they did so, and entered the cabin. At the same moment Captain McKay came on deck. Before he too disappeared into Mr. Osborne's room he called out to Mr. Wales:

"Send three or four men to the Thetis with Mr. Jackson for the spare plates and rivets. An' let 'em look sharp. We're detaining Captain Gaspard."

One look from the first officer was invitation enough. The pull across the bay would be a diversion at least and welcome. Springing overboard into the boat alongside, the boys were soon pulling the Thetis' engineer to his own vessel. The engineer explained the trouble.

A leak had been discovered in a joint. This could be repaired by cutting out the defective rivets and putting in new ones. But on further examination Mr. Jackson had found three bulges in the plates indicating defective or corroded steel. These were in plates which could not be taken out and replaced with new ones, as there were no duplicates on either the Aleutian or Thetis. Each bulge must be cut out laboriously with a drill, patches of plate steel bent to fit over the openings and these and the boiler drilled for rivets. "Six days'll be a short job," the engineer concluded.

Returning with the repair supplies, including a few extra drill points and saw blades, the boys had no sooner helped transfer their precious cargo to the Aleutian than they felt that something was in the air. Captain Gaspard was just taking his departure. Mr. Osborne and his associates were at the ladder with him. He had shaken hands with Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje, but Mr. Osborne he merely saluted, informally, with a lifted forefinger. "In an hour then," he said, bowing to all, and, springing down the ladder into his own boat, he was gone.

As they entered the room in a quarter of an hour, they were astonished to see the table moved to one side and Mr. Osborne's leather traveling trunk open in the middle of the floor. Both Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje were present. Mr. Osborne had just completed the packing of his trunk.

"Would you mind setting it outside?" he asked the boys as he buckled the last strap. "It's to go to the Thetis. I'm going to leave you."

The dropping of three jaws was simultaneous. Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje began laughing.

Mr. Osborne pushed three chairs forward and, as he joined in the laughter and motioned to them, the dazed lads sank into the seats.

"Naturally we don't want to lose our fight if we can win it," he began when the boys seemed more capable of understanding. "As we are more than morally sure that the enemy will hurry to catch Mr. Tyrrel, we must attempt the same thing. As it would be useless to follow Mr. Hayes four days late in the Aleutian, that is out of the question. Captain Gaspard has kindly solved the riddle. I shall leave on the Thetis and, I hope, reach Seattle at least two days ahead of the Gull."

Three boys edged forward on three chairs. Without exception a new flush of excitement rushed into each face. Each lad wanted to shout "Hurrah," but each saw that the speaker had just begun.

Alan sprang to his feet with some unspoken exclamation on his tongue and then, embarrassed and nervous, he sank into his chair again.

"That's all right," quickly exclaimed Mr. Osborne. "I appreciate just how you feel. In one way and another I have come to understand that it would be a disappointment for you to turn back. You are not to go back, at present. In fact, the new plans require that the Aleutian shall proceed. Yet there are changes in these plans that you must know. There are new complications that may not he agreeable to you."

"I have only one thing to say," interrupted Ned. "Wherever the Aleutian goes I want to go."

"But," continued Mr. Osborne, "the Aleutian may have to pass the next winter in the ice."

"You'll understand better when I explain what I hope to do," went on Mr. Osborne, looking at his watch. "In a few minutes I shall say good-bye and board the Thetis. Captain Gaspard will sail at once. This is May 1. When we reach Seattle, possibly on the ninth or tenth, I shall board the Canadian Pacific Transcontinental fast train and hurry to Edmonton. From that city, about May 11, I shall leave by stage for Athbasca Landing on the Athbasca River, ninety miles north. There I might wait for Tyrrel, but I shall take no such chance, knowing that Mr. Hayes may be only two or three days behind me. When I reach the river, if there is more than one power boat available, I'll charter all of them and start down the Athbasca to meet our agent. On the river he can hardly pass me unobserved. When I do meet him—and if he carries out his plans that will be within ten days—the fight will be over. I'll return with him to Edmonton, wire my associates to meet me in Ottawa, and turn the negotiations for the lease or purchase of the lands over to them. Assuming that Mr. Tyrrel's work has been successful, that the ore is there and waiting for an outlet, we will then push on through the Northwest Passage and confirm my strong belief—that there is an open waterway to the Atlantic."

"Unless Mr. Tyrrel's surveys and report are all that we believe they will be, there will be no point to any one doing it. If they are, I shall have turned the negotiations over to my partners by June 10. Not later than June 15 I shall be on the Athbasca again. In the meantime the Aleutian may take her time for repairs, wait long enough for the ice fully to leave the straits, and make a comfortable voyage to the mouth of the McKenzie, as planned, and there, in July, I hope to rejoin you."

"We have thought it all out," continued Mr. Osborne, indicating his associates, "and the details are these. If I can manage to meet Mr. Tyrrel, escort him to civilization, close up our deal, based on his surveys, and be back on the Athbasca River by June 15, I shall have before me a down stream journey on three of the grandest rivers on the continent to bring me to the Aleutian again. It will be a voyage of twenty-four hundred miles, but I'll have the assistance of three or four possible steamers on the way. And, even if I miss these, or some of them, I can get boats and rivermen to keep me going. With twenty hours of sunshine a day, as we get north, I'll do one hundred miles each twenty-four hours."

"I have never been what you call an 'outdoor man', except when business demanded it." Proffering the older men a fresh cigar and slowly lighting one himself, he added: "When I wanted rubber I looked for it myself. I came down the Magdalena River in South America alone in a leaky canoe. I did the same on the Orinoco with two natives. I can do the twenty-four hundred miles between Athbasca Landing and the mouth of the McKenzie in thirty days. You may expect me in the middle of July."

"Then we'll make the passage," replied Mr. Osborne. "But we must cover all contingencies. If I reach you by the middle of July there is time to attempt to make our way to the Atlantic. If I am detained we can all return to San Francisco with Captain Campbell on the Collier."

Mr. Osborne nodded his head. "Her coal is too precious to be wasted running back and forth to civilization. Captain McKay will winter at Herschel Island, and those of us who desire to do so can rejoin the Aleutian in the spring overland as early as the ice leaves the McKenzie. Then we will surely investigate my theory of the Northwest Passage."

"A winter on the Arctic, especially in the Aleutian, would make me happy for life," answered Ned.

"Then get your letters ready at once for your parents," replied Mr. Osborne. "But remember—make them conditional. You can all return in the fall if you like. Captain Campbell will be coming out. You may change your minds by that time."

There was a chorus of protests and the boys sprang up to add postscripts to the letters they had already written for the Thetis.

"Don't forget," added Mr. Osborne, "you'll have three months' experience by that time. You'll be hunting musk-ox and caribou with Colonel Oje in the Barren Lands and looking for white Eskimos with Major Honeywell for two months or more."

It seemed too good to be true, but the one laugh of protest was not less positive. Ned stepped up to Mr. Osborne and held out his hand.

"Mr. Osborne," he began, "I know we must seem very boyish, but we were awfully disappointed when we heard that we couldn't go on. We are so happy to know that we can that I know we have acted foolishly. But I want to say that I'm sorry we felt so cut up Your interests are ours, and we should have been satisfied to go either ahead or back. If we can go on I want to thank you—for myself and Bob and Alan. We'll do all we can to help you."

"And I hope," added Bob, "that you'll win out over the Alaskan. If I could help you in any way I'd like to go back with you."

"My young friends," replied Mr. Osborne, very kindly, "I think it isn't necessary for me to repeat that you have already made it possible for me to win out over my rival. I genuinely thank you for that—we are all sensible of your services. Let me add this: I think all of you are manly, live young fellows. I have even absorbed some of your exuberant enthusiasm. Although I am going to leave you in a few moments, it will be a real pleasure to meet you again. Until I rejoin you, Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje will give Captain McKay his orders. The Aleutian is theirs—and yours. Meet me at the month of the McKenzie in the middle of July. Until that time the Aleutian and its crew are at your disposal."

An hour later the smoke of the Thetis was hanging over rugged Cape Kaleghta, and Mr. Osborne, sharing Captain Gaspard's cabin, was on his way back to the States. On the second succeeding day Ned, Alan and Bob, in sweaters, Mackinac coats, and gloves, made a rough trip to the point of the cape in a not very fragrant skin canoe propelled by two Aleutians. Selecting a sheltered nook they made a fire and set up their vigil. At noon they warmed some prepared meat and coffee and again took turns with the binoculars. A cold fog lay on the harbor behind and the pass without, but about four o'clock, without sound or signal, a long, dirty white steamer came suddenly out of the north.

Hardly lessening speed the mist-enveloped vessel shot by the point into the bay and again disappeared in the fog. Hastily launching the canoe the boys sprang in and began a race for the head of the bay and the Aleutian. The waves from the incoming steamer reached them, tossing the light canoe beachward, but the skilled Aleuts only smiled and headed into the billows.

Then, somewhere in the fog, there came the sharp clang of an engine bell. There was no other signal, but hardly had the sullen churn of a screw ceased before two more sharp clangs sounded through the mist.

A slowly moving screw leaped into swift action again and with a new swish of parting waters the white steamer burst out of the mist in front of the canoe. There was just time for two powerful sweeps of the Indians' paddles and the Gull, having caught sight of the anchored Aleutian rushed out at full speed toward the Pacific.

CHAPTER XIX
NED'S DARING PROPOSAL

THE sudden arrival of the ghostlike Gull and its immediate flight afforded excitement enough for one evening. But the next morning those who remained behind on the Aleutian turned to thoughts of their own coming voyage.

The log of this voyage, from the time the Aleutian steamed out of the harbor of Unalaska—11:30 A. M., May 10—until she at last reached Herschel Island, off the McKenzie River, is one of the remarkable narratives of maritime history. The record of how the stout, fast steamer passed through Bering Straits, entered into the Arctic Ocean, was beset in the ice, and held helpless until her almost miraculous escape, as well as the perilous and unprecedented exploits of those aboard her, are all graphically set forth in the journal kept by Robert Russell, journalist and member of the party.

Mr. Osborne's instructions to the party on the Aleutian were simple enough. After the repairs to the boiler were completed it was to sail from Unalaska and, with a possible stop at St. Michael, reach the McKenzie River.

In that long journey the Aleutian would pass beyond the last signs of civilization, beyond the rocky, storm bound battlements of Cape Lisburne, Icy Cape and even Point Barrow itself; beyond even the last of the known Eskimos into the unfrequented waters of floe and pack.

The program seemed inviting enough, even to the most adventurous, but, in spite of it, Ned and Alan could only sigh in patient resignation. Adventures there might be, both novel and perilous, but the great polar ice land of their hearts' desire would lie far above the path of the steamer.

Contrary to expectations, Mr Jackson did complete his repairs in six days. This was mainly due to the fact that the need of extraordinary effort was now passed. From Unalaska to the McKenzie River was a long voyage—nearly twenty-three hundred miles—but there were two full months in which to make it. And, in an emergency, the Aleutian could cover that distance in eight days. Therefore, at Major Honeywell's suggestion, Captain McKay ordered the Chief Engineer to discontinue night work.

Major Honeywell almost at once began to address Ned as "Chief Aviator"; Alan as "Assistant Aviator" and Bob as "Wire Chief". He also suggested that two of the boys move into the commodious stateroom vacated by Mr. Osborne. But to this none of the boys would consent. In the end it was decided to make it the "general office" or "consultation room."

Mr. Osborne had left a set of detail maps of the northern regions—all the charts of the United States Hydrographic Office—and the boys removed to the room all their own books and maps as well as the plans of the balloon. And nearly always, smooth and white on the big table, its nebulous coast lines and soundings and parallels outlined beneath the brilliant, low table light, a great polar map lay before them in a maze of mystery.

Nor were the three boys and their elder companions alone in their enjoyment of the new headquarters. Captain McKay was often in the general cabin.

On the morning of the seventh day, Ned, entering the new cabin unexpectedly, found Captain McKay there alone. He was leaning on the table, gazing intently at the polar chart—the untrodden and unmarked ice capping the top of the world. Ned was quick enough to attempt to start the veteran seaman on this ever welcome subject.

"Captain McKay," began Ned, "how far do you suppose the Aleutian could penetrate into the polar regions and escape without trouble? Show me on the chart."

"I'll nae tell ye that, son. Forbye, 'tis no business o' ours to think on. Onless—" at this his tone changed—"onless—"

But the sentence was not finished. There was the sound of some one approaching and the captain concluded: "I was but havin' a peek at the soundings off St. Michael."

But this incident was soon forgotten in the excitement over the plans for the day, which was to be spent in the company of Komootoo, one of the boys' new native friends, the most active and intelligent of the Unalaskans. This half Indian and half Aleutian was almost like an Eskimo in appearance. When the boys found that he was familiar with the coast of the mainland as far as Cape Lisburne and had several times been on long whaling voyages, they spent many happy hours in conversation with him. He talked a broken English and, as he owned a pack of dogs and a sledge, it was near his cabin that the young adventurers spent part of their time. In this intimacy the three boys came to know most of the other natives.

After visits to the cabins of many of these the boys became so newly inspired with the longing for a visit to the real Arctic Regions that they began to play at "dashes to the pole".

In the valleys of the island there was plenty of snow. On this, clad in skin garments borrowed from Komootoo and his friends, Ned, Alan and Bob soon found the keenest of pleasure in imitation explorations. On one of Komootoo's sledges, with six galloping dogs in front, the boys followed the valley basins for miles. And always, whether the day were cold and foggy or bright and warm, they wore all the borrowed garments they could secure— from the awkward sealskin, heelless boots to the suffocating hoods.

They did not always relate their juvenile fancies to their elders. Therefore Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje were somewhat surprised to find, in the evening of this day, the launch returning to the steamer laden with bundles of Aleutian winter garments and three pairs of snowshoes.

"What's this?" exclaimed the Major in his usual spirits, as he figured out the nature of the cargo.

"We got 'em cheap," explained Ned, perceptibly abashed. "And we didn't know but what we might find them useful, some time."

"We have," explained Ned. "But they are not arctic clothes. I've been wanting arctic clothes like these all my life. We traded for 'em," he went on. "They didn't cost much. I got this fine coat for a box of chocolate candy and these boots for two old magazines—the pictures, I guess."

Captain McKay, who was watching the landing from a distance, now came up. He neither laughed nor asked questions, but looked over the pile of garments with the eye of an expert. Finally, he nodded his head as if in approval and then turned away.

It was plain to Ned that here at least was one person who had some respect for their arctic clothes. The little talk he had had with the Scotch skipper came back to him. With it was the recollection of the glorious legend of the treasure ship in the ice as Zenzencoff had told it. Ned was tingling with curiosity to talk further with the old whaler. The opportunity came that evening. Meeting Captain McKay alone on the deck, Ned drew him into conversation.

"Captain McKay," he asked, "have you a theory about the possibilities of reaching the North Pole?"

"Lad, I've been a sailor all my life. I'll be comin' frae a family o' seamen who ha' all used the ocean. An' a' these years, in the main, my life has been on the waters o' the far north. An' the crack o' the ice has a' been music to my ears."

"Some day I'll be goin' back. Some day in my own craft, God willin', I'll be makin' the big voyage. 'Tis not for me, this," and he waved his hand toward the deck of the Aleutian, "nor whalin'. Some day I'll be makin' the big voyage for the grand prize of all."

"Nae, lad," came the quick answer, "although 't would be the grand prize for any seaman. But some 'at better—"

The Scotchman paused, looked away to the north, then at Ned and then concluded. "But not now, lad. Not now."

If these two interviews with Captain McKay gave Ned little information they at least gave his romance and mystery loving brain new food for thought.

The next morning, finding himself alone with Major Honeywell, Ned could restrain himself no longer. After stammering a moment he exclaimed—plainly showing his embarrassment:

"What excuse would we make to Mr. Osborne?" he asked slowly. "What could we say, if anything happened to the Aleutian?"

"But nothing would happen," answered Ned, his eyes sparkling. "What could happen to a boat of this size? Why," and his face lit up with enthusiasm, "the Aleutian is so fast and so strong that we could do in a day what the old sailing vessel explorers did in weeks. If the sea is clear we could take the steamer farther north than any vessel has ever sailed or steamed and get out again—if conditions changed."

"And, pray," answered Major Honeywell, with his usual smile as he stopped in his walk and backed up against the rail, "what would be the advantage of all that?"

"Wouldn't you like the big, white expanse of the present polar charts to have a new line on them—a great dotted curve marked 'course of the Aleutian' and a cross marked 'Major Honeywell's highest north'? Wouldn't that be worth while?"

"Hardly," the elder answered, good-naturedly. "Not with another man's property."

"Well," exclaimed Ned—his embarrassment now gone and his face set—"won't you give me a chance?"

"Major," Ned answered at last, "the Aleutian has the speed, the fuel and the supplies for any sort of voyage. Russia, Sweden, Norway and England have all pushed the line of their unknown north back toward the pole. Spitzbergen, Franz Joseph, Nova Zembla and the Liakhof Islands have all sprung out of what was once the white unknown. How do we know there are not islands like these north of our part of the world?"

"Not with the Aleutian," answered Ned, earnestly, "if you don't approve. But," and he clasped Major Honeywell's arm persuasively, "take us to the ice, the real ice, the polar ice; give us the sledge and leave us; we'll find land or—or the Pole."

"My boy," he exclaimed drawing Ned's arm in his, "I'm proud of you, if you are crazy. "

CHAPTER XX
THE "SPIRIT OF THE FROZEN NORTH"

THE Aleutian, sailing from Unalaska May 10, passed Nunivak Islands, east of north, the next day. The weather was fair, but, outside Cape Kalegtha, a sea had piled up and, under a head wind, the steamer was active enough. The next afternoon Stuart's Island, in Norton Sound, was raised and, by evening, the anchor was dropped between that island and the settlement ashore known as St. Michael. On the theory that Mr. Osborne might forward a message to that point Major Honeywell had decided to touch there.

There was no trouble in finding the telegraph office. The old Michaelovskoi of Russian days, which was then but a few wooden buildings known as "the fort", was now an oil lamp lighted, sign covered town of prospectors. There was a shore street of saloons and stores, a rear fringe of miners' trappers' and whalers' cabins and, beyond these, the tents of the usual natives.

On a shore of pulverized lava, either squatting on the beach or grouped against the immense piles of driftwood, the constant tribute of the great Yukon River, the citizens who had eagerly watched the approach of the Aleutian now awaited the landing of the dingy.

To the nearest of these Ned announced themselves as of "the Aleutian, from San Francisco to the McKenzie." Inquiring the way to the telegraph office and pushing forward in that direction, the boys soon found themselves in charge of two men. In a few moments more they had made the acquaintance of G. B. Thurston, of the United States Signal Corps, who was in charge of the St. Michael end of the Alaska telegraph service, and Edward G. Ward, a collector for the Smithsonian Institute.

The boys were disappointed, but hardly surprised, to find no word from Mr. Osborne, who should have reached Seattle on the previous day. But they did not return to the Aleutian empty-handed. The chance encounter with Observer Thurston and Professor Ward had been so much like a meeting with old friends that they insisted on bringing their new acquaintances back to the steamer for dinner.

Thurston, although not the telegraph and wireless operator, was familiar with everything in the office. He not only knew of the message received from Dawson for Mr. Osborne and its forwarding, but, incidentally, it was his duty to remind Major Honeywell—who was now paymaster, as well as joint director—that the tolls for this were yet unpaid. Bob was sent ashore with gold coin to liquidate this debt early the next day.

Both Mr. Thurston and Professor Ward knew "Alaska Lou" by repute and everything concerning the arrival and departure of the Gull from actual observation.

"He's a good deal interested in the wireless," explained Observer Thurston, innocently. "He was hardly ashore before he came to the station. You'd a' thought he hadn't any business, he stayed so long, askin' questions and smokin' and gassin'."

"Had the message from Captain Campbell to Mr. Osborne been forwarded to Unalaska before he came?" asked Major Honeywell.

"I think so," answered Mr. Thurston. "Yes, I recollect, it had. But he was mighty curious about that, too—about whether we got it off to the islands."

And that was the confirmation that Mr. Hayes had done precisely what Mr. Osborne predicted.

"Forty tons at fifty dollars a ton from the Russian whaler over back of the island," announced Observer Thurston. "An' I guess there ain't agoin' to be much whalin' on that craft this season."

From Professor Ward the information secured was of another sort. He was of the opinion that the Aleutian was in those waters a month too early to pass the straits safely.

"There'll be floe ice in Bering Straits till near the end of June," he announced. "In July it may pack north to about the 70th degree, but it ought to be to the westward of Icy Cape. Though, for the matter of that," he explained, "I've heard of solid packs off Point Barrow during all that month, jams that you couldn't plow through with the stoutest craft, covering a degree of latitude."

When the visitors had gone and the Aleutian party was again assembled in the now even more comfortable "general cabin," Major Honeywell at once brought up this subject of the ice barrier. Captain McKay smiled.

"There's na time but ye'll find ice—floes, jams, packs and bergs—all o'er the Arctic Ocean. The sun o' summer may break an' loose it, but it'll melt nae much. An' the only lost ice I ever saw," he went on, chuckling, "was what'll be driftin' by Greenland way, down i' the Atlantic. An' that's where it's all gaun; fra west 'til east. Ye never saw icebergs aften in the Pacific, did ye?" he asked, turning to Colonel Oje.

"Then how are we going to get around Point Barrow," put in Alan, "if there is ice everywhere and all through July?"

In reply to many questions, Captain McKay explained the movement of the polar ice—how it seemed to form over north of the Asiatic continent, and then sweep in giant bergs, floes and fields toward the east. On the chart he traced the route of Nansen's steamer Fram and explained that celebrated explorer's theory—how he was so well convinced of the truth of the perpetual flow to the east that he purposely allowed the Fram to be frozen in the solid pack. This was north of the Lena River in Russia and his hope was that the course of nature would carry him to the Pole.

Captain McKay traced a pencil line in a great curve from Sannikof Island to far distant Spitzbergen—the windless two years' voyage of a dozen determined men on the Fram through the white waste of the Arctic.

"Why is it, Captain," asked Major Honeywell, "that there seems to be so much more ice north of the American Continent than there is north of Europe? I suppose that is the reason the unexplored region in this part of the world is so much more extensive."

"The top o' the world," he explained, "is covered o'er wi' ice. That'll be the great polar ice cap. It moves, but nae much. 'Tis broad and thick wi' open leads, hither and yon, i' the summer, but nae much broken. An' it moves wi' the great east flowin' polar sea, but nae much i' the center. 'T is the fringe o' it, crushin' an' grindin', that's the death o' men and ships. Crowdin' and crushin', the bergs grind their way to the east, workin' by the fringe o' the great cap. Them as gang one way ye'll see in time escapin' in the Atlantic. Them as gang t'ither, ye'll find makin' mountains o' ice on the shores o' the islands north o' this continent."

Ned was hanging over the map. When Captain McKay had finished he ventured a word.

"You all know Captain Roald Amundsen, of Norway," he began, "the only man who has really made the Northwest Passage? Well, he's going to try to prove that Nansen and Captain McKay are right. He's getting ready now to come over the exact route we have traveled so far. Then, waiting until July, he's going to make his way to Point Barrow, around which we've got to pass. When he reaches Point Barrow, instead of going on east along the coast as we shall, he's going to head his ship—and it's the same Fram that Nansen used—north-northwest until he enters the ice pack. When he can go no further, he plans to imbed himself in the ice and drift. And he'll be prepared to keep at it four or five years."

Bob yawned. "Mighty educating," he said sleepily. "But no one seems to come to the point. Where does the Aleutian fit in among all these polar caps and drifts and things."

"Wind, weather and ice permittin'," answered Captain McKay, jovially, "we'll be keepin' well this side o' the big ice. An' for the same reason we'll be givin' the ice pack o' the coast a fair berth. Aboot the longitude o' 170 west and 72 north we'll lay a great circle, coorse east'ard. On that we'll go for'ard when we can an' we'll lay by when we must. Wi' dodgin' and backin' I ha' no doot we'll make it safe and fair."

There was a rush of visitors to the Aleutian the next day. From the natives, at Captain McKay's suggestion, two kayaks or skin boats were taken aboard at a somewhat extravagant price.

Bob created the sensation of the day. Ned and Alan had spent the morning with the half Eskimo horde that almost surrounded the steamer. Although the weather was nipping cold and there was ice here and there on the sound, the two boys, stripped down to their sweaters, made themselves pupils of the best kayak paddlers. Before noon each boy had become reasonably proficient in the manipulation of the unstable craft.

While the two dripping and somewhat pungent boats were being hoisted aboard Major Honeywell said to Ned, with a twinkle in his eye:

"You've got your sledge and your kayak. All you need now is a couple of dogs and a can of pemmican and you'll be real explorers. Anything else you want?"

Bob's sensation came with his return to the steamer. As he approached, pulling laboriously at the oars of the small boat, it was seen that he had some heavy object dragging in the water behind the boat.

"A little more respectful, if you please," called back Bob, shipping his oars, "and look alive up there with a block and tackle."

"It's an idol," answered Bob, solemnly. "It cost me my Mackinac coat and a five dollar gold piece."

Ned laughed. "There's nothing sacred about a totem pole, you bonehead. Totems are nothing but family records."

"What's that?" exclaimed the reporter. "The native who sold me this said it was a sacred idol. That's what I bought it for. Well, back she goes! He can't put it over on me if it isn't the real thing." And Bob caught up the oars as if to return.

"Hold on," called Ned. "What kind of an idol is it? Is there a story that goes with it?"

"A story?" replied Bob, wiping his perspiring brow. "One as long as your arm. This fellow is the 'Spirit of the Frozen North'."

"One's a plenty," answered Ned, as the three boys began preparations to get the eight-foot effigy aboard ship. This was no easy task. But, finally, with a block and tackle, the crude, grotesque carving was rolled over the rail and dumped onto the deck. Bob's purchase was now seen to be a ferociously wrought figure of a man with specially inserted slabs of wood for teeth, a large protuberant stomach and marvelously small feet. These were lost in a base of the usual Alaskan decorative details, in the midst of which was an oblong figure that Bob pronounced to be "a seal or a walrus or something." The totem, about one and a half feet wide, narrowing slightly toward the bottom, and eight feet in height, was decorated in faded red, black and yellow colors.

All the boys were perspiring and Bob was breathing hard. Squatting on the rounded stomach of the "Spirit of the Frozen North" he panted:

"Yes," answered Bob, "but no funny business. If you're not going to make good I'll take the dummy back to the 'con' man who did me up."

"It's a long story," began Bob, "but it all comes to this: If you own this big-toothed gentleman you'll never go hungry, and if you keep it near you—in your pocket, say—no harm'll come to you on sea, land or ice. And all you have to do to make it work is to stick it up in front of your house and keep it painted."

"That's enough," exclaimed Ned, jubilantly. "But there's a lot more," continued Bob. "There's a 'wishing department' in him somewhere. When you are going for seals or whales or things like that you can pour a can of seal oil on this," and Bob struck the portion of the totem that faintly resembled a seal. "Then your boat'll go where you wish it to go and—"

At four o'clock that afternoon the Aleutian's anchor was up once more and the steamer was off on the third stage of her voyage to the Diomede Islands in the very center of Bering Straits, two hundred and sixty-five miles from St. Michael. And in the extreme bow of the steamer, erect and boldly facing the north, stood Bob's totem—the "Spirit of the Frozen North."

CHAPTER XXI
A LIBATION TO THE TOTEM

WITH the consent of Major Honeywell, Ned had lashed the totem fast in the bow of the Aleutian. Here, like a ferocious figurehead, the "Spirit of the Frozen North" now sat his ugly face squarely toward the land of eternal ice. Before the sun set that day, which was at about ten o'clock, the steamer was so well advanced across Norton Sound that it ran into freezing temperature. A wide berth was given Cape Nome. But all knew when the stormy point was rounded shortly after midnight.

Ned was early astir the next morning, but he was not ahead of Captain McKay and Major Honeywell. The latter, in closely buttoned overcoat and gloves, was on the wind-swept bridge with the Captain. Following the direction of Captain McKay's binoculars Ned saw, to the north and east, what seemed to be an endless line of white. The Aleutian was advancing at slow speed.

Major Honeywell explained: "There is so much ice in sight at this end of the channel that Captain McKay is beginning to think we may be too early. The straits may be navigable, but when we've passed the Diomede Islands and entered real arctic waters, we'll find neither harbor nor refuge."

"An' it's nae doot," interrupted the Scotchman, "reckonin' by yon drift, that it'll be safe to bide a few days in safe waters down this way."

Ned knew that their advance was unprecedentedly early. It was but May 14 and conservative navigators rarely passed north of the Diomedes before July.

Captain McKay's suggestion was, since the shore pack along the northwest coast of Alaska did not appear to have yet broken up, that, instead of going ahead to the Diomedes, where the only anchorage was an open roadstead, the Aleutian should make for St. Lawrence Bay on the Siberian coast.

"An' there, safe and snug, we can hide 'till the pack moves. Then we'll move wi' it."

By six o'clock that evening the rocky headland guarding St. Lawrence Bay was on the horizon and, as the sun went down, between ten and eleven o'clock, the Aleutian came to anchor once more, far up in the inlet, in a field of "pancake ice."

The snow and ice-crowned headlands guarding the entrance to St. Lawrence Bay gave the boys their first picture of "Iceland." All day the sky had been overcast and the wind high and, although the temperature rose at one time to 22° Fahrenheit, at eight in the evening the sky suddenly cleared and the thermometer fell sharply.

It grew colder in the night and Alan, arising in search of more blankets, awakened Ned to tell him that the steamer was in motion again. It was one o'clock. Outside it was too dark to make out either shore line or the ice, but a steady crunching at the Aleutian's bows told the story.

"Captain McKay's afraid of getting fast," suggested Ned. "It's pretty cold, and I guess the slush ice is freezing. Getting near the real thing, eh?" he added, punching the pajama-clad and shivering Alan in the ribs. For answer Alan sprang into his berth, his teeth chattering. Ned was soon asleep.

When he awoke again and took a peek out of the cabin window it was full daylight. The shores of St. Lawrence Bay had disappeared. The sky was again overcast; the wind was blowing half a gale out of the northwest and it was wintry cold. Hustling out of his berth to learn the situation, Ned was astounded to find, in Alan's bunk, a big object resembling a black bear. A moment's examination set him off in a roar of laughter.

Alan, cold and unable to find additional bedclothes, had put into service the sleeping bag that the boys had bought from Komootoo at Unalaska. Like a sealed parcel, or like a cocoon housed for the winter, the boy was enfolded in the heavy, hot bag.

"Hey, there!" roared Ned, shouting with laughter. "Do you want to die of pneumonia?"

With a jerk he loosened the front of the arctic bed bag. Alan, wet with perspiration, his face and pajamas almost black with seal oil soot, drew up his knees and caught at the open flaps. The sight was certainly amusing. While Ned continued to laugh Alan drew back the opening, winked one sleepy eye at his companion and whispered:

"Now you turn out of that and get yourself dry. And no more such business until we have to come to it."

"Then you'd better use it in the wood shed," suggested Ned. "And, while you were buried in that thing, the Aleutian has put to sea again."

When the boys had aroused Bob and all had hastily dressed, they reached the deck in the cold, gray morning to find the steamer just moving, but far east of the ice-lined shore.

In the night the thermometer had suddenly dropped to twelve above zero. At the same time the wind had increased to half a gale and the bay ice, sweeping against the anchored steamer, had begun to set in a pack. The drop in the thermometer was unexpected, but pan ice had begun to form and, should the unusual conditions prevail for several days, the Aleutian might find herself beset in the solid ice even before entering the real Arctic. The vessel had been put to sea again.

"We'll take the lee o' the Diomedes," said Captain McKay. "Ye lads'll need your ear mitts, but we'll be havin' sea room at least."

That night, by the rugged outline of Big Diomede looming up before them directly in the north, all knew that the Aleutian was at last in the narrow center of Bering Sea with Asia and America almost in sight, and an ice sky closing down on the water way to the Arctic Ocean ahead. Ice floes were running and the gale had not moderated. For that reason, some two miles off the coast the Aleutian lay to.

In the wide channel on the starboard there was much ice, and far to the east the last light of day showed what seemed to be a solid field of it. The gale made the "general cabin" uncomfortably cool, and the evening was passed by all in the dining saloon aft, where the hot steam pipes were most welcome.

"Old 'Frozen Face' seems to be working all right," suggested Bob in an interval of the general talk, referring to the totem. "But you know there is a ceremony that has to be performed."

"If you are using him to protect your kayak or canoe or boat," Bob explained, laughing, "he'll guide your craft where you want it to go if you do your part."

To the surprise of all and without the faintest suggestion of a smile, Ned answered, slowly:

If the totem of the "Frozen North" had any influence on the daily increasing field of ice on the Alaska side of the strait or on the floes that continued to drift southward through the big channel, it was not apparent. And, as for guiding the boat in any direction, even Ned had to confess that the charm was not working. Several days went by while the Aleutian swung at her moorings and waited. Big Diomede Island has sometimes been called the "market-place of the polar tribes." It is situated on the narrowest part of the Straits, where less than fifty miles separates the old from the new world, and the settlement in it, a mixture of Eskimos, Tchouktchis of Asia, and Aleuts, has probably been a center for savage traffic for hundreds of years. This strange place the boys visited almost daily.

On May 21, six days after the Aleutian reached the island and just one month from the day it left San Francisco, the northwest gale came to a sudden end. Captain McKay's face brightened, and that morning he was a member of the daily launch party. The captain and Alan landed to mount the island cliffs and make the usual examination of the ice in the northern straits. Ned and Bob remained in the boat.

Scarcely had Captain McKay and Alan disappeared among the native huts when Bob called Ned's attention to a floe of ice that had just come in sight around the western headland of the island. It approached, in size, a small, low berg and on it both boys could make out several black specks. While they were yet speculating on the nature of the black objects, two natives hastily launched a couple of kayaks and began paddling toward the berg.

Ned thrust his hand beneath his heavy coat and drew out an automatic revolver. Bob smiled, and without another word Ned cranked the engine and Bob headed the launch seaward. Although the open water was by no means smooth, and the launch sent plenty of icy spray over its occupants, the little boat soon passed the swiftly paddling natives and in ten minutes was well to the leeward of the berg. While Bob held the launch close to prevent damage by pounding against the ragged floe, Ned crawled along its margin and then scaled its summit. Almost immediately there were two quick shots, a medley of snorts and floppings, and splash after splash as the alarmed seals threw themselves down the ice slope into the water.

By the time the natives had reached the floe berg the two boys had a dead seal at the water's edge. Making signs that the natives might have the carcass, they fastened it to a harpoon line and it and the two kayaks and their occupants were soon towed back to the island. The natives drew the seal on the ice and began dressing it.

As the great slabs of blubber were thrown on the snow, Bob was surprised to see Ned suddenly spring forward and, by gesticulations, petition for a cake of the rapidly hardening fat. And, to Bob's further surprise, Ned proceeded at once to the launch and carefully stowed the tallow-like blubber out of sight beneath a seat.

When Captain McKay and Alan returned it was announced that there was still nothing but ice ahead, but that a south or east wind would break up the pack. Reaching the steamer again, as soon as the launch had been hoisted into the davits—where it was kept out of the reach of chance ice floes—Ned disappeared below with his strip of seal fat.

When Ned reappeared in a quarter of an hour he found the entire party forward beneath the bridge. All were apparently listening to Captain McKay's explanation of the probabilities of the ice pack breaking up. As Ned approached, with a cooking pan in his hands, there was a general start of amazed curiosity.

And, while his friends followed him in curious wonder, he carried the pan of hot rendered fat to the totem of the "Frozen North" in the bow. Then, resting the dish a moment on the rail, he reached forward and, with one hand, emptied the warm liquid on the sacred seal. The totem was deluged. Dashing the pan to the deck, Ned, in mock seriousness, and restraining his smiles as well as he could, bowed before the effigy and exclaimed:

"I wish I may, I wish I might;
I hope our ship sails on to-night.
Oh, Totem, shape our course while we
Sail northwards through the Arctic Sea."

CHAPTER XXII
CROSSING THE LINE

WHEN a southeast wind sprang up the next afternoon and the temperature rose rapidly under a bright sun that emerged from the wintry sky at about two o'clock, Captain McKay announced that this meant a breakup of the pack. Ned was jubilant.

"You can't expect 'Old Totem' to do everything at once. I tell you the charm is on. He's worth all he cost."

By late afternoon of the succeeding day the shore pack had advanced far out into the open water and, when the crew of the steamer turned in that night, the sea seemed covered with drifting floes. At an early hour the next morning Captain McKay called for launch volunteers, and the three boys carried him to the island, where the entire party hastened to the top of the high land.

For some miles to the north the Straits were clear. But, in the distance a wall of white formed a horizon.

"But it's nae movin' wi' the speed o' the Aleutian. We'll gi' it another twenty-four hours an' then we'll make steam again. Wi' luck Colonel Oje'll be shootin' musk-ox on the McKenzie afore a week's by."

The next day was May 24. The voyage in miles yet to be covered was: Diomedes to round Cape Lisburne, 183; Cape Lisburne to the latitude of Icy Cape, 206; Icy Cape to the farthest north, Point Barrow, 206; thence to the harbor south of Herschel Island at the mouth of the McKenzie, 773, or 1367 miles altogether. As Point Barrow lay in 71° 20' of north latitude, or but a little over one thousand miles from the Pole, this voyage even with Captain McKay's "luck," was by no means a simple one.

A good deal of that day was given up to arranging winter quarters. Heavy clothing was issued to the crew and several loose ports were tightened. The carpenter also made a storm entrance on the starboard side of the dining saloon and, late in the day, at Captain McKay's suggestion, Colonel Oje and Major Honeywell gave up their airy, commodious staterooms on the forward deck and moved into the vacant rooms opposite the boys. Captain McKay and Mr. Wales retained their rooms forward.

The steam pipes kept both cabins and rooms comfortable, but Captain McKay had an additional protection against extreme low temperature. The steam winch lifted from the hold a base-burner coal stove which was set up in the center of the dining saloon with a flue extending several feet above the roof. This apartment was now the heart of the steamer. The dining table was crowded aft and, about the stove in the center, easy chairs were ranged for all. On each side of the saloon doors led into the staterooms of the three boys, Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje. The windows opening onto the deck outside were heavy and tight and there was every prospect that, however low the temperature might fall, or however keenly the arctic gales might blow, there would always be warmth and cheer within.

When the boys had their first look outside the next morning they found the deck and rigging of the Aleutian covered with several inches of soft, wet snow. There was a gentle roll to the steamer and when Ned and Alan reached the deck they found the Diomede Islands no longer in sight. The Aleutian had got under way at half-past two in the morning and was steaming into the Arctic Ocean at the rate of ten miles an hour. There was ice here and there on the horizon, and a few floes off to the north. Otherwise the water was open and the course free.

East Cape, on the Siberian shore, with its jagged and almost mountainous heights, was yet visible in the far west, but to the east the lower shores of Alaska were already out of sight. The realization that they were at last on the Arctic Ocean held the boys almost spellbound for a time, but, breakfast over, they fell to with the crew and began to clear the decks of the slushy snow. Bob rather sought to evade this with the excuse that he had to develop pictures, whereupon the other boys attacked him with snow balls. In the midst of the fight Captain McKay passed along the deck.

"Seems to liven you lads up a bit," he remarked, smiling. "An' no wonder; 'tis a wonderful world up here." The boys stopped for breath and Bob escaped.

"It certainly is," panted Ned, taking a quick look at the deep blue of the sea and the points of crystal white showing here and there. "The air makes you feel like doing things. I've dreamed for years of some day getting here. And here we are," he almost shouted, grabbing Alan by the shoulders—"two Chicago school-boys in the Arctic at last."

Captain McKay lifted his shaggy brows and looked at his watch. Then, pausing, he exclaimed:

"Hardly. You're nae quite in the Arctic yet. The Arctic Circle is fifty-two miles fra the Diomedes. We'll be steamin' nae more than ten miles the hour. 'Tis now half past seven. The Arctic Circle, by dead reckonin', should be about two miles beyond. Look sharp an' ye may see it in aboot ten minutes."

Snowballing and clearing the deck were forgotten. The two boys rushed forward as if better to note the exact conditions under which they would pass the line beyond which history records so much of mystery and tragedy. Suddenly Alan stopped his companion.

"We're crossing the line," he explained, still out of breath. "Some one is always initiated by old Father Neptune when the equatorial line is crossed. Let's initiate Bob."

`It was a conspiracy that had to be hatched in a few moments, but the boys were equal to it. The wheel-house front rose directly from the bridge and its roof was about twelve feet above the floor of the bridge. Hastily securing a bucket and a length of rope, with the consent of the wheelman, Alan ascended to the roof of the pilot-house. Then, shoveling up the wet clinging snow from the bridge, Ned dumped it in the bucket and Alan drew it to the roof above, piling it carefully in a ridge along the front. Bucketful after bucketful flew upward until the bridge floor was swept clean. When Ned announced this Alan suggested that there was more on the deck below, but Ned was exhausted and the time was up.

"It's really past the time," he panted, "and maybe we're across the line now. But—" and his eyes sparkled—"two miles'll take twelve minutes, not ten. We're just coming to it. Now for the victim."

He threw the rope up to Alan and while Ned hastened down to the photograph supply room to find Bob, Alan buried the rope in the snow along the rear edge of the pile and then dropped the two loose ends down along the front of the wheel-house. All that was now needed was a quick sharp pull on the two ends and the avalanche above would be set loose.

"Say, Bob," Ned began, "don't you know we're going to cross the Arctic Circle right away? Are you asleep? We're going to blow the whistle and do things. Come on! Up on the bridge. We're going to blow the whistle and salute the line. Hurry!"

He dashed out of the cabin with Bob at his heels. And with Bob came two older boys equally excited, Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje.

"Here," said Alan as Bob reached the bridge. "You're the oldest. You blow the whistle. Zenzencoff says it's all right. It's time. Let 'er go!" And Alan indicated the whistle cord which the bearded and smiling Russian had stretched through the window.

Bob sprang forward and was about to take the cord when he hesitated. Right or wrong, the reporter always thought like lightning. "You're the oldest" rushed through his brain and the alert Bob scented trouble. He had no time to figure it out, but things didn't look right to him.

"Here," exclaimed Bob, instantly, addressing Major Honeywell. "We're crossing the Arctic Circle and Zenzencoff says we must salute it. You ought to do it!" And he pointed to the great siren whistle cord yet in the wheelman's hand.

"Certainly," replied the Major with his most affable smile. "I'm proud of the honor. The Arctic Circle, eh?"

As he and Colonel Oje stepped forward, Bob, with a smile of half victory, led the military man with a Sir Walter Raleigh bow up to the window. From the corner of his eye he saw the look of chagrin on Alan's face. But his victory was short-lived.

Ned shot one look at Alan and got a signal in reply. Despite the consequences, the devilment in their boy natures rose up and won. Simultaneously clutching the two guide ropes Ned and Alan swung their weight upon them and the banked-up snow slid forward from the roof. At the same moment two conscience stricken boys rolled down the port and starboard ladders of the bridge and never stopped until they were behind the locked door of their stateroom.

Zenzencoff, somewhat forgetful and too slow in his excitement over the presence of the two proprietor guests, got the first impact of the miniature avalanche on his shaggy head. As the wheelman's head and shoulders parted the watery bank of the snow, half of it slid over on Bob's bowed back and the other portion distributed itself over the two older men.

Bob sank to his knees and then, his feet slipping as he attempted to rise, he floundered down on his stomach in the slush. His elders gasped and sputtered, reaching for the bits of snow that were working beneath their collars.

"Why!" exclaimed Major Honeywell, dancing up and down to loosen the clinging snow from his coat, "what was it?"

Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje looked hastily about and not without some indignation.

Bob shook his head. "Tell me!" he exclaimed, wiping his neck and face with his sopped handkerchief. "But I'll find 'em and when I report you'll hear something."

Colonel Oje, with a smile, stepped forward and put his hand on the agitated and angry reporter's shoulders.

"What happened?" he asked, half laughing, and with some reason, as he had got the least of the snow slip.

Before Bob could further relieve himself the half guilty Zenzencoff leaned forward from the window and said:

"It was Father Neptune's initiation, sir; crossing the line, sir. But, begging your pardon, sir, I think as how 't was meant in the main for the young man, sir."

Colonel Oje laughed outright, and eventually the Major was forced to join him. But, with Bob, the humor of it did not seem so keen. He was still shaking his head most threateningly when Major Honeywell said:

"The joke seems on us, but you can turn your part of it, Mr. Russell. Now, that we are really initiated I think we are all the better entitled to salute the line."

He pointed to the siren cord, yet hanging from the wheel-house window. Forced at last to relent a little, Bob took the hint and three such blasts as he sounded on the Aleutian's hoarse and long silent whistle were never heard before in that part of the world.

Silently going to his cabin Bob made a change of clothes and then, still indignant, he retired to the photograph room and the work he had on hand. Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje needed only trifling repairs, most of which were accomplished by smoking an extra cigar near the glowing base-burner. In a quarter of an hour Ned and Alan emerged from retirement and, together, walked demurely up to the Major and the ranchman. Without a smile, Ned said:

Colonel Oje smoked his cigar very soberly. But there was a little twinkle in the Major's eyes as he replied:

"The court reserves judgment pending further information from the prosecuting attorney, Mr. Russell."

At noon Captain McKay and Mr. Wales succeeded in making an observation which, when worked out, showed the Aleutian to be in longitude 168° 30' and 10" west and in latitude 67° and 10" north.

When the noon meal was served, Bob appeared with no signs of his early morning discomfiture. With great dignity he addressed Ned and Alan. When the soup had been served and consumed he turned to Ned and exclaimed, very graciously:

"Rich and nutritious. I enjoyed it immensely. Bob, you're really better in the kitchen than you are in the snow."

And that was the best that Bob could get out of the episode. Later in the day the hatchet was buried, Ned magnanimously surrendering to Bob a third of his long preserved secret store of chocolates.

When the sun set that night it was nearly eleven o'clock and for a long time the additional heat of the saloon stove had been most welcome. Holding to a course north northeast the Aleutian was then well abreast of Point Hope. But there was now more ice in sight. Although steaming at but ten miles an hour, after sundown this rate was reduced to five miles. In the night the sea rose and the southeast wind strengthened. Under reduced headway the Aleutian did not give the best account of herself, and it was a far from comfortable night aboard.

At nine o'clock the next morning in a freezing fog, which Captain McKay explained was due to the proximity of ice, the dreaded Cape Lisburne had been cleared and a new course was laid north-east of north. As the morning advanced the fog fell thicker and the wind finally settled into a half gale. The deck was covered with sleet, which pounded like shot against the saloon roof, beneath which the members of the expedition passed a long but not uncomfortable morning.

Yoshina's luncheon was served punctually at one o'clock. When Captain McKay did not appear Alan volunteered to summon him. Before he could leave the saloon all present were startled by the sharp clang of the engine bell far below. Almost instantly the jar and whirr of the Aleutian's propeller came to a stop. Something had happened.

CHAPTER XXIII
A FIGHT WITH A WALRUS

OUT of the fog there had suddenly risen a seemingly endless barrier of ice. To advance directly was impossible. As far as could be seen the open water now lay only north northwest. This threw the steamer well off her course but, since it was necessary, the helm was put over and the long and fruitless search for an opening in the pack began at half past one o'clock, May 25.

The steamer had only passed beyond the pack to the westward. In an hour or so the monotonous white margin was again in sight. Yet, as it fell away rapidly, east of northeast, it was hoped that the open water would continue beyond Point Barrow.

At seven in the evening the pack again turned abruptly northwest. The possibility of a quick voyage to the McKenzie vanished.

"'T is a bit early," explained the sanguine Captain McKay, "but we'll soon get into the current. This is naught but the shore pack. We'll be gettin' by it 'ere long, nae fear."

Captain McKay had the course traced on the chart. "It'll be two hundred and sixty-five miles fra St. Michael to the Diomedes. Since then we've laid on two main tacks, a hundred miles and eighty miles—that's four hundred and forty-five miles."

The next day, instead of improving, the conditions became worse. At noon the only advance was almost due west. But at about nine o'clock in the evening there was a general call for rejoicing; the pack had ended—or the Aleutian had reached its western limit. Bounding the low wall of ice, open water spread out to the horizon on the west and north. From an observation made at noon Captain McKay calculated that the end of the pack had been turned in 169° west longitude and 71° 20' north latitude.

They had made a northing of but three hundred and thirty-five miles in something less than five days.

"Anyway," chuckled Ned to the other boys, "it's three hundred and thirty-five miles nearer something, and the cold isn't as bad as I thought it would be."

But it was getting cold enough to make constant precautions advisable. As the dark hours of the night of the 28th came on and the steamer turned her bow once more directly north, the first aurora flashed in the polar sky. And between watching and speculating on the wonders of that marvelous phenomenon, and rubbing their noses and ears, the youthful members of the expedition nearly missed their night's sleep.

In the morning it was some satisfaction to note that the trend of the massed ice was again slightly east. In the twenty-four hours following the turning of the western point of the pack, the Aleutian covered two hundred and twenty-five miles, increasing its speed to ten miles for twenty hours straight.

Because of the high latitude, the now constantly increasing floes of free ice and the possibility of passing the hoped-for lead or break in the pack, the Aleutian lay to for two hours that night. The thermometer at one o'clock dropped below zero for the first time. In the morning it was even colder by a few degrees.

The steamer was then in motion, but very slowly. The first object to attract the boys' attention was an early morning achievement—the elevation of the crow's nest on the foremast. And into it Zenzencoff had climbed and was intently examining the sea and sky east and north.

"Why didn't we rig that up back in the straits instead of loafing ashore every day?" asked the always inquisitive Bob.

"I had nae thought to reach these waters," answered the skipper. "'T will be a record winter I'm thinkin'—pack ice two hundred and fifty miles fra' land."

"We're getting along all right, aren't we?" inquired Alan, his cap well down over his ears and his overcoat over his sweater and Mackinac coat. Ned, without his overcoat, was slapping his hands on his chest and hopping from foot to foot.

"We're gettin' a bit north," was the answer. "By dead reckonin' we're above the 75th parallel."

Ned stopped his dancing and made a quick calculation. "Seventy-five from ninety is fifteen; fifteen times sixty-nine, ten hundred and thirty-five. Alan," he whispered in his chum's ear, "only one thousand miles from here to the Pole!"

But Ned was too cold to remain longer on the bridge. Alan, partly in the lee of the wheel-house, awaited Zenzencoff's report, while Ned and Bob hurried into the dining saloon for breakfast. The voyage was becoming exciting. The Aleutian had already reached a high latitude, but not, as yet, within ten degrees of points reached many times by vessels in Smith's Sound between Greenland and Ellsmere Land and by the Spitsbergen whalers and sealers. However, it was a matter for wonder that a modern passenger steamer with practically no special equipment— and certainly no protection against the ice—should steam comfortably into that region. And certainly the comfortably heated dining saloon and the ample, hot breakfast attested to both comfort and even luxury.

Alan and Captain McKay came in together. At the first sight of Alan, Ned sprang up.

"Alan," he shouted, "you've got a frost bite. Hurry outside and get some snow or ice on it. Your nose is bitten."

Alan threw his hands up in apprehension and then made for the door. Captain McKay stopped him.

"I'll go wi' ye, lad, but it's nae snow. 'Tis an old woman idea. Snow'll take out the frost an' it'll take off the skin wi' it."

And, drawing off his gloves, the old whaler attacked Alan's white nose tip with his hands. In a few moments he had the circulation restored. Alan complained forcibly of the smart, but Captain McKay told him he would escape a blister which was sure to follow the rough application of snow. This was one of the first of the boys' Arctic lessons and one they soon had occasion to remember.

The eastward trend of the pack had veered suddenly to the north. The situation had at last become serious. Zenzencoff had been unable to see anything but ice to the east. In the west and north the floes were thickening. In short, the Aleutian was in the Arctic Ocean a month or more too soon.

Captain McKay announced that but two things could be done; they could drop back into a lower latitude, or go higher in search of the eastern open lead that he was certain would appear before long. And, on inquiry from Major Honeywell, he confessed a belief that there was more certainty of delay in going back than there was risk in going ahead.

"It'll take us frae the pack in time," he argued, meaning the northern route, "but sailin' back'll bring us right where the shore pack holds longest."

Zenzencoff had discovered plenty of water directly north and, in spite of the fact that floes and even bergs were running free, it was finally agreed to advance in that direction until actual danger threatened.

"Well, we're sure in it at last. Up in the cro' nest at noon and it was certainly a sight. I didn't know there was so much ice in the world. East of us it's all like a land of loaf sugar. And in all other directions there are so many big chunks and floating islands and icebergs that there isn't much room left for the steamer. But we went along all right and at ten miles an hour, too. Captain Mac didn't get an observation today—too cloudy. About two o'clock it began to blow pretty stiff from the so'west. Later the ice drift began to close in toward the pack and we headed out. It was two degrees below zero this morning, but it felt a good deal colder when the wind began to blow. Got a touch of frost on my right ear in the cro' nest. When Alan went up he wore his Unalaska hood—good idea. Lots of fog over the eastern pack and walrus and seals galore. Major H. told Ned he'd better grease up 'Old Totem' and wish for a lead to the east through the pack. They say we're getting too intimate with the loose ice. But it doesn't seem any trouble to steer clear of the floes. The night isn't worth speaking about, but while it's dark we are going to lay to. Smashed through some floes to-day just to see the seals jump."

"Made about 120 miles north yesterday and lay to at eleven P. M. Less wind this morning but a heavy sea. Aleutian got under quarter speed at one o'clock to keep clear of the pack. Went ahead at slow speed and before breakfast all hands called on deck to see our first real iceberg. Great sight. Didn't seem so much until we steamed around to windward and came close up. Higher than the Aleutian's masts; Captain McKay says 120 feet. That means 250 feet of it under water. And bigger than a town block. After consulting Capt. McKay, Col. Oje decided to land on the berg to have a try at a herd of walrus. Alan and I went with him. Got a fine bull with enormous tusks of which the Colonel is pretty proud. Nearly capsized the boat but got back all safe."

The incident, dismissed so easily by the reporter, was in reality an exciting adventure. When certain black objects on the fog-covered and jagged berg were discovered to be walrus, Colonel Oje's sporting blood was aroused. A bull walrus with perfect tusks is a rare shooting trophy. Few sportsmen are ever in a position to achieve such a prize, and, although the temperature was again below zero and the sea had a heavy swell, the ranchman asked to be landed on the berg. All three boys volunteered, but Bob and Alan were chosen, as Ned had already had his shot at a seal.

One of the lifeboats was lowered and, while the steamer laid by, the sportsman and his assistants, clad in heavy folding caps, sweaters and Mackinac coats, gloves, leggins and felt boots, made their way toward a low part of the berg.

It was not easy to make a landing, as the boat could not be drawn up on the ice. Colonel Oje, pretty stiff from the cold, finally scaled a four-foot shelf and then pulled Alan up after him. Alan carried Colonel Oje's second ride. Bob remained behind, standing by with the big, awkward boat to reembark the hunters. The point of landing was a knob of ice, a little rise that extended backward and then broke sharply above a depression in the berg. This depression, a half-moon sort of a valley, lay between the ridges and the ragged, cliff-like heights of the higher berg beyond. The north end of the valley-like opening slanted down into the sea where, had the boat advanced around the point of the ridge, a landing could have easily been made by beaching the boat.

Alan at once turned back to tell Bob to row around to the point where the boat might be drawn up on the ice. Colonel Oje clambered forward along the jagged ridge. As the ranchman reached the far edge, Alan, returning, saw him sink down. He suspected that game had been sighted. Making his way cautiously to Colonel Oje's side he was rewarded with the sight of about a dozen gigantic, black masses, lying quietly just beyond the end of the ridge.

Colonel Oje put his hand on Alan's arm and pointed to the highest point in the ice valley. There, with head erect, his long tusks gleaming white against his oily black body and his eyes directed squarely toward the two hunters, was a monster bull walrus, a tusker of enormous size and a sentinel of the herd.

"We're on his wind," explained Colonel Oje. "We can't get nearer. It's four hundred yards, but we'll have to try it."

Taking careful sight, the ranchman's rifle rang out. As the echoes came rolling back from the battlemented berg sides beyond them, Colonel Oje and Alan saw the great bull toss his head, flop angrily forward and then, with a hoarse bellow, spring upright again. He had been struck, but he stood his ground. As his signal sounded through the valley his companions threw themselves erect, barked in savage answer, and, then like animated ten pins, began rolling and flopping with resounding smacks down the incline to the open water.

But Colonel Oje was on his feet and scrambling down the rough slope in front. Slipping and bumping, he made his way toward the still erect, barking bull with Alan close on his heels. The rest of the herd were well on their way to the water. By the time Colonel Oje had reached the foot of the ridge Alan was ahead of him and ready to rush forward. Suddenly he was stopped by a shout from his companion.

At the same moment Colonel Oje raised his rifle for a second shot. Before the explosion came the big walrus sank to the ground with an ear-piercing squeal, threw himself forward on his awkward flippers and was off after his companions. Colonel Oje's shot went wild and the prize of the herd was escaping.

Alan threw up his own weapon for a chance shot, but, as his eye followed along the barrel, he dropped the piece with a gasp of terror.

In the sea in line with his shot and directly opposite the shelving landing, was Bob standing erect in the open boat, a raised oar in his hands and the advance members of the escaping walrus foaming and splashing in the water about him. Without speaking, and with their rifles grasped ready Colonel Oje and Alan sprang forward The screaming leader of the animals flew before them. A splash of blood here and there on the snowy ice told that the unwieldly giant had been severely wounded. But another shot was impossible. The walrus was directly between its pursuers and the imperiled Bob.

Almost sick with apprehension, Alan glanced ahead. In a tumult of foam-covered water the young reporter was laying about him right and left. But apparently the flying herd were not attacking the boat. Being intent upon escape they plunged into the sea alongside the frail craft which, so far had escaped injury.

"Let 'em all come," shouted Bob, as if pleased at the novel combat, while he whacked an almost submerged animal lustily between its beady eyes.

But at that instant the angered bull, the last to leave the berg, rolled into the sea. With a scream, as if of defiance, and with its great, tusked head wholly out of the icy water, it banged the eddying foam with its wide flippers and then, its tail tossing the spray in the air like a sounding whale, it lunged downward out of sight.

"Look out for him!" cried Colonel Oje in quick answer. "He hasn't gone yet. Lookout!"

As he spoke he threw his rifle into position and rushed to the very edge of the water. Almost before Colonel Oje's words reached the valiant Bob the oily head, the fierce whiskers and the curved tusks shot up from the water at the boat's bow. Bob sprang forward, his oar again in the air.

The keen tusks of the bull flashed in the air and at the same moment Colonel Oje's rifle exploded once more. In the churn of the water and the wave of spray that flew upward it was seen that the bullet had found its mark and that the bull's lunge at the boat had been stopped. In the suck of the waters the wounded walrus again sank from sight.

But Bob had seen the swell rushing sternwards and he dropped the oar. As the bull made a water-crushing turn just beneath the surface and its creased, ugly neck once more flashed into view, the reporter's automatic revolver began spitting bullets. With another desperate effort the bull lifted his seemingly endless tusks in the air and then crashed downward. "Spit!" went the automatic for the fourth time and, dazed and wounded near to death the walrus lifted only his ponderous head to meet the boat. The craft careened and Bob slipped between the seats. But the battle was over.

Bob, however, was not out of commission. Stiff as he had become with the cold, the excitement had limbered him up. Without rising, he drew himself to the edge of the boat. The dying bull had turned partly in the water. Bob did not know whether a dead walrus would sink or float. He did know that Colonel Oje had in it a wonderful trophy; and at the risk of his safety, he leaned forward and grabbed the long boat hook.

Bob did neither. With all the strength he had he sank the hook into the almost submerged animal. The walrus gave a last convulsion, throwing Bob almost off his balance and into the water, but the hook held.

The bull was dead. As it turned on its side and its four-foot ivory tusks shone on the water at the boat's side, Bob loosened the hook and, with the long painter of the boat, made a loop about one of the tusks. Sculling the boat backwards he was soon alongside the berg and Colonel Oje and Alan were taken aboard.

When Bob in later years wrote an account of this he referred to the giant bull walrus "killed by Colonel Oje." In Colonel Oje's ranch home in Colorado the mounted head of the same walrus has a plate on it reading, "Shot by Robert Russell."

CHAPTER XXIV
BESET IN THE ICE

IT was twelve o'clock meridian of June 2—the day following the capture of the walrus. Captain McKay and Mr. Wales had just made a double observation and retired to the captain's cabin to work it out. The weather was clear and cold, five degrees below zero. The wind, which had been driving floes and bergs from the northwest for several days, had fallen to a breeze. So far as the eye could see, in all directions, the surface of the sea was covered with ice. To the east it was the solid pack, the seemingly endless, frozen field along which the Aleutian had steamed for nearly seven days. In the west, the swell of the Arctic was dotted with floes and bergs, all drifting east and massing and grinding against the, as yet, unbroken jam of the great pack.

Five heavily coated, well capped and gloved persons walked back and forth on the steamer bridge. Two of them showed anxiety on their faces. The others, Ned, Alan and Bob, were curiously eager. In a few moments Captain McKay emerged from his room.

"Do you think we should go ahead, Captain?" said Major Honeywell, taking another look over the surrounding pack and floes. The captain shrugged his shoulders.

"I'll nae change me mind," he answered slowly, "'though this is beyond all expectation. 'Tis many a mile yet to the big ice and there'll be open water between the land and the polar cap somewhere. Yet, I'll nae be the mon to urge ye beyond reason. I ha' nae fear o' me own, but—"

"Wasn't it agreed to keep going as far as the 80th parallel?" broke in Alan anxiously. "That's only eighty-five miles further!"

Colonel Oje was shaking his head. Then he and Major Honeywell stepped to the starboard end of the bridge, and after another long examination of the eye-blinding blue-white before them they announced the decision.

"We'd rather find a way east through this than make a return to Cape Lisburne, where the conditions are probably just as bad. But we feel that it will be unwise to try to navigate the steamer above the 80th degree. If there are no signs of open ice to the east by to-night we have decided to put about and, if necessary, return to the Diomedes. Then, in July, we'll try the short route along the coast. Go ahead eighty-five miles, captain."

The afternoon was one mixed with despair and joy. The three boys, fortified against the cold, were surprised at the ease with which they endured the low temperature. There was an ice fog over the eastern horizon-bounding pack, and vapor hanging about the moving floes, but about the Aleutian the atmosphere seemed clear and dry. It was one of the few days of sunshine that had befallen on the voyage and the sub-polar world was a picture of crystalline sparkle. But with it came no lead nor any sign of one pointing out an escape to the east. The Aleutian made her way slowly ahead, weaving in and out among the great, slowly moving islands of ice. But, in the wall of the eastern jam no break came.

But, while a rather melancholy dinner was in progress, the strain of watching and waiting was broken. There was a scuffle of feet and the sailor on the forward deck watch burst into the dining saloon, cap in hand.

"Beg pardon, sir," he exclaimed, "the lookout reports clear water on the nor'east, sir, about four mile ahead, sir."

Captain McKay gave a sigh of relief. The dinner was interrupted and the entire party, hastily clothing themselves, rushed to the bridge. Dead ahead, out of the vapor of the ice, rose a jumbled plateau of massed floe and berg. Beyond, and as far as the eye could make out to the west, a new pack of mountainous ice covered the sea. Just south of this the great shore pack came at last to an end. East of the monster new pack and north of the old pack shone open sea, blue and almost barren of either floe or berg.

"Like enough an uncharted bit o' land," Captain McKay explained, "an island; likely a reef. The big pack has parted in the lee o' the point. An' in the current the free ice makin' toward the lead had piled up on the shoal."

"Do you make out an opening between the big jam an' the pack?" asked Captain McKay.

"What if there isn't one?" exclaimed Alan. "What if the jam closes the mouth of the lead?"

"Make one with dynamite," suggested Bob. Before Captain McKay could reply Ned yelled:

"Yes. I think it's open. There's water, but it looks as if there was drift ice in it."

On Major Honeywell's orders the boys returned to the abandoned meal. Under the joyous discovery they were almost too excited to eat.

A half hour later the Aleutian approached the towering, ragged jam that seemed anchored in the open sea. About two miles southeast of this the solid pack had suddenly ended in a jumbled field of low floes. To the northeast and perhaps a mile distant across the loose floes the open lead shone blue and clear in the gathering twilight.

At the edge of the floe field Captain McKay climbed into the cro' nest while the steamer came to a dead stop. Then he returned and made his way into the wheel-house. As he did so he remarked:

It was a little worse than that, but without damage and with but small delay, when the sun disappeared that night, the Aleutian was not only in clear water, but headed directly east. The opening of the lead had been found, as was estimated by dead reckoning, a few minutes short of the 80th parallel of latitude and in about 162 degrees of west longitude.

As the Aleutian held her course to the east the next morning, there was nothing but open water in the north, specked here and there with small floes and loose ice. Later, bergs began to appear in the northeast, and in the afternoon the members of the expedition were alarmed to detect, in the north, the unmistakable signs of pack ice. Before dark came on their worst fears were realized—the open water was narrowing.

"But the twa packs'll nae come together," argued Captain McKay, and the advance was maintained. At last, having reached what was only an open lead between packs to the north and south the Aleutian was forced to a stop for the night, although her speed all day had been but little over five miles an hour. She had made one hundred and twenty miles easting but, by reason of the high latitude, this represented 10° and 54', making the location that night at eleven o'clock 85° north latitude and 151° and 4' west longitude.

Captain McKay did not leave the bridge in the hour or so of twilight that was now the only night. Without alarming those on the steamer, he got into his heaviest clothes and kept watch. Zenzencoff was off duty, but he did not leave his superior's side. A northeast breeze had sprung up and the shadowy bergs on the north side of the open water could be seen drifting across the lead. At one o'clock the Aleutian was put under slow speed again. The moving bergs and floes were piling up along the southern pack and the skipper had decided to change his berth.

With the full dawn came a new alarm. Captain McKay and Zenzencoff consulted and alternately made their way into the cro' nest. There was but one conclusion. The northern pack was afloat; it was drifting slowly south and the lead was closing. The Aleutian was between the monster jams of the polar packs. It was useless to think of retreat. The only escape was the possibility of an unseen open sea ahead. If this did not exist or could not be reached, the Aleutian's fate was inevitable. If she was not crushed between the packs and sunk she would at least be beset in the great drift.

Without hesitation the signal for full speed ahead was given and the big steamer swung east with her bow pointed directly into the narrowing floe-covered lead. The sudden quiver of the vessel aroused the sleeping members of the expedition. One after another the three boys sprang out, dressed and hurried on deck. Captain McKay was no longer the smiling host of the dinner table. He was the captain of a steamer in sore peril.

"What's the matter, captain?" asked Ned, pausing on the bridge ladder. But there was no answer. The three boys clambered onto the bridge and without further inquiry grouped themselves at the end farthest from the hard-faced, intent skipper. But they could see, and in time they began to understand.

"It's coming this way," whispered Bob, in an awe-struck voice, pointing to the northern pack, "and we're racing to beat it."

Captain McKay, apparently oblivious to the boys, sprang into the rigging and mounted to the cross-trees. There his glasses swept the channel ahead, but mainly he kept them on the moving pack. The Aleutian rushed ahead at full eighteen miles an hour, the cold icy waters boiling at her bow and plunging the floating bits of loose ice back on her waves like flecks of foam.

"Huh!" granted Ned. "What if we are beset? Only means waiting a few weeks. All this stuff'll break up in July at the latest."

Flushed and excited Ned stood by for farther orders but none came. The other boys stood looking on in silent envy. Ten minutes went by in silence. Then there was a sudden creaking of the icy shrouds and Captain McKay stepped to the bridge. "Steady," he exclaimed to the man at the wheel and he disappeared below. When he returned he had with him Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje. He was in earnest talk, and as he pointed to the east the curious boys made another alarming discovery. A white line of ice crossed the open channel.

As this discovery startled them they followed Captain McKay's extended arm again. This time their eyes were led to the moving pack. Far ahead, and yet already perceptible from the deck, there was a thin, blue opening in the shifting northern field. Alan and Bob climbed into the rigging, but Ned did not move from the signal box. Instantly the clambering boys were aware of the situation. The terrific strain of the drifting ice had ruptured the north pack. A half mile ahead a new lead had opened toward the north. Where this connected with the open water in which the Aleutian was steaming east the opening was thin, like the point of a wedge. But, to the north, the wedge-like sides widened and a blue field of open water met the eyes.

By the time Yoshina had announced breakfast the Aleutian had made a daring escape from the closing lead and was safely within the newly opened channel. And Captain McKay left the bridge long enough to have a hot meal. The boys felt like rejoicing, but something in the reserved air of their elders restrained them. Major Honeywell finally explained.

"We're free from the ice, but our only course is north again. And even Captain McKay says we're far enough north now. We're glad to go ahead, but it would be better if we were going east. And better still if we were on our way south."

"Say, Ned," said Bob, when the boys had gone on deck again, "do yon suppose 'Old Totem' has anything to do with this?"

Ned did not answer. Bob went on: "You know, they say he'll take your boat where you want to go. Did you conjure him to take us up here? Honest now?"

"Well," answered Ned at last, "I may as well tell the truth. I put a secret wish on him to take us further north than any vessel had over sailed."

Ned did not realize his wish, for Nansen's Fram had drifted to the 87th degree of north latitude. After twenty-four hours of alternating hope and fear, of desperate chances and the exercise of all the skill in his possession, Captain McKay finally left the bridge for a few hours' rest with the Aleutian firmly beset in the ice in 83°, 40' and 15" of north latitude and almost directly in the line of 150° west longitude.

The Aleutian had hardly entered the northern lead when the wind switched to the west. At noon the north pack began to move east. Every one knew that the entrance into this open water was already closed and that it was worse than useless to think of going back. As the north lead narrowed and great islands of ice separated and floated out across the Aleutian's course the steamer headed further and further east. The old whaler never left his post nor did he now consult the Aleutian's owners. Stealing forward with alternating bursts of full, half and quarter speed he fought his way to the last foot of navigable water.

Even in the few hours of twilight the screw of the vessel never wholly ceased. But at nine o'clock on the morning of June 4 the end came. There was still open water to be seen ahead, but, making a rush for it, the bow of the Aleutian wedged itself, finally, into unyielding floes and, with a shiver, came to a sudden stop. Before she could back out a mass of floes had swept around her stern. Full speed ahead was tried, but the risk was too great. In fear of piercing his vessel's sides or losing his propeller Captain McKay threw the lever to "stop" and the fight was over.

"But," he explained doggedly, "ye'll see I'm right. There's open water beyond. An' we'll make it yet."

CHAPTER XXV
A POLAR PICNIC

THAT the Aleutian should be nipped in the ice and, within a few fours, firmly beset was not strange. But, as Bob Russell expressed it: "It seems ridiculous that a great, powerful steamer should be caught in this way. It's what you would expect of a whaler, but it's a joke for a sixteen knot steamer to give up so easily.

But that is just what the Aleutian was forced to do. With plenty of coal, powerful engines and a skilled skipper, she was as helpless as a Bedford oil ship. Eleven days later, June 16, Captain McKay had to acknowledge himself defeated. On that day the Scotch captain announced that he saw no prospect of immediate release.

The day that the floes closed in on the Aleutian Captain McKay's first work was to attack the ice gathering about the propeller. By desperate exertion Mr. Wales and a party of sailors cleared this away. The lead about the stern of the Aleutian did not close for three days. While any part of it was open the floes and the new ice constantly forming were removed from time to time. Explosives were used in this work occasionally, but, on the fourth day, a new movement of the pack closed the lead completely. There being no place to dispose of the broken up ice the effort to keep the propeller clear came to a fruitless end.

In these four days the wind held out of the west. For a time the two packs did not wholly close together. Captain McKay explained that it was because they were both drifting. The immediate cause of the nipping of the Aleutian was the splitting of large floes from the lee side of the west pack. These, being lighter, were swept into the open lead and finally against the windward side of the east pack. The rupture of ice from the west floe seemed to cease on the fourth day, when, as far as the eye could follow the lead north or south, there was seen a jumble of jagged, newly frozen floes, nearly two miles wide.

There was some consolation in the discovery that the united packs were drifting. For some time the rate of this could not be determined. On the day the steamer was beset it began snowing at about four o'clock in the afternoon. For three days the sky was obscured and there was neither sun nor moon. This made an observation impossible. While the snow continued intermittently the temperature did not drop lower than six degrees below zero. But with clearing weather on the ninth, and the final blocking of the floe-crusted lead under a sharper wind, the mercury began going down. Two days later it was sixteen below zero.

The members of the expedition were comfortable within the cabin, but they had now grown so restless that there seemed to be countless reasons for getting outside on the deck and pack. Here, the snow-covered vessel, the long icicles made by the steam exhaust and the ice-covered drifts in all open spaces, created an arctic picture that satisfied even the ambitious Russell, who was constantly photographing.

Hunting expeditions were not popular. Colonel Oje was a true sportsman, and he refused to shoot for the mere pleasure of killing. He was eager to secure another walrus head as a trophy, but these animals were not common. As for seals, having no use for the blubber or meat, he absolutely refused to shoot them. Night had now wholly disappeared and in the brightest and warmest hours of the day he made a few journeys on the pack with a shot gun for birds.

There were many petrels, gulls and looms, but the two real ornithological prizes were discovered by Ned, Alan and Bob. Despite the protests of their elders, but with their final consent, the three boys planned an ice excursion. Bob insisted that it was for no other purpose than to try out Ned's sledge. Anyway, the sledge was used and found successful. In spite of a temperature of fifteen degrees below zero at nine o'clock in the morning of June 13, Ned led the way east over the snow-crusted pack on a "polar picnic." Each boy wore his snowshoes, Unalaska skin clothing with seal boots, mittens and hood, and among them they carried a rifle, shot gun and camera.

On the sledge was a plain round tent, a spirit stove, alcohol, ice ax, food, candles, a compass and two sleeping bags. There was no sun this day, and the amateur ice navigators had scarcely left the Aleutian before a fine snow began to drive upon their backs. Instead of discouraging the boys it actually elated them.

"Now," exclaimed Ned, settling himself into the sledge harness and throwing out his chest, "we've got the real thing at last." And starting ahead at a half run the three youngsters gave vent to a chestful of long pent up hurrahs. In a half hour they were forced to rest.

"Do you know what's the matter with me?" exclaimed Alan, panting and pushing back his frost-laden hood. "I'm too hot."

And it was true. Each boy was perspiring. When the march was resumed Ned struck out for the roughest ice he could find. Finally, mounting this, with some strain but no mishap to the elastic, sectional sledge, the enthusiastic expedition disappeared down the far slope and the Aleutian was out of sight.

"Hurrah," shouted Bob, swooping his arm toward the horizon, "what is the difference between this and going for the Pole?"

Despite the cold, the lowering sky, the drifting snow and the sharp wind that made the boys huddle together, they unlimbered the tent and hung it over the sledge as a protection Then the spirit stove was unpacked and a depression scooped out in the snow Therein the stove was deposited and in a few minutes a pailful of snow was melting over the hot blue flame. After a time, the boys meanwhile squatting close to the little blaze, the melted snow began to steam. Alan, after much trouble and much beating of his benumbed fingers, found the tea.

"Now," exclaimed Bob, his teeth chattering, "for a hot cup of tea and another dash."

Alan lifted the pot off the fire—each shivering boy feeling tempted to take its place—and set it in the snow. Before it seemed possible for the cold to have affected it, the tea was lukewarm. But the boys drank it down in long gulps. Bob was the last.

"If that's what keeps 'em going toward the Pole," he grunted, "no Pole for mine. I want it hot and in a cup."

Advancing by alternate spurts and slow stages the boys found a surprising number of things to interest them. At a seal hole they watched in vain nearly two hours, and continually they longed for the sight of a polar bear. But no animal met their sight. They had planned to camp and sleep on the pack. Advancing slowly up a rise the sledge party at last reached a break in the elevation beyond which the ice dropped in a little bluff about ten feet high.

"And warm up," added Bob, dropping his sledge line and slapping his chest. "Say," he added, his teeth chattering, "don't you think we've got enough of this? We could get back in about six hours."

Resuming their march the little party sought a way down the bluff. An incline was finally discovered and the sledge was lowered. At the bottom, to the surprise of all, a piece of driftwood was found half buried in the exposed ice wall, and beside it a bird's nest. The boys were too tired and cold to inspect the nest at the time, but the next morning before beginning their return journey they removed it and a second one was found at the foot of the ice wall about a hundred yards east.

The first nest had in it five eggs. The nest itself was lined with the wool and hair of the polar bear. Major Honeywell, later, when the boys had returned to the steamer, readily identified the eggs and nest as those of the Snow Bunting. The other ornithological discovery was the nest of the Elder Duck. This was wholly of down and resembled a ball of cotton.

The decision to go into camp was not made too soon. Bob was so exhausted that he could give little assistance in the work of unloading the sledge. Alan's fingers were white from the cold, and he afterwards confessed, he was a little dazed. Ned took charge. He forced Alan and Bob to tramp down the snow. While this was being done he, with the ice ax, cut a depression in the ice for the single pole of their shelter, a miner's tent without a wall. Piling snow about the pole until it stood erect he slipped the tent over the pole and then drawing the edges taut banked them with snow.

As a further precaution against the wind the sledge sections were disconnected and the four parts were distributed about the round tent. Later, all the boys covered the sledge sections, turned upside down, with snow and then, thus weighted, they were made fast to the tent as anchors.

Inside, the tent was cold and dark, but free from the spit of snow and the wind. Ned produced a "Buzzacott" center pole candle holder and attached it to the tent pole, and the four big paraffin candles soon gave ample light. One of the sleeping bags was spread out, and, on Ned's orders, both Alan and Bob crawled into it. As the two exhausted and half frozen, boys snuggled up to each other, Ned threw the flap over them with a sigh of relief. He was cold himself, but it warmed him to know that the other boys would soon be comfortable.

Without trouble the stove was set up. Then Ned looked at the thermometer. The candles had already raised the temperature almost to zero. The blue flame of the stove sent out a cheerful warmth. The mercury rose so rapidly that he knew they would at least be comfortable.

As the warmth of his body began to reassert itself, Ned began to prepare a meal. After melting sufficient snow he heated a can of thick pea soup, and then, while it stood between the two burners, he piled as many biscuits on the can as it would hold, to warm them.

On one of the burners he then melted snow for chocolate and on the other he soon had a pan of thick bacon sizzling. Suddenly he realized that he was warm. Throwing back his hood he found his face in a perspiration. With a chuckle he opened the sleeping bag. Alan and Bob were sound asleep, curled up close together.

The surprise on the faces of the two boys was only equaled by their chagrin. But they tried to make up for their weakness by special industry when it came to anchoring the tent for the night. As for the meal Ned had prepared—it was voted better than the best one ever served on the Aleutian; hot pea soup, warm biscuits, thick bacon, tingling hot and fragrant chocolate. It was so good that when it had all disappeared Alan remarked:

And, in spite of Ned's half protest, Alan prepared a second meal, differing from the first only in the substitution of baked beans for the soup. And, as each item was ready, it was eaten to the last scrap.

"I understand now," said Bob, "why polar expeditions are so difficult—they can't carry food enough."

When the tents had been tied to the ice-covered sleds the boys hurried inside again and, to give the sleeping bags a real test, the stove and candles were extinguished and all crawled into their sleeping bags—Ned using the single bag. And for eight hours neither cold, ice nor wind bothered. When Ned awoke he popped his arms out of his bag only long enough to light the stove. A half hour later he was up, had donned his skin coat and was busy over a coffee and salt pork breakfast.

Camp Russell was struck and abandoned at seven in the morning. And two o'clock in the afternoon the boys reached the Aleutian again, a little stiff and sore, but happy and well repaid in experience for their effort.

CHAPTER XXVI
THE BALLOON TO THE RESCUE

UP to the day the boys returned from the "polar picnic" the pack drift had been a few points north of east and at the rate of about four miles a day. The next observation startled the captain. The following three days confirmed his apprehension. The pack was no longer moving; it was stationary.

"It'll be meanin' but one thing," explained Captain McKay. "There's nae land here to stop us. We've lodged against the 'big ice'—we're frozen to the polar ice cap. An' we'll nae leave that 'til the July break-up o' the pack. Be sure o' that."

At this time, June 16, the temperature began to moderate. The mercury rose on June 20 to zero, and the following day Colonel Oje and the boys made a somewhat extensive expedition to the east. In fact, after an hour's walk he fell in with Ned's suggestion and, while Ned and the ranchman worked their way ahead, Alan and Bob returned to the steamer for the sledge and supplies and that night the party camped at the Bluff of the Birds' Nests.

Colonel Oje was after a polar bear, and at last he was rewarded. The odor of the camp must have attracted the animal, for in the morning the first peek outside the tent revealed a big, yellowish white, long-necked bear on the near-by elevation. At sight of the man and boys the bear, instead of retreating, sprang down the slope. As the animal tumbled into a heap at the bottom Bob got his first snap shot.

At the sound of the click the bear got on its feet and came slowly but boldly forward. With his rifle ready the hunter allowed the animal to approach within five yards when Bob again got another picture. Then further advance was stopped by a shot. A bullet in the head turned the bear and another in the neck killed it. Colonel Oje at once measured and skinned the bear. It was fat, and part of a seal was found in its stomach. Along the belly the animal measured seven feet eleven and a quarter inches, and on the back eight feet two inches. The hair was in good condition and the color was fair.

As they returned to the Aleutian the temperature rose to 18 above zero. On June 27 the freezing point was indicated and preparations were made for possible release. For several days the ice crust had been softening and the boom of far distant ruptures were often in the air. On June 29 the log showed "fair northwest breeze, highest temperature 36 at noon."

"I don't mind the 'freeze-up' or our stay here," remarked Alan—out in sweater and cap again, "but I would like to get away from this mess. The whole place looks like a railroad section house back yard."

He referred to the debris around the beset steamer. The snow and ice for hundreds of yards were black with cinders from the Aleutian's boilers. Immediately about her were cans, kitchen refuse, sweepings and odds and ends of all descriptions. As the snow melted and brought more and more of this to view the boys finally decided to clean up. After some effort enough refuse was collected to make a bonfire.

"It's June 29," he said. "Wait for the Fourth of July. I reckon we'll be here then."

But they lost their bonfire. On the last day of June—the days were now generally bright—Captain McKay announced with great satisfaction that the pack was in motion again.

"We've moved three miles since yesterday's observation," he exclaimed. "An' 't will be nae lang 'til the break-up is on us."

He was right. The distant booming—like explosions—came daily more frequently and constantly nearer. On June 30 Zenzencoff discovered a "water sky" to the north. That evening, with a roar like a bursting boiler, the floe-covered lead in which the Aleutian was beset suddenly opened. With it the steamer settled slightly, careening a few degrees to the starboard.

Within a few minutes the entire expedition was congregated on the deck. Led by Mr. Wales three or four men at once attacked the thick clinging ice around the propeller. It was a hard and delicate piece of work. When the propeller frame and the big rudder post above water had been cleared and boats could lay along the stern in the open water, specially prepared long handled chisels were brought into use.

With these and sledges the ice was cut away bit by bit. On its port side the Aleutian was nearly free of the ice. On its starboard side, the long steel side still held to the solid pack. Having listed slightly in that direction the steamer was bearing heavily on the ice. After four hours' work in an effort to free the propeller and rudder, all hands were called off for the noonday meal.

While this was in progress there was a new and more pronounced crash on the port side. Bob, who had taken advantage of the cessation of work to take his perpetual photographs, tumbled into the cabin out of breath.

The Aleutian had keeled over several more degrees to starboard and her spars and bulkheads were rattling and groaning. The partly opened lead had started the west pack forward again. The softening of the floe ice had made it possible for the west pack to move and it had crashed forward crowding and jamming the loose floes before it. These in turn piling up under the Aleutian's partly exposed port side had raised the steamer further out of the water.

Rushing sternward Captain McKay gave one look below and even smiled. The top of the rudder and a part of the propeller were exposed. Mr. Wales and his men began work at once with new vigor. Beneath their chisels and crowbars the icy coats gradually diminished until once more the workers reached the water line.

At three o'clock in the afternoon—although their task was far from complete—it came to a sudden and nearly fatal end. Without warning and with the groan of an avalanche the Aleutian suddenly settled back into the open lead. In addition to the crunching and splintering of floes on the port side a geyser-like volume of water spouted up at the stern. The blow of the falling steamer fell on Mr. Wales's longboat and, crushed to fragments, it left five of the crew floundering among the jagged ice chips covering the open wake. The men were easily rescued, one only, Dorcas, an assistant engineer, sustaining a broken arm.

Hastening into the cro' nest, as soon as his men had been cared for, Captain McKay, after a long survey with the glasses, gave it as his opinion that the packs might wholly part at any time. So confident was he of this that fires were lighted under the other boilers and everything was made ready for an attack on the ice. The Fourth of July came fair and clear overhead, but with enough drop in the temperature to put a skin of new ice over the open part of the floe-crowded load and to freeze anew the snow slush.

The national colors were brought out preparatory to raising them at the stern. They went up, and the event had a double significance. As Ned, Alan and Bob discharged a fusillade of revolver shots the voice of the grizzled Zenzencoff rang out above the popping explosions:

It was true. Silently—with neither crash nor jam—the two packs had suddenly opened about a mile ahead and escape was in sight. It was half-past eight in the morning, July 4.

An hour later Captain McKay, his face tense, hung anxiously over the stern rail. With a motion of his hand the word was passed by the boys to Mr. Wales on the bridge and the signal lever was turned to quarter speed. The propeller began to move— slowly—as Captain McKay signaled. There was an instant's pause, a slight shock, a grinding, crushing noise and then the churn of the water told that the ice-encased wheel was free. With a sigh of relief Captain McKay hurried forward.

The Aleutian groaned and scraped, tearing herself from her long ice bed, and then fell into headway. It was a critical moment and all felt the strain. Preparing to maneuver into the freer water Zenzencoff put the wheel to port. The bow of the slowly moving steamer, piling the loose ice and floes in great slipping masses beneath its stern, swung in response. As it did so the ice jam on the port side ground its way toward the stern.

Captain McKay rushed aft again and instantly gave the order to "stop her." He was too late. The stern of the Aleutian swung around and before the steamer could respond to her helm she had bumped against the unyielding pack. There was a crash, and the slowly moving propeller stopped instantly.

"What's the trouble?" asked Ned anxiously. "Like enough all the work has gone for naught," answered the skipper soberly. "'Tis like we ha' lost our wheel."

The propeller was safe, but the great shaft of the Aleutian had snapped clean and beyond repair. All of Engineer Jackson's resources could not put that essential bit of their machinery in service again. The Aleutian, with escape at last in sight, was as helplessly adrift as she had been helplessly beset.

There was no need for prolonged discussion. Despair and doubt had no home on the Aleutian. Every member of the expedition had realized, all through the month's besetment in the ice, that, when the crisis was reached, the Aleutian had within it one means of calling for help. Therefore, when Ned, with eyes ablaze, came forward with the suggestion, there was no surprise.

"In twenty hours," he announced positively, "the balloon and car can be made ready and inflated. The conditions are perfect. The wind is light and from the west. Alan and I can reach the McKenzie River in twenty-four hours. The collier waiting there will then come immediately north on a search for the disabled Aleutian."

Major Honeywell, after serious thought, answered for the directors of the voyage.

"When Mr. Napier and Mr. Alan suggested the construction of the White North, we had no definite plans for its use. The time to use it has come. I issue orders for the inflation of the White North and instruct Mr. Napier and Mr. Hope to do all in their power to get word of our peril to Mr. Osborne's supply steamer."

The joy in the hearts of Ned and Alan could not be expressed in words. They went from the impromptu conference, not hurriedly, but with the step of those who, assured of themselves, know when their great opportunity has come. The only concession to the boyish capers that had marked the earlier days of the voyage was made by Ned. Alan was too serious for even that.

But Ned, beckoning to Bob and with a twinkle in his eyes, drew the reporter forward to the bow of the Aleutian. "Old Totem," the idol of the "Frozen North," reared his forbidding form above them. Doffing his cap Ned patted "Old Totem's" seamed back. As he did so he handed Bob the long delayed ten dollar gold piece.

"I'm ready to pay," he laughed. "I was waiting to see if the old idol was genuine. He's all right. Here's your money."

At eleven in the morning of that day the first crate of the White North equipment was hauled onto the cleared deck of the Aleutian. While Ned and Alan unpacked and set up the aeroplane, two other gangs were equally busy. Bob, guided by his experience in the inflation of the old Cibola in New Mexico, had charge of the erection of the gas generators, purifier and inflation tube, and Mr. Wales, with a detail of sailors, had the sides of the canvas balloon house laid out ready to be hoisted into place when called for.

In eight hours the aeroplane car, stretching almost from rail to rail, was set up and resting on its novel ice runners. The propellers and the two motors had been installed and tested. Gasoline, instruments, tools and provisions stood near-by ready to be shipped. At that stage, the barometer indicating no immediate change in weather conditions, on the advice of Major Honeywell all stopped for dinner and immediately afterwards retired.

Between four and five o'clock the next morning the young aviators were out of bed. Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje joined them and again insisted upon a substantial meal. The great silk and rubber bag and rigging were then unpacked and the sailors and officers given explicit instructions. The instruments, fuel and provisions were put aboard. Then came the filling of the generators. At seven o'clock all was ready for the introduction of the carboys of sulphuric acid.

Before this was done the numbered cords were snapped into corresponding hooks on the canvas suspension band circling the great oblong sphere of the balloon bag. Then the fragile, silken envelope itself was laid in orderly folds on the cleared deck between the waiting car and the generating casks. Mr. Wales and his crew were already busy with the wide folds of the protecting house and as Ned and Alan dumped the first carboy of acid on the filings the last side of the canvas house was lashed in place.

There was no pause for luncheon that day. Every available hand, including the steamer's officers, Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje, hung over the rapidly inflating bag. At noon Captain McKay withdrew long enough for a final observation. The Aleutian was then in latitude north 83° 51' 12" and in longitude west 169° 38' 25"; or, on an air line, about one thousand and ninety-three miles from McKenzie River Bay. With a favoring breeze Ned believed the White North could make the trip in from twenty-seven hours to two days.

At last the bag was inflated. Thirty pairs of stout hands held the car. Mr. Wales had dropped the leeward canvas wall and Ned and Alan were aboard. Farewells had been said and Major Honeywell's report to Mr. Osborne was in Ned's pocket.

"We are driftin' frae four to five miles a day," explained Captain McKay. "In a week we'll be nae mair nor thirty-five miles east o' here. An' the current's nigh due east. On this parallel a degree o' latitude is but seven and a sixth miles. Look for us about five degrees east. That'll be between 164 and 163 degrees west."

There was another clasp of the hand all around, from stoker to captain, with a farewell pat on the shoulders from Major Honeywell and Colonel Oje, as they stepped aside. Ned looked at his watch—one of Captain McKay's chronometers. The wind had risen to about thirty miles and the temperature was thirty-three above.

Bob still lingered on the little platform before the cabin. As the others withdrew he grasped each of his pals by the hand. There was nothing more to be said. Ned took him by the shoulders and gently pushed him to the deck.

The White North snapped upward like a released spring. Then, as the wind got the giant 85,000 cubic foot bag, it shot over the deck, darted for a moment toward the great ice pack and, instantly recovering, was off like a bird. The long prepared for flight in the arctic sky and over the polar seas had begun—at quarter past four on the afternoon of July 5.

CHAPTER XXVII
OVER THE POLAR ICE CAP

SPINNING along two hundred and fifty feet above the white chaos below, the controllers of the dirigible-aeroplane-sledge instantly dropped the drag to stop its revolutions. Then the wind converted the rudders into the points of a weather vane, and the White North steadied.

"Start up the port motor," ordered Ned, "and cut out the propeller. Get the dynamo working and heat up the resistance coils. We ought to be two thousand feet up. We can't spare ballast."

Alan rushed out of the cabin quick to respond. The little dynamo was soon buzzing.

Ned examined the feed-wire fuse and then put his hand on the switch that threw the current into the coils.

"If there should be a short circuit—one little spark—you know what will happen. Puff—bang!"

"Wait a moment," Alan answered hastily. Crawling on his knees to the other motor he set it going. Then he crossed over and threw on the other idle propeller. As the two motors speeded up and the propellers began to hum the boys could feel the delicate aeroplane framework move forward.

He grasped the aeroplane levers and threw back the one controlling the front or horizontal rudder. Ned understood. The aeroplane, in response to the movement of the horizontal rudder, tilted upward. There was too much extra weight in the car to permit it to lift itself but it was at least under control.

"Now," added Alan finally, "turn on your current. If she explodes I guess we shan't fall very fast."

But the big bag did not explode. In five minutes the boys heard the welcome sound of air escaping from the balloonet valve and at the same moment the White North began rapidly ascending. They were driving east at the rate of thirty miles an hour. The engines were now shut off while the young aviators got their bearings, rearranged their cargo and got ready for a cold night. The heating coils within the cabin had been tested and found working.

When the aneroid barometer indicated a height of two thousand two hundred feet, the recording thermometer showed two degrees Fahrenheit. The compass variation had been given them by Captain McKay before they cut loose. Being now nearly fifteen degrees of latitude north of the American magnetic pole on Boothia Island, the north needle of the White North's compass was pointing south and slightly east.

Ned and Alan had not counted on absolutely steering an almost spherical bag driven before the wind.

"Our theory," Ned had explained to Major Honeywell, "is this: the vertical rudder of an aeroplane is far too small to affect a bag such as ours. For that reason we have so arranged the horizontal rudder that it can be used against the wind like a jib. This will also steady the car and prevent a rotary motion. Sailing with the wind, if we wish to get a quartering flight, the opposite motor and propeller are set in motion. This force would in itself revolve the car. But, with the forward rudder set as a jib, when the propeller sets up the rotary motion the jib comes up in the wind until, between the force of the wind and the pushing of the propeller, the balloon will move off on a tangent."

On the White North the pressing of a button, while the little dynamo was in operation, provided heat enough in any one of the cabin coils to boil water. Starting the port engine, on one of these heaters, which had a surface for limited cooking, the boys hastily prepared some cocoa, warmed a tin of boiled mutton and toasted some ship's biscuit.

This was done hurriedly, and for the moment the balloon was allowed to drift. Making quick work of the meal, Alan tossed his plate aside and reached for his fur coat.

A puzzled look rushed into his face and then he sprang to the bag resistance coil "shut off" lever. It was turned on, and the same current that had heated their meal was expanding the gas in the bag above them. With a groan he threw off the current, but it was too late. The greatly expanded gas had distended the silken bag to almost the point of explosion. The cold air still rushed from the balloonet—this was all that saved the White North from ending its flight right there. And then, so effectively had the coils worked, the balloon bag valves began automatically to discharge the precious gas itself. But this was only momentarily, and with the ceasing of this ominous sound, the cold perspiration broke out on both boys.

While the two boys watched the aneroid they saw the rising balloon reach five thousand three hundred feet and then pause.

"Time to get busy," suggested Alan, with a sigh of relief; and both boys donned their heavy Unalaska coats. Even in the cabin the increasing coldness was keenly apparent, and it was no surprise to find that the mercury had fallen to seven below zero. Ned took the starboard and Alan the port motor, and throwing back the side door flaps they made their way from the cabin to the adjoining sections.

As Ned was about to start his motor he glanced below again. The great gray-white expanse of the pack rolled out suddenly. As he looked his face blanched. Throwing himself on the floor of the car he looked again intently at the vague surface beneath. Then he sprang to his feet, rushed into the car and caught up the binoculars. One glance seemed enough.

Alan's motor had just begun to turn and the port propeller was stirring the air.

"Alan," shouted Ned, throwing back the flap on the port side of the cabin. "Shut her off, quick! We are going north at a terrific rate."

As they flew before the wind this astounding fact had so far escaped them. But one glance at the compass confirmed the sickening discovery.

"I did it," interrupted Ned. "I turned on the current. And we're up where we don't belong. We've caught a cross wind and if it isn't sixty miles an hour I'm no guesser. We can't go back. Our propellers wouldn't last a minute in this gale. If we go down we lose our gas. If we lose enough of it, good bye to the McKenzie and the Aleutian."

"Of course it's ridiculous," Alan continued. "But Spitzbergen isn't much further away than the McKenzie."

"Well," answered Ned, thickly, "we had dreams, but I never went that far. That would take us over the Pole!"

"And in Spitzbergen we'd be sure to pick up a steamer. That would mean Norway and the telegraph—"

"Meanwhile," Ned exclaimed, after a moment, "we're standing here like two ninnies. Spitzbergen?" he repeated. "You're crazy. Besides," and he turned suddenly on Alan as the two crawled into the cabin again, "What's the good of a telegraph wire? There's no telegraph wire to the McKenzie! We've got to get there! We've got to think, and mighty quick."

"I think we sailed east thirty-seven miles," he said. "And I calculate we went up and struck this gale about fifteen minutes ago. If it's blowing sixty miles an hour we're a good fifteen miles off our east course and sailing about as far as we could from the course we should be on."

"If it takes a quarter of an hour, we'll be fifteen miles further north," exclaimed Ned.

"I'd rather try to work back over the thirty miles than give up our gas," urged Alan positively.

"You're right," agreed Ned. "We'll go on another quarter of an hour. If we don't come down then we'll have to let out some gas and find less wind."

In five minutes the anxious boys were rejoiced to see the balloon slowly dropping. In ten minutes the gas had condensed to the point where the balloon had dropped to one thousand five hundred feet. But still the great bag drove on.

"Only this," answered Ned in a frightened tone, "it's blowing down here. The wind has changed. We're in a gale and can't escape."

"In this wind?" exclaimed Ned. "The bag and car would be wrecked. We must not land."

The engine was not working and the dynamo was out of service. With another glance below at the rapidly nearing ice, Ned caught up a bag of ballast and hurled it overboard. The White North, responding, flew upwards once more. The boys, almost in despair, sank on the floor of the cabin in silent dejection. Ned saw Alan shiver and he looked at the thermometer. It was eighteen degrees below zero.

Then Ned crawled out to the port motor, started it, saw that the dynamo belt was in place and running, entered the tight little cabin again, securely fastened the door behind him, turned on all the heating coils (making sure this time that he did not touch the bag feed-wire), snapped on the incandescent light bulb, and then sank to the floor by the despondent Alan.

"Cheer up, pal," he began, "we've been in worse fixes. We'll be warm in a few minutes and then we can think."

"That's the trouble," sighed Alan, attempting to smile. "I'd be more cheerful if it wasn't for thinking, or trying to think. What are you going to do?"

For answer Ned unrolled the sleeping bag, sprang up and looked at the barometer again, and noted that they were steady at about four thousand five hundred feet. Then, stretching himself out with his elbow under his head, he watched for some time in silence the swaying light bulb overhead. Finally, he arose again and for a long time stood at the forward post, peering at the endless arctic ice beneath. The sun was near the horizon and it shone cold and dim. Beneath, the great, discernible wilderness of white had merged into an almost twilight gloom. The binoculars showed little more. The flat haze broke here and there into heights and depressions, vaguely outlined, but it was ice only, endless crags and peaks with hint of neither open lead nor free water.

"I've got my wish and I wish I hadn't. That," and he pointed below into the cold gloom, "is the polar ice cap."

"From where we left the Aleutian," Ned answered instantly, "it was 6° 8' 48". That's 428.8 miles. Oh, I've figured that long ago," he continued, as Alan showed his astonishment. Then he looked at his watch. "We started north at half-past five o'clock. It's now five minutes after six. We're going toward the Pole at the rate of a mile a minute—that's sixty-five miles already. We're now 358.8 miles from the top of the world."

"That's right," exclaimed Ned, surprised himself to find how near they were to the great mystery.

CHAPTER XXVIII
BENEATH THE POLE STAR

"OUR difficulty," concluded Ned, after standing some time at the port where he could watch the barometer and the vapors collecting below, "is going to be to keep going without losing our ballast. There's no air in the balloonet. Every time we heat our coils in the bag we'll lose some gas through the valves. We can't keep that up all night, and we're falling again."

"Then," added Ned, pluckily, "get your furs and your mittens on and start the port engine and blower. I'm going to turn on the heating current. The moment the expanded gas stops our descent we'll start up again. As soon as we are on the turn, start the blower. As you fill the balloonet the rise will be counterbalanced. For a time we'll go ahead, neither rising nor falling. Then, the gas cooling, we'll begin to drop again. At that, release the heavy air from the balloonet and we'll take a new lease of buoyancy. When it's necessary we'll head up again."

In this work, crawling in and out of the cabin, directing the engines, dynamo and blower, and watching the aneroid, another hour went by. At seven o'clock the vapory shadows below formed themselves into low-lying clouds. Now and then the White North swept through a high stratum of these. Then it was discovered that the banks of vapor were snow clouds. Below the airship a storm was sweeping over the ice.

The spectacle was awe-inspiring. The just perceptible sun, almost beneath the horizon, gave a yellowish tinge to the sky above the flying car, outlining, too, the tops of the thickening clouds. But down in the gaps between these a gloom that was almost black as night covered the polar ice cap. The bag and aeroplane, shooting through the freezing air and now and then cutting into the crests of the snow-laden billows, was rapidly coating rigging and framework with a skin of ice.

Both boys agreed that the balloon must get wholly and immediately free of the snow atmosphere. Tools that could be best spared were brought out and laid in the middle of the cabin floor.

"This first," suggested Ned, and the ice spikes and strap, weighing two pounds, were dropped into the mist below.

Having made up their minds to sacrifice some of their equipment they shut off the engines. The loss of the spikes sent the White North upward with great speed. Then, donning their entire Unalaska equipment of furs, with hoods adjusted, and even putting on the boots, the two lads began their long and uncomfortable watch.

Before the motors were stopped the next ballast to be used was laid out and then the arctic clad aviators took station in the almost darkness. Between them lay twenty pounds of dynamite in one pound sticks. It was to be their next ballast used.

"It's a good thing that we are over the uninhabited world," laughed Ned. "If there are any Pole seekers camped down below us I hope this doesn't strike near them."

About eight o'clock the first stick was dropped, the "White North" having again sunk into the clouds.

Then, suddenly, in front and behind, to right and left, a low, hollow explosion reached their ears—a circle of echoes. As if the sound had just made its way through the clouds, the echoes united in a roll that grew and expanded until a thunder-like peal seemed to make the car its center.

"That's what the rainmakers do," explained Ned. "I'll bet it shakes all the snow out of the arctic sky."

"That's good," remarked Ned. "We've got twenty of those sticks. They'll last five hours any way. By that time we'll pass over the Pole. That's some consolation."

"I don't know," muttered Alan. "If we have to keep up here and we don't get beyond these clouds we won't see it."

"That would be something," answered Alan. "The first thing explorers want to know is whether it's ice or an open sea at the Pole. We won't even know that."

"Why won't we? If a stick of this stuff hits the ice we'll certainly hear it. And if we don't hear it—that means water."

"It's a quarter after eight," Ned exclaimed. "That's two hours and forty-five minutes. We've come one hundred and sixty-five miles. If we're going directly toward it we'll be over the Pole— at that rate—at a quarter to one."

Alan laughed. "I can't estimate our rate so closely as that. But I'll swear it's something over fifty miles, for we went that fast in the old Cibola." Ned turned away in disgust. "A difference of ten miles an hour in our speed would make a difference of seventy miles by midnight. So we won't know much about where we are at any time."

"An observation?" growled Ned. "An observation with no sun in sight, no horizon, no stars?"

It was true. As the White North had sped onward over the sea of clouds the half twilight from the sun, now in the horizon far below the billows of snow vapor, had deepened into a gloom almost like that of night. Just outlined was the ghost of a moon almost at its full. Here and there was the faint twinkle of a star.

"Alan!" shouted Ned, excitedly. "There's one way to know when you've reached the Pole—the North Star!"

"Funny, isn't it? Ought to be the biggest thing there. But it isn't even in sight. Seems as if everything was against us."

But it was now so cold that both boys began to show signs of suffering. While there were other means of warming themselves it did not seem advisable to start the motors. Moving the dynamite ballast and sleeping bag near the starboard flap, both boys crawled into the big fur sack.

Five minutes could not have elapsed, although it was a long enough period for both boys to feel a drowsy warmth coming over them. Then the bag opening parted violently and Alan's form shot into a sitting posture.

"Say," he almost yelled, clutching Ned's shoulder. "Do you want to know where to find your North Star?"

In the almost dark cabin Ned, lying on his back, could see Alan's arm extended above his head.

"I'm going out to the end of the car on this side. You go that way and keep it level. The bag is only twenty-seven feet wide and the car's forty-three. We'll see it all right."

"Isn't it a dandy?" were the first words Ned heard after he had carefully made his way to the end of the framework. It was Alan at the other end. When the benumbed lads were in the cabin once more Ned slapped his chum on the back.

"My boy," exclaimed Ned, "you're really rising to the occasion. You haven't saved the balloon, but you've saved the day. If the White North ever sails over the North Pole I'm going to know it and it isn't going to be with anything but my good right eye."

"Why not? I'm going to try it. Got a string?" Alan understood, laughed, and in the shadows felt around for the ditty-bag from which he extracted a ball of white cord. Ned had drawn off his mittens and, after looking through their instruments and stores, selected the automatic revolver. About the middle of this he stoutly knotted the end of a five-foot section of cord.

"There she is," he exclaimed, "as good a plumet as a lead bob. I'm going to cut a hole in the silk top of the last section of the car and tie this line to the upper framework. If we get at all 'warm' I'm going to lie under the plummet line and if the vertical line ever hits Mr. Pole Star you'll know we're there."

"Oh, I know all about that," added Ned quickly. "I posted myself on that long ago. The Pole Star moves around the Pole and isn't exactly over it. But it is only a degree and nineteen minutes away. That's ninety two miles."

"But," inquired the as usual skeptical Alan. "How will you know whether it is on the far side of its orbit or on this side? You may be ninety-two miles from the Pole, but it may be ninety-two miles behind you."

"I'll be satisfied to know that I've been within ninety-two miles of it. Won't you?"

"I'd be better satisfied just now to be nine hundred and twenty miles south of it," answered Alan, looking disconsolately out into the half night.

In time thoughts of the world's axis became secondary. Drifting swiftly forward, as the big bag sank periodically toward the clouds in descent, the boys heard no sound in the half shadows of the arctic night. But, as more ballast was thrown overboard and the car jumped upward again, the ice-encased cordage and framework creaked and strained in terrifying snaps. The cold, twenty-two degrees below zero, was only endurable because of the protecting walls of the cabin.

The balloon was not rising to its former height. And, to the experienced boys, there was a feeling that a crisis was approaching.

"It's the snow and ice," suggested Alan. "It's getting worse all the time—outside and in. How's the compass?"

"Can't make much of it. I don't know the deviation here—if there is any. But it looks as if we were going about two degrees north by east."

"It's twenty minutes of ten," he answered. "Been going north four hours and ten minutes. Maybe," he continued doubtfully, "that's as much as two hundred and fifty miles. And," more doubtfully, "maybe we're about one hundred and seventy-five miles from the Pole."

"Well," exclaimed Alan, desperately, "what's the use? Here we are freezing to death and drifting off to no one knows where. If we're never to get back, and have to see this thing drop somewhere up here where nothing counts, where there isn't any east or west or life or land or water, why not be game? We've got to go on. It isn't going to do us or any one else any good if this creaking machine sails over the North Pole. But since we're here and we've got to go on let's head her that way. At least it'll give us something to think about."

"You mean to try to head the balloon up into the exact north with our propellers?"

"I do," answered Alan, doggedly. "If we hold this course we'll miss the Pole by one hundred and twenty miles. If we can change our course two degrees we'll hit the Pole—"

"Anyway," persisted Alan, "we'll heat up our gas again and ourselves as well. I want some light and a full breath of air. And something warm to eat. We'll feel better."

The adventurous Ned didn't need much persuasion. The starboard motor was the only one needed and, in five minutes more, when the aneroid showed the balloon once more struggling to keep its elevation, Ned crawled out and, after some effort, got the motor and propeller going. The dynamo was also started, and as the cheerful glow of the incandescent flared in the cabin, the despairing boys picked up new spirits. The warming coils in the cabin and bag were also put into service.

For some minutes the propeller seemed to have no particular effect, and then, watching the compass and the just outlined front rudder the boys could see that the course of the White North was slowly altering. As the propeller reached its maximum and its whirr spread into a roar in the dome of the empty heavens, a new complication arose.

Ned, for answer, reached forward, grasped the rear vertical rudder and slowly moved it to port. And as slowly the car responded.

"I don't think we could work five degrees off this wind," explained Ned, "but we don't need but two. Hold her there and, if I don't blow up something with the coils, we'll be all right."

In these operations the descent of the bag had been too long unnoticed. As Ned prepared to note the effect of the current on the gas, he was astounded to see the White North still falling. At the same instant the semi-dark without became an opaque vapor and a new chill permeated the car. On the front part a wave of thick, wet snow plastered itself.

The first available object that could be spared was a six-pound crowbar. As this disappeared the White North seemed to shake itself and then, creaking in every joint, it freed itself from the clouds.

"I doubt if the coils will help us much now," said Ned, seriously. "We must have a ton of snow and ice aboard."

While Alan held the balloon on its course, Ned divided his time between attending to the resistance coil current and watching the barometer. In the meantime the balloon, shooting forward, rose and fell as its gas alternately warmed and cooled. At ten forty o'clock there was no further escape from the gas valve and Ned and Alan knew that the maximum power of their hydrogen had been reached. Thereafter the coil current was allowed to stay "on." They could no longer overheat the gas, and now, as it cooled, they must resort to ballast or fall. For a time, however, the constant current held the balloon fairly steady.

Ned was readjusting his coat, hood and mittens after some figuring with a pencil on the white wall of the cabin.

"My North Star observation," answered Ned, promptly. "The North Star is 92.35 miles from the Pole. That's 331.45 miles from where we started—if the star is south of the Pole at this time. If it is, we'll have gone that far at eleven o'clock. I'm going to have a look. Let her drift a few minutes and get out on the other end to balance me."

Alan shook his head, but Ned was determined. Five minutes later the two boys, gripping the braces, were lying at the extreme ends of the long frame. Ned, on his back, steadied the swaying plumb line and then glanced upward along it. There was but a trace of day in the vapor-shrouded horizon and the polar planet shone plainly enough. Lying in the intense cold the seconds seemed minutes; yet nearly ten minutes passed.

Suddenly, the faint boom of a distant explosion was heard. Then, in a thunderous echo came rolling over the clouds the now familiar sound of exploding dynamite.

"What's that?" cried the surprised and benumbed Alan. "Did you drop another stick?"

"Yep," came the voice of Ned. "I did. I saved it. The pole Star is over us, straight as a string. We're ninety-two miles from the Pole right now, if we never get any nearer."

CHAPTER XXIX
STRANDED ON THE ICE

AT twelve minutes after eleven o'clock the aneroid showed the balloon again falling. A dash of snow suddenly blotted the dim daylight from the front port.

Hearing no response from his companion. Alan stepped to Ned's side. The lad was crouched on the floor, his head on his breast. Either the strain of the night's anxiety or the exposure had been too much. He was unconscious.

Four precious bags of sand had been saved for emergencies. Shoving one of them overboard Alan gave no more thought to the balloon. By the time Ned had groaned and was able to move Alan had a tin of steaming tea ready. As he continued to rub Ned's hands and face he glanced at the barometer. They were down to twelve hundred feet. Throwing overboard another bag of ballast he set about preparing some food. As he was busied at this he was greeted with a feeble exclamation.

Alan sprang up. The snow had ceased, the wind had fallen and the White North was flying beneath the clouds. The red sun, big on the horizon, threw over the silent arctic world the ghostly light of a vapory dawn. The shadowy ice field was rushing beneath them in dim but swiftly clearing outlines.

In spite of his weakness Ned roused himself and took a few mouthfuls of food. Then he looked below. The golden glow in the west faded into a snow gray above and, in the east, turned into a purple wall.

"We're not going toward the Pole now," he replied. "We've been going with the wind for a half hour."

"And you let us drift because I fainted?" almost groaned Ned. "Put her over. Get the balloon headed north. I'll help."

And before Alan could interfere the weakened Ned had crawled out to the starboard engine and thrown on the propeller. In response the balloon, drifting onward like a tired bird, swung to the north. It was almost midnight, but the empty void of the polar world was aglow as if with phosphorescent fires. Into this tomb of the universe the balloon was slowly dropping. The cold was intense.

A third bag of ballast was dropped. The balloon thrust itself into the clouds for the last time. Even up there the force of the wind had greatly decreased. For a quarter of an hour this higher flight was held by dropping the last of the ballast. Then, the balloon began settling once more.

As the White North dropped into the sepulchral light again it suddenly assumed a new movement.

"And it's turning us because there is not enough wind to steady the forward rudder," added Ned excitedly.

"No," said Ned, his voice trembling. "Start up the other engine. With both propellers we can go ahead."

Ned was already out on the starboard frame. Before he returned the second engine was going. Then he grasped the lever controlling the forward rudder and threw it up.

The thrust of the two propellers, making fifteen hundred revolutions a minute, was instantly noticeable. The air being forced to the rear, the suspended frame began soaring. At the same moment an eddy of wind crossed the bow of the car and it darted downward. Throwing the lever Ned reversed the rudder and the swaying frame leaped upward in recovery. As it did so the bellying bag, swept downward by the same erratic gust, struck the sharp corner of the rudder. There was a sickening rip, a hiss of escaping gas and at twenty-five minutes after midnight the fight was over.

"We've got to land while the bag floats," cried Ned. "If we don't, it'll fall on us. It'll crush the car."

Driving onward in the dying gale with the snow-crusted ice stretching out beneath them, there was but one thing to do. Pulling the balloon rip cord the two boys threw themselves on the aeroplane levers and the unwieldy craft darted downward. A minute later there was a crash as the swaying car touched the ice and rebounded One of the runners, striking a hummock, had been smashed.

The almost empty bag fell forward and hit the ice. Then it too rebounded. But the sledge did not leave the ice. Drawn behind the deflated parachute-like bag, which, settling again, rolled slowly forward, the sledge runners cut into the crackling snow. On a slight declivity the car overtook the tangled bag, ran forward on the dragging, silken folds and the long flight and hazardous landing were at an end.

In the depressing desolation of the mid-polar world, Ned and Alan sprang from the damaged car. Only a light wind now swept over the glaring ice and snow, but the thermometer stood at thirty-three degrees below zero.

The two boys had been under a constant strain for eighteen hours, in which time they had eaten no more than a hasty lunch.

"If it doesn't blow too hard we'll be all right," said Ned, "with our felt lined cabin, plenty of heat and food."

Defying the biting cold long enough to draw the empty bag into a mass on the forward sledge platform the almost exhausted balloonists reentered their cabin and prepared for rest.

"I wonder how far we are from the Pole?" he said. "But, we'll eat and sleep first."

"Certainly. This damage to our sledge is nothing. We'll have breakfast, some sleep and at noon I'll take an observation. Then we'll start back by way of the North Pole."

Alan sighed in turn. At one o'clock, stripped to their Mackinac coats, the two boys, cross legged on the floor, attacked this breakfast:

Ice water (melted snow, cooled), fried salt pork, ship's biscuits softened in hot water and fried in pork fat, syrup, tinned baked beans smoking hot, plain ship's biscuit, tea and sugar.

Before they had finished the air-tight compartment had become suffocatingly warm.

At seven o'clock Ned awoke, dazed and almost suffocated. For a moment he could not open the bag. Then the frozen vapor of their breath, which had cemented the flaps, gave way, and he had a real taste of the Arctic. But the stove was near by and in a quarter of an hour they were able to crawl out into the cabin.

The boys were hungry as wolves and breakfast number two was prepared. It was a wonderful stimulant and reviver of courage. Then came a busy morning. It was too cold to work on the broken sledge runner for the thermometer now stood at thirty-five below. But Ned had an expedient ready. Bundling themselves in their furs the boys, with some effort, spread the empty bag out on the snow. The nuts holding the warming coils were loosened from the top of the bag and the coils and wire drawn out through the inflation tube. Then the rubber-lined silk cloth was thrown over the top of the aeroplane frame.

A wind-proof tent was the result. Hanging the warming coils on the protected car frame and the cabin light bulb outside the boys turned on the starboard motor and by the time they had prepared wire, screws and cords and laid out their few tools the improvised tent was warm enough to work in. A vibration spring had snapped and two uprights were shattered. The spring was abandoned, and new uprights were made from a strut taken from the sledge platform.

"Eighty-nine degrees, forty-seven minutes and twenty-eight seconds," exclaimed Ned, five minutes later, as he dropped his nautical almanac. But his pencil flew over the paper again. "That's fourteen and thirty-three hundredths miles from the pole. Yip!" he shouted, springing to his feet.

"But the longitude? Which direction is the Pole?" asked Alan. "Are we east or west of it?"

"There's no longitude here," laughed Ned. "All we have to do is to go north. We could walk it in five hours."

"The wind is too light to work it as a sledge. And we've got too much on it to try flying—yet."

"I have another idea," urged Ned. "We've got the balloon bag on board and all our equipment—fuel, food and stove. Let's push?"

Alan's idea—and on this they had debated all morning—was to camp where they were until a fair or favoring wind rose, then to discard the heavy bag, the blower, balloon rigging, and half their provisions, and start over the ice to the south, sledging as far as they could with sails to save gasoline and then trusting themselves to the mercy of the air in the aeroplane, stripped down to actual necessities.

But he came to Ned's suggestion at last. Another hearty meal, and at two o'clock, with everything lashed and shipshape, they set the planes of the car vertically. As Alan raised the last one Ned, on the snow behind, put his shoulder to the frame. The sledge was anchored in the snow and gave way slowly, with many creaks, and with many grunts from Ned. But suddenly it slipped forward over the ice.

It ran so easily that the boys, racing behind, more than once sprang on the half-flying vehicle to coast for rest and breath.

"I tell you," panted Ned, the front of his hood covered with frozen vapor, "it's a cinch. If we had those engines going we could sail it."

The icy air was cutting into both boys' lungs. Alan thought of the protected cabin and consented. The result was so successful that the boys were ashamed that they had not tried it before. With almost the first turn of the propellers the White North spread her wings and, with the front rudder set as a jib, slid forward, rocking like a ship and creaking with the cold, but swerving to port and starboard as the speed of her propellers varied.

The region in which they were traveling differed in no respect from that over which they had flown all night. The absence of crushed or jammed ice was the noticeable characteristic. To the eye the rising and falling polar ice cap seemed almost smooth, but it was hummocky enough to give the sledge many a twist and bump.

But things happen quickly in the Arctic. Five minutes later the yellowish, purple sun haze faded into almost instant gray. The light southwest wind seemed to die and the air was filled with sheets of vertical, falling, soft snow. There was no wind behind, but the propellers of the White North fanned the dry flakes into whirling eddies. Forced by its own power alone the sledge made its way slowly forward.

Then, as if springing from the propeller waves, the gusts of snow widened. In a sudden vortex of swirling air the sledge twisted, creaked and came to a pause. Before the wondering boys had time to think, a snow-laden rush of wind rolled toward them from the Pole. The blast struck, fell away and then came again.

"Our chance has come," shouted Alan, realizing what had happened. "The wind has changed."

Springing into the whirl of the sudden blizzard, the two boys grasped the rear of the sledge and shifted its course. They gave it a push forward, the wind struck the sails fair, and the White North sprang ahead.

CHAPTER XXX
IN THE SHADOW OF THE POLE

WHAT that sudden resolution meant to Ned not even Alan fully realized. To have journeyed within ten miles of the North Pole, the unmarked apex of the world, and then to be forced to turn his back on it was a disappointment keener than the boy would acknowledge. But Ned's dreams never interfered with his sober judgment.

When the swirling blizzard came out of the north and struck the White North Ned's decision was instant.

"We can't possibly drive the sledge against this storm," he conceded at once, "and we can't stand still. If there were protection for the car we might reach the goal on foot. But the elements are too much for us. There is nothing to do but retreat."

At the moment when they had hoped the aeroplane-sledge would be skimming over the magic point where time and distance come to nothing, the disappointed—but still relieved—young adventurers were many miles to the south. The straining sledge, snow-encrusted until its frame outlined itself like the white boned skeleton of an aeroplane, seemed to fly through the billowy air.

In the dense drifts of snow the temperature rose a few degrees but a curtain of white shut out sun, sky and the ice plane. There was now one problem—to reach the edge of the great ice cap and then, as best they could, find their way to civilization and secure help for the Aleutian.

"We're not going as fast as an aeroplane," commented Alan, as the snow-burdened car bounded forward, "but we're doing better than a boat."

"If it's four hundred and twenty miles to open water we ought to make it in forty hours," suggested Ned.

But rough ice did not appear as quickly as it was expected. Hummocks and ridges there were in plenty, as the White North soon discovered, but the yielding depth of old snow and new snow acted as a cushion for the fragile runners. The car flew into the air and fell again with terrifying crashes. It rose in one runner and veered off its course, but the minutes went by and the ever looked-for wreck did not come.

The creaking sledge was not headed directly south, for the new gale was blowing almost southwest.

"If this wind holds," commented Ned, "we'll have a long journey to the McKenzie. We are going almost directly toward Cape Columbia. That means escape over Ellsmere land, if we can't fly."

The motors had, of course, been shut down and the sledge was using its sails only. There was little effort to guide the craft except to keep the jib set and their bow before the wind.

In time the strain on the boys became less. The constant spray of snow, the rocking and creaking of the sledge and the steady drift onward became even monotonous.

At six o'clock, while Ned took charge alone Alan prepared supper. The temperature was constantly rising and it was then not more than twenty degrees below zero. In their arctic hoods and mittens, and protected from the snow-laden blizzard, they were comfortable.

During the night each lad slept six hours. In Ned's trick at the jib, about two o'clock in the morning, his heart was set beating with joy by the veering of the wind to the south. At four o'clock the snow had almost ceased and the wind had fallen. The car advanced slowly through a murky atmosphere. In a half hour the snow mist cleared and the glare of the unsetting sun spread again over the snowy world. When Alan awoke the White North was moving so slowly that Ned went out on the delicate framework to dislodge snow.

"I'd like to know where we are," he said as he entered the cabin again, his face aglow, "but it'll be some time until noon. I think we've averaged ten miles an hour."

Alan made a calculation. They had stalled south at two thirty the afternoon before. It was now six thirty in the morning.

"One hundred and sixty miles," he said. "That means water about two hundred and sixty miles away."

"What's the use of waiting?" exclaimed Alan suddenly and with unusual enthusiasm for him. "The wind has gone down. We can use our propellers on our sails and go right ahead."

"We could do that, all right," he agreed. "But it'll take gasoline. And when we come to the edge of the ice cap and strike the open sea we've got a little matter of a thousand miles to fly."

The sledge was barely moving. After a hot breakfast both boys felt so full of spirits that they fell to pushing the car. Pushing and resting by turns, they at last discovered that one of them alone could keep the sledge moving, and then they alternated, one boy resting on the sledge struts while the other exerted himself until he was out of breath.

It was not much of an advance, but, helped somewhat by the breeze, the castaways figured a gain of six or seven miles by noon. Camping, they ate their first pemmican—ground beef and tallow. Both made desperate efforts to conceal their dislike of the arctic food.

"Stick to it," laughed Ned. "No one will believe we've been within ten miles of the Pole if we can't swear we had to eat pemmican."

"Oh, I'm game," answered Alan, bolting a mouthful of hard tallow, "but it tastes like a candle."

In mid-afternoon the boys, wholly exhausted, abandoned pushing. The wind was too light to move the car alone. Being at a standstill they crawled into the snug cabin, threw themselves on the sleeping bag, covered themselves with the two reindeer skins and fell asleep.

Dead tired, they did not once awaken when the wind came up again. But, a jolt bumping them together, they were soon on their feet, and found the White North making up for lost time. It was five o'clock, and the sledge was bounding along at a greater speed than it had attained the day before. The snow was now a coat of ice, and the steel runners skimmed it without leaving a furrow.

For twenty-two hours the aeroplane-sleigh did not pause. Sometimes faster and then more slowly, it forged ahead before a varying wind. It was impossible to keep any track of the advance in miles but both boys were keenly alert and on the lookout. In the belief that they had advanced nearly four hundred miles, they were looking for a water sky.

"But I don't understand this smooth ice," remarked Ned. "If we figure right, we're less than fifty miles from either land or water. And the last hundred miles of the ice cap ought to be a jumble of bergs and crushed floes. It's too smooth."

It had been snowing, off and on, for two hours. At three o'clock the new fall had become blinding thick again, and then the wind fell once more. After resorting to pushing for a short time the boys finally gave up. While they were at supper a red glare struck through the ports. The snow had ceased. When Alan, his mouth full of tinned steak, arose to look out he almost choked with sudden excitement.

Dead ahead and not over a mile away arose a solid rampart of ice. A southern horizon of jagged bergs and crushed pack ice arose like a cliff.

"Sailing is all off," said Ned at once. "We've reached the rough shore ice. Now we'll fly."

Supper was hastily finished. Alan mildly suggested a night's rest, but this idea was abandoned when Ned drew his attention to the quiet air. Wind they did not want for aeroplaning, and so, nervous and excited, the two boys made immediate preparation for their last expedient.

"We'll make a flight as far as the open sea," said Ned. "Then we'll come down, get our bearings and prepare for the long jump."

For the next hour tired legs and arms were forgotten. The precious balloon bag and its mass of cordage and valves were unloaded. There was no way to cache it and it was simply abandoned on the ice. With it was left the balloonet blower, the dynamo, the tubes, wires and coils attached to both and then the two end sledge runners were unbolted and all the platform struts were removed. The planes were lowered into place and bolted.

It was nearly ten o'clock. Ned selected a gentle declivity about three hundred yards to the west, and the eager boys hauled the stripped sledge—now in all respects an aeroplane—to the top of the slope.

"Nine fifty-five," exclaimed Ned, pointing the wide forward rudder down the little hill. Climbing aboard, each boy took station at a motor; they started the motors together on a signal and then sprang into the little cabin, each to a rudder lever. There was a flurry of snow as the propeller currents started the air, a shiver of the planes, and the car began to slide down the slope.

An instant later, with a shock that nearly upset the two boys, the aeroplane shunted forward, tipped its runners on the ice once more and then darted like a sailing disc toward the ice wall beyond.

"Forty!" shouted Ned, bringing the airship on a level course with a movement of the horizontal rudder lever. "And we'll see salt water in an hour."

But these calculations were wrong. Either Ned's observation, by which they had located their nearest approach to the Pole, was in error, or the rate of wind south was overestimated. Darting over a wilderness of broken ice, dipping and soaring, the perfectly working aeroplane was, at eleven o'clock, sailing over a chaos of floe, berg and pack. Here and there were open drifts or leads, from which water vapor rolled skyward. But nowhere was there sight of the open sea.

Yet there were signs of it. In the south the vapory drifts from the occasional leads mingled in clouds of a water sky. Between twelve and one o'clock the White North was flying about five hundred feet above the ice. A rising wind out of the north made navigation difficult but the gyroscopic motors steadied the car. Clad in their furs, the boys escaped the frost, but the flight in the air had made them anything but comfortable. Thoughts of the little stove and the warm sleeping bag made them anxious to reach the edge of the ice and a possible camp.

As the aeroplane responded and the vapor thinned both boys made the same discovery.

Three or four miles ahead it fell on the eye like a swish of blue paint on the white ice horizon. The search for a landing place followed. As the airship neared the water it was seen that the ice over which it was flying was a long point—a promontory of frozen floes.

A mile from the sea rose a hill of ice with what seemed to be a cliff-like face fronting south. The sharp break in the old and worn berg could be seen from the car and toward this protecting wall the airship was turned. Too late it was seen that the hidden lee of the cliff was far too rough for a landing. The rudder was thrown up but the skis touched, and, to save dragging, both boys sprang off and caught the car on their shoulders. It was desperate work. The still revolving propellers dragged the human anchors forward, but the boys held fast, and when each one had shut off the engine above him, the car drifted to its rugged bed.

CHAPTER XXXI
IN THE LEE OF THE BERG

ALAN was still settling the frame of the aeroplane as well as he could on the ice when Ned's hand closed on his wrist with a tense grip. Then he saw Ned's free arm extended toward the wall of ice behind them. He turned.

"On the brink of a glacier," muttered Ned. "A battered and weather-worn hulk; without masts or bulwarks it lay half entombed in the ice."

"Somewhere in the Arctic Seas off the Liakhof Islands," went on Ned, solemnly, "a flying Dutchman craft is afloat laden with precious ivory and furs—"

Alan started forward, stopped, laughed hysterically, and then returning to where Ned stood caught his chum by the shoulders.

"Watch me," retorted Ned. And, forgetting the aeroplane and almost ignoring his hesitating companion, he plunged forward over the ice toward what he did not doubt in the least to be the old Russian trader, abandoned and adrift in the ice for sixty-five years.

* * * * * *

ABOUT nine o'clock on the morning of July 20 the cro' nest lookout on the Pacific steam whaler Nvota, Captain Lemuel Webster of Sitka, made out and reported heavy floes of ice dead ahead. Captain Webster had already pushed the Nvota far beyond the northern limits of the most daring whalers and had been nipped once because of his hardihood. He was then slightly north of the 82d degree of latitude and about 132 degrees west.

After bearing to the north for an hour, the whaler was just coming about on a new course to the southwest when the lookout, his eye vigilant for indication of whales, cried out: "A steamer to nor'ard."

It was not a steamer. After a long examination with the glass the whaling skipper made out the smoke to be on the ice floe. At three o'clock a whaleboat, in charge of the first mate, pulled alongside the wide-spreading ice drift. On the edge of the floe stood two boys, a little gaunt of face, greasy and smoke begrimed, but strong in limb and gesticulating like Indians. It was Ned and Alan, who for six long hours had kept up a fire fed from the hulk of the lost trader, discharged their revolver and waved the little flag that Ned had so carefully treasured to unfurl at the Pole.

"Mr. Donovan made no reply. He had rescued more than one delirious person. Later, two tired boys, sitting in Captain Webster's plain but warm cabin, told the long story of the White North's flight and the big discovery at its end. Then they bathed and ate and drank.

For thirteen long days the two boys had remained by the "Treasure in the Ice," dreading to make the dangerous flight over sea in the aeroplane and fascinated by the mine of ivory in the moldy hulk.

Despite its gruesome, tomb-like character the boys had made their way into the vessel's hold, had discovered more than one trace of Captain McKay's and Zenzencoff's occupancy of it, and had then set up quarters in the cook's galley, where the ashes in the stove seemed as fresh as if they had been the remains of yesterday's fire. The boys kept warm, they had food and they still had the means of escape in the uninjured aeroplane. On the night of July 13 the ice jam surrounding the berg on which the hulk was held had parted with a tremendous explosion from the edge of the great ice cap.

Then came a new hope—that the island of ice, which drifted rapidly south, might in time cross the possible path of the Aleutian. For seven days more, doubting and hesitating, the boys had delayed their flight and had swept the horizon for some sign of their friends.

"It's the Aleutian," shouted Alan when they made out the smoke of the Nvota.

Captain Webster, keen as are all sailors for prizes of any kind, was soon on the floe with the two boys and Mr. Donovan.

But no sooner were they on the ice than Ned turned and with a set face exclaimed:

"Captain Webster, I believe all men are honest until they prove they are not. Part of this treasure belongs to our friends on the Aleutian, who really discovered it. Part of it is ours by similar right. And part of it must be yours because you have made it possible for us to carry it away. We have agreed that a third of it belongs to the Nvota. If that is agreeable to you and you give us your word to go at once in search of the Aleutian, we will embark with you."

"And if you do not give us your word to do this and to divide fairly we shall remain here and protect our property."

"I'm neither thief nor robber," he said, "and I'm well content with my third. Howsomever, I'll get my salvage from the Aleutian? I can't forfeit that!"

Then the whaler and his first officer were conducted over the ice to the nameless hulk and permitted to go aboard. At sight of the unbelievable cargo, the curiously wrought Eskimo harpoon and spear heads, the fifty or so mammoth tusks, the two thousand narwhal, swords and giant walrus teeth, the two men were speechless. The bales of furs did not interest them.

"Mammoth tusks, ye say," broke out Mr. Donovan at last. "Ye'll never make me belave but what 'twas from Afriky this vessel sailed."

"I'll sign papers to-night, lads. A third o' this cargo will beat a hold full of oil."

By six o'clock the next evening every article of value on the hulk had been inventoried and removed to the oil-soaked hold of the Nvota. Even the decayed furs were carried aboard, with every scrap of crude ship furniture, the galley stove and a few of the sounder planks. And, not least, the White North, carefully dismembered, was shipped and stored on the deck of the whaler.

Captain McKay's calculation that in seven days the Aleutian might drift to about 163° west longitude now had to be altered. That reckoning was made July 5, while the steamer was 83° and 51' north and 169° and 38' west.

"The Aleutian was making east about four and one-half miles a day," Ned computed. "It is now July 21. In sixteen days she may have moved seventy-two miles. On the 83rd parallel Captain McKay says a degree is 7.16 miles. She may then have traveled a fraction less than ten degrees. We've got to make for 83 north latitude and 159 west."

Three days went by without sign of the beset steamer. Every new bit of ice was approached and examined with always the same result. At two o'clock on the morning of July 24, Captain Webster entered First Officer Donovan's cabin, where Ned and Alan had been bunked and aroused the sleeping boys.

And before the drowsy youngsters could get their wits working the irrepressible Bob had thrown himself on the lower berth and was pounding Ned in the ribs. At midnight, while the boys slept, the Motor had sighted and, later, picked up the helpless, Aleutian.

The Nvota was still shipping fresh coal from the Aleutian when Yoshina announced breakfast the next morning and, in addition to the returned rescuers, there were two new guests at the table, Captain Lem. Webster and First Officer Donovan of the whale ship. For two hours the staunch little whaler bumped idly alongside the giant Aleutian while Ned and Alan retold in detail the story of their flight and rescue.

"An' so," said Captain McKay at the end of it all, "ye have naught but a shipload o' ivory and ye'll nae be havin' a glimpse o' the Pole."

"That's right," exclaimed Alan, laughing. "But one thing's sure; if we'd over gone on to the Pole we'd never have seen your cargo of bone; and I reckon you'd never have seen us or the Nvota."

"Therefore," said Major Honeywell, rising, with a smile, and stepping between Ned and Alan, "I want to propose a toast." Lifting his coffee he said: "Here's to Ned Napier and Alan Hope, the two 'Airship Boys.' With all their faults we love 'em still. They got us into this mess and now they are getting us out, as usual. Here's hoping that their adventures will never cease and that they will always land on their feet. If their projects seem like dreams, Mr. Zenzencoff, Captain Webster and Captain McKay will soon he in a position to say, at least, that they are pleasant dreams."

"All I can say," stammered Ned, as he arose to reply, "is that I'm sorry you and Colonel Oje and Bob missed the fun. We've got a piece of the old Russian wreck for Zenzencoff and the galley stove for Captain McKay's new vessel. As for Colonel Oje, we hope that in a few days he'll he slaughtering musk ox, buffalo and caribou on the McKenzie. Bob," he added, turning to the radiant reporter, "is, of course, our partner. What's ours is his. As for you, Major Honeywell, we have but one wish, and that is: Here's hoping that we can't leave the McKenzie this winter and that you'll learn the secret of the white Eskimos."

"I don't know," laughed Bob, "but if Major Honeywell can't discover it I know who can."

How they did try it, and the marvelous things they found, is a story for another telling, under the title of "The Airship Boys in the Barren Lands, or The White Eskimos' Secret."

Twelve days later, August 2, the laboring Nvota at last cast off its straining tow line and the helpless Aleutian dropped its anchor behind Herschel Island. The long waiting commander of the collier was soon alongside.

Three boys clasped each other about the shoulders and began a riotous dance on the deck.

"Good," whispered Bob Russell. "The boss isn't here and we can't get away. We're stuck for a winter in the Barren Lands."

THE END

H.L. SAYLER

THE AIRSHIP BOYS DUE NORTH
or, BY BALLOON TO THE POLE

ILLUSTRATED BY S.H. RIESENBERG

First published by The Reilly & Britton Co., Chicago, 1910

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2022
Version Date: 2022-01-27

Produced by Keith Emmett and Roy Glashan

All content added by RGL is proprietary and protected by copyright.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER I
THROUGH THE GOLDEN GATE

CHAPTER II
WHERE ARE WE GOING?

CHAPTER III
THE BOYS MEET MR. OSBORNE

CHAPTER IV
THE PLAN OF THE WHITE NORTH

CHAPTER V
A PRE-GLACIAL ROMANCE

CHAPTER VI
THE ALEUTIAN'S CARGO

CHAPTER VII
BOB'S INTERVIEW

CHAPTER VIII
A TALE FROM THE WHEELHOUSE

CHAPTER IX
THE TREASURE-SHIP IN THE ICE

CHAPTER X
ALAN SPEAKS UP

CHAPTER XI
THE "WIRELESS" OUTFIT DISCOVERED

CHAPTER XII
THE WIRELESS PICKS UP A CALL

CHAPTER XIII
A RIDDLE AND ITS SOLUTION

CHAPTER XIV
MR. OSBORNE SHOWS CONCERN

CHAPTER XV
THE MYSTERY OF THE ALEUTIAN EXPLAINED

CHAPTER XVI
A NEW THEORY OF ARCTIC NAVIGATION

CHAPTER XVII
A "WIRELESS" STOPS THE VOYAGE

CHAPTER XVIII
THE REVENUE CUTTER THETIS TO THE RESCUE

CHAPTER XIX
NED'S DARING PROPOSAL

CHAPTER XX
THE "SPIRIT OF THE FROZEN NORTH"

CHAPTER XXI
A LIBATION TO THE TOTEM

CHAPTER XXII
CROSSING THE LINE

CHAPTER XXIII
A FIGHT WITH A WALRUS

CHAPTER XXIV
BESET IN THE ICE

CHAPTER XXV
A POLAR PICNIC

CHAPTER XXVI
THE BALLOON TO THE RESCUE

CHAPTER XXVII
OVER THE POLAR ICE CAP

CHAPTER XXVIII
BENEATH THE POLE STAR

CHAPTER XXIX
STRANDED ON THE ICE

CHAPTER XXX
IN THE SHADOW OF THE POLE

CHAPTER XXXI
IN THE LEE OF THE BERG

* * * * * *

THE END

H.L. SAYLER

THE AIRSHIP BOYS DUE NORTH or, BY BALLOON TO THE POLE

ILLUSTRATED BY S.H. RIESENBERG

First published by The Reilly & Britton Co., Chicago, 1910 This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2022 Version Date: 2022-01-27 Produced by Keith Emmett and Roy Glashan All content added by RGL is proprietary and protected by copyright. Click here for more books by this author

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER I THROUGH THE GOLDEN GATE

CHAPTER II WHERE ARE WE GOING?

CHAPTER III THE BOYS MEET MR. OSBORNE

CHAPTER IV THE PLAN OF THE WHITE NORTH

CHAPTER V A PRE-GLACIAL ROMANCE

CHAPTER VI THE ALEUTIAN'S CARGO

CHAPTER VII BOB'S INTERVIEW

CHAPTER VIII A TALE FROM THE WHEELHOUSE

CHAPTER IX THE TREASURE-SHIP IN THE ICE

CHAPTER X ALAN SPEAKS UP

CHAPTER XI THE "WIRELESS" OUTFIT DISCOVERED

CHAPTER XII THE WIRELESS PICKS UP A CALL

CHAPTER XIII A RIDDLE AND ITS SOLUTION

CHAPTER XIV MR. OSBORNE SHOWS CONCERN

CHAPTER XV THE MYSTERY OF THE ALEUTIAN EXPLAINED

CHAPTER XVI A NEW THEORY OF ARCTIC NAVIGATION

CHAPTER XVII A "WIRELESS" STOPS THE VOYAGE

CHAPTER XVIII THE REVENUE CUTTER THETIS TO THE RESCUE

CHAPTER XIX NED'S DARING PROPOSAL

CHAPTER XX THE "SPIRIT OF THE FROZEN NORTH"

CHAPTER XXI A LIBATION TO THE TOTEM

CHAPTER XXII CROSSING THE LINE

CHAPTER XXIII A FIGHT WITH A WALRUS

CHAPTER XXIV BESET IN THE ICE

CHAPTER XXV A POLAR PICNIC

CHAPTER XXVI THE BALLOON TO THE RESCUE

CHAPTER XXVII OVER THE POLAR ICE CAP

CHAPTER XXVIII BENEATH THE POLE STAR

CHAPTER XXIX STRANDED ON THE ICE

CHAPTER XXX IN THE SHADOW OF THE POLE

CHAPTER XXXI IN THE LEE OF THE BERG

* * * * * *

THE END

THE AIRSHIP BOYS DUE NORTH
or, BY BALLOON TO THE POLE

First published by The Reilly & Britton Co., Chicago, 1910

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2022
Version Date: 2022-01-27

Produced by Keith Emmett and Roy Glashan

All content added by RGL is proprietary and protected by copyright.

Click here for more books by this author

CHAPTER I
THROUGH THE GOLDEN GATE

CHAPTER II
WHERE ARE WE GOING?

CHAPTER III
THE BOYS MEET MR. OSBORNE

CHAPTER IV
THE PLAN OF THE WHITE NORTH

CHAPTER V
A PRE-GLACIAL ROMANCE

CHAPTER VI
THE ALEUTIAN'S CARGO

CHAPTER VII
BOB'S INTERVIEW

CHAPTER VIII
A TALE FROM THE WHEELHOUSE

CHAPTER IX
THE TREASURE-SHIP IN THE ICE

CHAPTER X
ALAN SPEAKS UP

CHAPTER XI
THE "WIRELESS" OUTFIT DISCOVERED

CHAPTER XII
THE WIRELESS PICKS UP A CALL

CHAPTER XIII
A RIDDLE AND ITS SOLUTION

CHAPTER XIV
MR. OSBORNE SHOWS CONCERN

CHAPTER XV
THE MYSTERY OF THE ALEUTIAN EXPLAINED

CHAPTER XVI
A NEW THEORY OF ARCTIC NAVIGATION

CHAPTER XVII
A "WIRELESS" STOPS THE VOYAGE

CHAPTER XVIII
THE REVENUE CUTTER THETIS TO THE RESCUE

CHAPTER XIX
NED'S DARING PROPOSAL

CHAPTER XX
THE "SPIRIT OF THE FROZEN NORTH"

CHAPTER XXI
A LIBATION TO THE TOTEM

CHAPTER XXII
CROSSING THE LINE

CHAPTER XXIII
A FIGHT WITH A WALRUS

CHAPTER XXIV
BESET IN THE ICE

CHAPTER XXV
A POLAR PICNIC

CHAPTER XXVI
THE BALLOON TO THE RESCUE

CHAPTER XXVII
OVER THE POLAR ICE CAP

CHAPTER XXVIII
BENEATH THE POLE STAR

CHAPTER XXIX
STRANDED ON THE ICE

CHAPTER XXX
IN THE SHADOW OF THE POLE

CHAPTER XXXI
IN THE LEE OF THE BERG