IMPRISONED IN THE ICE
The oil hunter's demand was like a bomb thrown in their midst. The
boys had been so deeply interested in the professor's relation of
facts, and in the scientific phase of their situation, that the more
practical questions of their mere existence on this island in the air
had not before held their attention for long.
"We've got to find some way of climbing out, I reckon," Mark said,
slowly.
"Well, find it!" snapped Phineas Roebach. "Let's talk of something
practical. We'll freeze to death down here very soon, if we don't
starve first."
"Very true," said the professor. "Mr. Roebach is eminently practical.
We must give our attention to the immediate peril that menaces us."
At this moment Andy came forward with two hatchets and an axe.
"These are the things we want, I guess," he said, quietly. "We've got
to chop steps in the wall, and climb up in that way." "And abandon all
our instruments--and the telescope?" exclaimed Professor Henderson.
"And the _Snowbird_?" added Mark.
"We can hoist all the small things up to the top of this wall--if we
can get up there ourselves," said the old hunter.
"Right you are, Mr. Sudds," declared Phineas Roebach, with vigor.
"But the flying machine?" queried Jack. "It seems too bad to let it
go."
"We won't let it go, Jack," declared Mark.
"Andy is right, boys," said the professor. "Let us first make our own
escape sure. Then, if it be possible, we will hoist the flying machine
as well as the instruments and our remaining provisions out of this
chasm."
"I'm afraid we'll never be able to hoist the _Snowbird_," said Jack,
sadly. "I reckon we'll have to say good-bye to it."
"Don't lose heart," repeated Professor Henderson. "Lead the way, Andy.
Let us try chipping the ice away."
Cold it indeed was down there in the maw of the ice-field; but Wash
made some more hot drink and the hunter and the oil man went at the
ice-wall with vigor. They chipped out good, wide steps, two feet apart,
two working together, and mounting upward steadily. The lightness of
their bodies aided not a little in the speed at which they worked.
Before an hour had passed they were forty feet above the shelf on which
the crippled flying machine rested.
By that time the earth had rolled out of sight and the moon itself had
paled into insignificance. There was a bright glow in the sky and the
party knew that the sun had risen into view. Deep down as they were
in the cavity, they soon felt the difference in the temperature. For
several days it had been cold on the earth; but now the sun's heat
seemed to strike more directly upon the island in the air.
The wall of ice on the other side of the crevasse began to glisten,
and soon streams of water were trickling down it, falling with a gentle
murmur into the abyss. The workers threw off some of their heavy
clothing. The sun's rays began to creep down the other wall, and the
ice melted rapidly.
Jack and Mark took the places of Andy Sudds and Mr. Roebach with the
hatchets. The ice on this side of the chasm was still cold and brittle,
but the sun was mounting very rapidly toward the zenith and the
trickling rills upon the opposite wall of the crevasse became torrents.
"We are in serious danger," Professor Henderson warned them. "Since
being shot off the world, we have begun a course around our parent
planet which brings this portion of the island, at least, in much
closer juxtaposition to the sun than Alaska ever was before. I fear
that the heat will become tropical in due season."
"And this whole glacier will melt?" cried Mark, jumping to that
conclusion instantly.
"Not all at once, we will hope," said the professor. "If the length
of the day on this island in the air was as long as the earth's day,
the sun might melt the ice so rapidly that we would be washed off this
wall and drowned in the abyss."
"Gollyation! We's done for den, fo' suah!" groaned Washington White.
"But the island will doubtless circle the world in such a way that the
sun will only strike upon us directly for a few hours at a time--the
entire circuit we make around the world may be of considerable duration;
but the sun will shine directly upon us--at the rate those rays are
traveling down that opposite wall--for only a short time. Do you see?"
The boys had resigned their turn at the chopping and returned to the
shelf by now. Again Andy and Mr. Roebach were high above their heads,
clinging to the slippery wall.
For the ice on this side, while it was in the shade still, was becoming
moist. The heat of the day was intense. Down the opposite wall of the
crevasse tumbled a sheet of water which fairly hid the ice itself.
Occasionally huge blocks of the melting crystal were broken off by the
action of the water and fell into the chasm with thunderous crashes.
There was good reason for the party being worried over their situation.
The heat increased and over the edge of the wall they sought to climb
the water began to pour. Andy Sudds and the oil man were driven down
from their perch. The sun appeared, blazing directly down into the
crevasse and the melted ice rained in torrents about them, falling
upon the _Snowbird_ as though a heavy rainstorm was in progress.
They fled to the roofed cabin to escape this downpour. But they were
fearful that at any moment the flying machine, resting so insecurely
upon the shelf of ice, would be washed into the depths.
A terrible hour followed. The heat became torrid. The splashing of the
water and thunder of huge pieces of ice falling into the crack almost
deafened them.
Just as the sun had crossed the narrow arc above the crevasse there
came a thunderous roar. Used as they had been for some hours to
explosions of sound, this one made all tremble. The ice-wall seemed
to crack and stagger from base to summit. The flying machine shook as
though it were about to take flight. But they all knew that the only
flight it could take was to the bottom of the abyss.
The thunder of falling ice continued for some minutes. A mighty
avalanche had fallen into the depths. But whether it had fallen from
their side of the crevasse or from the other, they could not at the
moment tell.
The sun was out of sight. Its rays, however, still played upon the
wall above their heads, while from the lower part of the gulf there
rose a steam, or fog, which wrapped the flying machine around and
smothered all in its embrace.
The light disappeared from above. The heat of the torrid sun departed.
The chill of the fog bit in like a knife. They were glad in an hour
to get into their furs, and there remained shivering in the damp, cold
fog, while the streams of water which had poured down the ice-wall
congealed again into the hardest of crystal.
Roebach and Andy possessed themselves of two storage battery lamps and
went cautiously to examine the wall up which they had climbed for more
than a hundred feet.
It was now as smooth as glass!
The wash of the falling water had worn away the ice so that the steps
of their ladder had disappeared. The work they had done toward escape
had gone for naught.
They were just as much prisoners of the ice now as they had been when
first the _Snowbird_ had settled upon this ledge in the crevasse.
And now they lost hope. There seemed no possibility of their escaping
from the gulf by cutting their way out.