A PENGUIN HUNT.
Although, as may be imagined, a closer watch than ever was kept during
the period of darkness, nothing more was seen that winter of the
mysterious light. The dim twilight preceding spring began to appear in
February without there being any recurrence of the mysterious
incident. The coming of the season in which they hoped to accomplish
such great things, found the camp of the adventurers in splendid trim.
Everyone from Captain Hazzard down to the professor's albatross, which
by this time had become quite tame, was in fine health, and there had
been not the slightest trace of illness among the adventurers.
The motor-sledge was put together as soon as the September spring
began to advance, and was found to work perfectly. As it has not been
described in detail hitherto, a few words may be devoted to it at this
point.
It was a contrivance, about twenty feet long by three wide, supported
on hollow "barrels" of aluminum. The sledge itself was formed of a
vanadium steel frame with spruce planking, and was capable of carrying
a load of a thousand pounds at thirty miles an hour over even the
softest snow, as its cylindrical supports did not sink into the snow
as ordinary wheels would have done. The motor was a forty-horse power
automobile machine with a crank-case enclosed in an outer case in
which a vacuum had been created--on the principle of the bottles which
keep liquids cold or warm. In this instance the vacuum served to keep
the oil in the crank-case, which was poured in warm, at an even
temperature. The gasolene tank, which held twenty gallons, was also
vacuum-enclosed, and as an additional precaution the warm gases from
the exhaust were inducted around it, and the space used for storing
extra cans of fuel.
Specially prepared oils and a liberal mixing of alcohol with the
gasolene afforded a safeguard against any sudden freezing of the vital
fluids. The engine was, of course, jacketed, but was air-cooled, as
water circulation would have been impracticable in the polar regions.
The test of the weird-looking contrivance was made on a day in early
spring, when, as far as the eye could reach, a great solid sea of ice
spread to the northward, and to the south only a vast expanse of snowy
level was visible,--with far in the distance the outlines of some
mountains which, in Captain Hazzard's belief, guarded the plateau on
the summit of which perhaps lay the South Pole.
The Southern Cross lay sheathed in ice, and the open sea, through
which she had approached the Great Barrier, was now a solid ocean of
glacial ice. If it did not break up as the spring advanced the
prospect was bad for the adventurers getting out that year, but at
this time they were too engrossed with other projects to give their
ultimate release much thought.
But to return to the motor-sledge. With Frank at the steering wheel in
front and Harry, Billy Barnes, the professor, and Rastus distributed
about its "deck," it was started across the snow, amid a cheer from
the men, without a hitch. So splendidly did it answer that the boys
drove on and on over the white wastes without giving much thought to
the distance they traversed.
With the return of spring, Skua gulls and penguins had become
plentiful and in answer to the professor's entreaties the boys finally
stopped the sledge near a rookery of the latter, in which the queer
birds were busy over the nests. These nests are rough piles of stones,
on which the eggs are laid. Soon the chickens--fuzzy little brown
creatures--appear, and there is a lot of fuss in the rookery; the
penguins getting their families mixed and fighting furiously over each
small, bewildered chick.
It was egg-laying time, however, when the boys rolled up on their
queer motor-sledge to the neighborhood of the breeding ground the
professor had espied. The man of science was off the sledge in a
trice, and while the boys, who wished to examine the motor, remained
with the vehicle, he darted off for the penguins' habitat.
With him went Rastus, carrying a large basket, which the professor had
ordered him to bring in case they needed it to carry back any finds of
interest.
"Perfusser, is dem dar penguins good ter eat?" asked Rastus, as he and
his learned companion strode through the snow to the rookery.
"They are highly esteemed as food," was the reply. "Former expeditions
to the South Pole have eaten them and declare that their flesh is as
good as chicken."
"As good as chicking!" exclaimed Rastus, delightedly. "My, my, yo'
make mah mouf watah. Don' you fink we could ketch one an' hev a
fricassee, perfusser?"
"I am only going in search of eggs and would, of course, like to catch
a flea--a penguin-flea, I mean," said the professor; "and I should not
advise you to meddle with any of the creatures, Rastus."
"Why, dey look as tame as elingfants in de Zoo," protested the colored
man, as he gazed at the penguins, who in turn gazed back at him with
their beady black eyes.
"Yes, and ordinarily they are, but in the breeding season they get
savage if molested, although it is safe enough to walk among them."
"Huh," grunted Rastus to himself; "dis yer perfusser am a fusser fer
sho. Ef dem birds tas' lak chicking ah'm a-goin 'ter ketch one while
he's a huntin' fer fleas and other foolishnesseses."
"What's that you said, Rastus?" inquired the professor, as they began
to thread their way among the piles of stones, each of which marked a
nest.
"Ah said de perfusser am a wonderful man wid his fleas and other
scientificnesses," rejoined the colored man.
"Ah, Rastus," cried the professor, highly flattered; "if I can only
catch the fur-bearing pollywog, then I shall, indeed, have some claim
on fortune and fame, till then--let us hunt penguin eggs."
In the meantime the boys were busy examining the motor. They found
that the specially prepared oil worked perfectly and that, although it
changed color in the low temperature, it showed no disposition to
freeze. The gasolene, too, was successfully kept at the right
temperature by means of the vacuum casing of the tank.
"We could go to the pole itself in this motor-sledge," cried Billy,
enthusiastically.
"How would we pass the mountains?" asked Frank, pointing to the south,
where stood the snowy sentinels guarding the mystery of the Antarctic.
"That's so," agreed Billy, hurriedly. "That's a job for the Golden
Eagle."
"And she's going to do it, too," rejoined Frank, earnestly. "That is
if it is humanly possible."
"You bet she is," began Harry, enthusiastically.
"Hullo, what's happened to the professor now?" he broke off.
Indeed, it seemed that some serious trouble had again overtaken the
luckless naturalist.
"Oh, boys! boys!" came his cries from the direction of the penguin
rookery. "Help! The menguins are plurdering us--I mean the penguins
are murdering us!"
"Fo' de Lawd's sake, come quick!" came a yell in Rastus's tones.
"We're done bin eated alive by dese yar pencilguins."
The rookery lay in a slight depression and was not visible from where
the boys stood, so that they were unable to imagine what was taking
place.
"They are in serious trouble of some sort again," cried Frank. "Come
on, boys, let's go to their rescue."
The motor-sledge was soon speeding over the snow and in a few minutes
was at the edge of the declivity in which lay the penguin rookery.
Gazing down into it the boys could hardly keep from laughing.
Indeed, Billy did burst into loud roars of merriment as he beheld the
strange figures cut by the professor and Rastus, as they strove to
escape the onslaught of the whole colony of penguins, which, with
sharp shrieks of rage were attacking them with their beaks and beating
them with their wings.
[Illustration: "They Strove to Escape the Onslaught of the Penguins."]
"Oh, please, good Mistah Pencilguins, I didn't mean no harm," roared
Rastus, who seemed to think the human-looking birds could understand
him. "Go afta' de perfusser, it was him dat tole me youalls tasted lak
chicking."
"Stop that, you greedy black rascal," retorted the professor, laying
about him with the egg-basket. "If you hadn't tried to grab that
penguin we wouldn't have been in this trouble."
This was true enough. The penguins had not seemed to resent their
nests being interfered with at all, but had gathered round the
invaders with much curiosity. The trouble all originated when Rastus
had sneaked up to a small penguin while the professor was busy
extracting an egg from a nest, and with a cry of:
"Oh, you lubly lilly chickin, ah hev yo fer supper, sho nuff," had
grabbed the creature.
It instantly sent up a loud cry of fear and rage, which its mates
seemed to regard as a battle cry, for they all fell on the rash
invaders of their realm at once.
As the boys dashed down the snowbank into the rookery, with their
revolvers drawn, the professor, with a loud yell, fell backward into a
well-filled nest. He arose with yellow yolks streaming from him and
covered with down, feathers and eggshell, that made him look like a
spectacled penguin himself. Rastus fared no better and was being
beaten and pecked unmercifully when the boys rushed down to the
rescue.
"Fire your revolvers in the air!" cried Frank. "Don't kill the poor
things."
"Fo' goodness sake kill dis big feller dat's a-peckin' mah nose off!"
yelled Rastus, struggling on the ground in the midst of a mass of
broken eggs.
The fusillade that went up from the boys' pistols made the penguins
stop their attack and waddle off in affright, while the professor and
Rastus, both sorry figures, scrambled to their feet and tried to brush
off some of the eggshells and yellow yolks that covered them from head
to foot.
"Come on back to the auto," cried Frank, when he saw they were safe.
"What, aren't you going to kill some of the birds?" demanded the
professor.
"No, certainly not," replied Frank. "What for?"
"Why they attacked us and frightened the life out of me," protested
the professor.
"An' dem pesky pencilguins mos' bited mah nose off," roared Rastus,
rubbing that not over prominent feature.
"Well, you had no business in their rookery, anyhow," rejoined Frank,
unfeelingly. "Why did you go?"
"Why, my dear sir," said the professor, regarding him with sorrowful
egg-stained countenance; "in the interests of science, of course. We
would not have been attacked at all if Rastus had not tried to catch a
penguin. What for, I cannot imagine."
"Why, perfusser, you done say dey tas' lak chickin," ruefully cried
the black man.
"Did I?" exclaimed the man of science. "Well, bless my soul, so I did.
That was very foolish of me. I ought to have known that Rastus would
not be able to resist such an idea."
"Ah dunno 'bout de idah," observed Rastus, as he cranked up the
machine, and the boys and the professor climbed on board; "but ah
couldn' resis' de chicking."