What the professor would have said was not spoken then. Mark interrupted by shouting:
"Look ahead! Look ahead! What is that--a river?"
"There is no river of size in this locality," declared the professor, quickly, training his gla.s.ses on the white streak that appeared on the ground ahead.
Phineas Roebach struggled forward to the operator"s bench. He gasped:
"This is worse than I ever thought flying could be. Do you have to go so fast? I cannot get my breath. Hullo! That"s the glacier ahead. The dog trail to Aleukan follows the ice for more than fifty miles."
"A glacier it is," agreed Professor Henderson. "It seems pretty smooth, Jack. You can descend still farther."
That they were all suffering from the rarity of the atmosphere was plain. It seemed as though the envelope of breathable air surrounding the earth had suddenly become vastly rarified. If the atmosphere had been so changed all over the globe it would be a catastrophe unspeakable.
"We certainly _can"t_ cross these mountains--nor the Rockies," groaned Jack. "How are we ever going to get home again?"
"If the air remains as it is now?" asked Mark. "You"re right! We"re imprisoned in this part of Alaska just as fast as though we were caged behind iron bars."
"If we only had some of those torches we used on the moon," said Jack.
"What will we do, Professor?" begged Mark.
"Let us not lose hope," responded the old scientist. "First we will get to Aleukan and see if our provisions have been brought over from Coldfoot."
"I"ll bet they haven"t been brought across the range," said the pessimistic Mark. "If the air everywhere is so rarified the men would die crossing the mountains." "Think of the people living on Mt.
Washington--and other heights!" cried Jack, suddenly. "Why, they will be snuffed out like candles. It is an awful thought."
"We will hope, at least, that this fearful catastrophe is local," said the professor, seriously. "Have a care, Jack! Don"t dip like that. We do not want to descend here."
It was extremely difficult to manage the _s...o...b..rd_, for she answered to the levers so much more quickly than before. The air pressure on the craft was so slight that at the least touch she mounted upward like a scared quail! The speed of the aeroplane had to be reduced, too; they traveled scarcely forty miles an hour.
On either hand as they winged their way over the great river of ice (it was quite four miles broad) sharp cliffs arose, guarding the glacier. These cliffs ranged from two hundred to a thousand feet high.
The professor, at once interested in such a marvel of nature, begged Jack to reduce the speed even more. They merely floated above the cracked expanse of whitish-green ice for some minutes.
"That"s what the earthquakes did for it," said Phineas Roebach. "You see those creva.s.ses--and some of "em mighty deep? Well, they weren"t here the last time I came this way." "She is in motion again, perhaps,"
suggested Professor Henderson.
"It ain"t been in motion for ages--or, so the Aleuts say," responded the oil hunter.
"But there looks now to be some sagging forward. There is a creva.s.se splitting the glacier from wall to wall," proclaimed the scientist.
"We"d never be able to sled over this trail in the world!" cried Mark.
"How would you pa.s.s such a yawning gulf as that?"
"It beats me what"s happened here since I was across last," muttered Roebach, scratching his head in bewilderment.
The yawning ice was right beneath the flying machine. It was a hundred yards across at the surface. They seemed to be looking down for five hundred feet, or more, into its greenish depths.
Jack had turned the _s...o...b..rd"s_ prow and they were drifting toward the western cliffs which guarded the glacier. Here the rocky heights were at least seven hundred feet above the ice.
Out of a crack in the high wall--from its eyrie without doubt--a huge female eagle suddenly shot down toward the drifting aeroplane. The flying machine seemed not to startle the great bird at all; it only angered her. Perhaps she had young up there in the cliff and she feared her hereditary enemy, Man, was coming on wings to deprive her of them.
With a scream of rage the eagle dashed herself directly into the face of Jack, strapped to the operator"s seat. For once Andy Sudds had not his rifle at hand; and, the attack was so unexpected, it is doubtful if he could have come to the rescue in season.
With beak and claws the bird endeavored to tear at the youth"s face.
Jack jerked loose the transmitter and beat it to pieces over the bird, but without making her desist.
Again and again the feathered creature darted in, claws expanded and beak snapping. With one talon she raked Jack"s right arm and shredded the heavy coatsleeve, the sleeve beneath, and scratched his arm. The next instant her iron beak snapped upon his left hand.
Jack Darrow was plucky, but the pain of the wound brought a scream to his lips. It was answered by the wild shrieks of the eagle.
And then, ere any of his friends could reach him (for the professor had gone back to the cabin), the boy, fighting for his sight--indeed, for his very life--by some unfortunate movement depressed the planes.
Like an arrow from the bow the _s...o...b..rd_ shot downward into the yawning creva.s.se which split the glacier from wall to wall. With a yell of terror Mark Sampson sprang forward to the operator"s bench. But he was too late--if he could have done any good at all.
The _s...o...b..rd_ swung to one side. Her right forward plane crashed against the wall of ice, shattering some of the hard crystal. But on the rebound the fluttering flying machine sank lower. Jack tried to make her rise. She refused to obey the lever.
And then, with a suddenness that made them all catch their breath, the _s...o...b..rd_ plunged down into the ice-gulf and ended her dive with a terrific crash on a narrow shelf at least two hundred feet below the surface of the glacier.
CHAPTER XVI
PROFESSOR HENDERSON REVEALS THE TRUTH
The force with which the flying machine had plunged into the chasm in the ice was sufficient to smash her keel-fin to bits. There was other damage done, too--how great this damage was the boys and the professor could not immediately discover.
They were all alive--that was one thing to be thankful for. And Washington White"s Shanghai, aroused from sleep by the disturbance, began to crow vociferously.
The _s...o...b..rd_ was wedged into a very small s.p.a.ce upon the ledge of ice. At first view it was quite certain that she could not be launched again from this position by any ordinary means. And the steering gear was practically a wreck, so that she positively must be repaired before attempting another flight.
Jack"s wounds were dressed by Andy first of all. Mark and the professor made some attempt to look over the wreckage. The disaster was so great that Mark gave up hope.
"We"re done for now!" he cried. "The poor _s...o...b..rd_ is a wreck. And how are we ever going to get out of this hole?"
"Hush, my boy!" admonished the professor. "Don"t lose your grip. This is truly a serious predicament; but we have been in tight places before."
"Nothing worse than this," grumbled Mark. "Nor half so bad. How are we going to get out of this chasm? Why, just as Washington says, we"ve been swallowed up like a duck gobbling a June bug."
"This is certainly a bad situation," Phineas Roebach remarked. "But, as the professor says, it isn"t the worst that might happen."
"What worse could happen?" demanded Mark.
"Hold on! Don"t you step too near the edge of this shelf," warned the oil man. "If you step off and fall clear to the bottom of this creva.s.se you"ll probably find _that_ a good deal worse than our present position.
B-r-r! Isn"t it cold?"
Two hundred feet below the surface of the ice river was indeed a cold spot. Washington produced all the warm clothing there was aboard the flying machine and all hands were glad to bundle up. Then the professor suggested that the black man prepare some hot drink and a ration of their food, while all gathered in the cabin for a discussion as to their future course. "Our perilous situation is apparent," said Professor Henderson, quietly. "But there is always more than one way out of a serious predicament--sometimes there are a dozen ways."