Two days ago all seemed joy. To-night I am heartsick, and only for the abiding courage and faith of Chauncey and Edith Gale would be despairing. Gale is a king among men, and Edith

Jan. 20. Five days in the clutch of this fearful storm. I seem to have lived as many years since we found the warm current. If I have slept I do not know it. I am thin and haggard with watching and anxiety. But now the wind has gone down, and there is hope, though we are still beset with this pounding, maddening ice, and the Captain has taken no observation since the 14th. I shall try to sleep.

Jan. 21. The sun came out this morning, and Biffer got our position. There has been little change in the past week. We have just about held our own in keeping off shore. Now we are hemmed in by ice and our currents are lost beneath it. We shall try to push southward, however, in the hope of reaching clear water. The wind is behind us, but the drift ice ahead packs fearfully, perhaps because of the opposite flowing current.

Jan. 26. This morning I was called before I was awake, and hurried on deck to find Captain Biffer looking through a glass at a grim outline ahead.

"There's your ice-wall," he said, as I approached. "What's our latitude?" I asked.

"Then it can't be the wall," I said. "It lies somewhere below 74°."

The Captain looked again through his glass. Then we ascended to the crow's-nest for a better view.

"Well," he declared, at last, "if that ain't the ice-wall, it's the father of all the icebergs we've seen yet."

And an iceberg it proved to be. We pushed and worked our way toward it all the forenoon, and about two o'clock came near enough to make out an area of open water adjacent to it, by which we knew it was being carried southward against the surface current thus leaving a clear space behind, Into this we pushed a little later, and steaming in close, found that in the back of our ice giant there was a hollow of considerable size. It was, in fact, a sort of harbor for us, though not without its drawbacks. For to the right and left and behind lay pack-ice, so solid that escape in any direction seemed impossible, and ready to close in upon us should the great berg halt or hesitate in its progress poleward. "We are going now, whether we want to or not," said Chauncey Gale.

66

'Yes," laughed Captain Biffer, pacemaker."

"we've got a

And this is so. Borne on by the vast salt current far beneath, our giant berg, regardless of drift ice

and feeble fresh-water resistance, is pushing slowly steadily to the southward, whence it came. I believe now that this salt undercurrent describes a huge circle in the Antarctic Ocean; that it bends to the eastward when it reaches the great southern barrier, thence northward, detaching and carrying with it into the upper seas these giant sections of the wall, drifting them across westward and bringing them back southward, at last, as this one is being brought, to the point of its titanic birth. The bergs we met over by the Shetlands were drifting northward. Those along the way came as we came. Some of them looked worn and travel-stained, as if they had been swinging around the circle for a long time; bruised and battered for perhaps centuries. The one we are following must be on its first trip, for it is a giant of giants, going home mighty and magnificent after its first trip abroad.

And we are going with it. We shall not attempt to force our way out, and why should we? We set out for the South. We believe now-all of us, I think-that there is a land there from whence can flow a warm river. We are going to find it!

XVI.

FOLLOWING THE PACEMAKER.

For a full month we drifted slowly with our monster berg. So slowly that at times, when the wind shifted, we were almost at a standstill, and the driftice was ready to shut us in. But within our big giant's lap we were well protected, and lying idly were borne steadily to the south. We grew presently to love our big protector, and had the Captain's name of Pacemaker not clung to him we should have christened him something very grand, indeed. For as a pacemaker he was not a sucAn average of twenty miles a day was about the best we could do, and at times we did even worse. Still, we gave him great credit, for without him we might, as Gale said, "have gone to the wall" before we were ready to.

cess.

As the days passed I found that I must change my calculations somewhat concerning the position of the barrier. I had located it not lower than 75°,

but by the 25th we were below 76°, and no barrier as yet. Could it be that this undercurrent flowed through the Antarctic Continent? But this, I decided, would be impossible.

We were not idle during this period of drifting. and the month as a whole was one of enjoyment. When we no longer had the sun at midnight, we began preparing for winter. From the skins obtained by the sailors we rigged ourselves out in new suits, according to the best polar authorities. It was not seriously cold as yet, but with the advent of the Antarctic night who could say what cold might come? Gale was fondly referred to as Jumbo 'when he got properly put together. One day, however, he got down on his back and could not get up again. Then he was christened the "Turtle."

"I've heard of people being as big as a barrel," he said, "but in this outfit I'm as big as a whole cooper-shop."

We were frequently tempted to try scaling our big Pacemaker to make observations ahead. Edith Gale would have gone promptly had her father consented. Ferratoni, too, was eager to make some further experiments, testing his apparatus with the berg as an elevation. With our little steam launch we believed we might be able to find a place where the ascent would not be difficult, and as days passed