"For instance--?" breathed Frank, with a half-formed idea of what he meant.

"For instance, airships," was the quiet reply.

"Airships," exclaimed Captain Barrington. "Then you think---?"

"That we have some very undesirable neighbors at close quarters,"

rejoined Captain Hazzard.

CHAPTER XXI.

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 s.p.a.ce 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 frica.s.see, 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 pa.s.s 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "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.