"Don't what?"

"Don't talk that way. Here am I a contented reporter working hard and hoping that some day my opportunity will come and I shall be a great writer or statesman or something and then you throw me off my base by talking about adventure," was the indignant response.

"Upon my word, Billy Barnes, I think you are hinting that you would like to come along."

"Well, would that be so very curious. Oh cracky! If I only could get a chance."

"You think you could get a leave of absence?"

"Two of 'em. But what's the use," Billy broke off with a groan, "Captain Hazzard wouldn't have me and that's all there is to it. No, I'll be stuck here in New York while you fellows are shooting Polar bears--oh, I forgot, there aren't any,--well, anyhow, while you're having a fine time,--just my luck."

"If you aren't the most contrary chap," laughed Frank. "Here a short time ago you never even dreamed of coming and now you talk as if you'd been expecting to go right along, and had been meanly deprived of your rights."

"I wonder if the Captain----," hesitated Harry.

"Would take Billy along?" Frank finished for him, "well, we will do this much. We have got to go over to the Erie Basin now and tell Captain Hazzard about the recovery of his papers. Billy can come along if he wants and we will state his case for him, it will take three boys to manage that sledge anyway," went on Frank, warming up to the new plan. "I think we can promise you to fix it somehow, Billy."

"You think you can," burst out the delighted reporter, "oh, Frank, if you do, I'll--I'll make you famous. I'll write you up as the discoverer of the ship of Olaf and--"

"That's enough," suddenly interrupted Frank, "if you want to do me a favor, Billy, never mention any more about that till Captain Hazzard himself decides to tell us about it. We only let what we know of the secret slip out by accident and we have no right to speculate on what Captain Hazzard evidently wishes kept a mystery till the time comes to reveal it."

"I'm sorry, Frank," contritely said Billy, "I won't speak any more about it; but," he added to himself, "you can't keep me from thinking about it."

As Frank had antic.i.p.ated, Captain Hazzard agreed to ship Billy Barnes as a member of the expedition. He was to be a sort of general secretary and a.s.sist the boys with the aeroplane and motor sledge when the time came. The reporter's face, when after a brief conference it was announced to him that he might consider himself one of the Southern Cross's ship's company, was a study. It was all he could do to keep from shouting at the top of his voice. The contrast between the dignity he felt he ought to a.s.sume before Captain Hazzard and the desire he felt to skip about and express his feelings in some active way produced such a ludicrous mixture of emotions on Billy's face that both the boys and the captain himself had to burst into uncontrollable laughter at it. Laughter in which the good natured Billy, without exactly understanding its cause, heartily joined.

A week later the final good-byes were said and the Southern Cross was ready for sea. She was to meet a coal-ship at Monte Video in the Argentine Republic which would tow her as far as the Great Barrier.

This was to conserve her own coal supply. The other vessel would then discharge her cargo of coal,--thus leaving the adventurers a plentiful supply of fuel in case the worst came to worst, and they were frozen in for a second winter.

In case nothing was heard of them by the following fall a relief ship was to be despatched which would reach them roughly about the beginning of December, when the Antarctic summer is beginning to draw to a close. The commander of the Southern Cross expected to reach the great southern ice-barrier in about the beginning of February, when the winter, which reaches its climax in August, would be just closing in. The winter months were to be devoted to establishing a camp, from which in the following spring--answering to our fall--the expedition would be sent out.

"Hurray! a winter in the Polar ice," shouted the boys as the program was explained to them.

"And a dash for the pole to cap it off," shouted the usually unemotional Frank, his face shining at the prospect.

As has been said, the Southern Cross was an old whaler. Built rather for staunchness than beauty, she was no ideal of a mariner's dream as she un.o.btrusively cleared from her wharf one gray, chilly morning which held a promise of snow in its leaden sky. There were few but the stevedores, who always hang about "the Basin," and some idlers, to watch her as she cast off her lines and a tug pulled her head round till she pointed for the opening of the berth in which she had lain so long. Of these onlookers not one had any more than a hazy idea of where the vessel was bound and why.

As the Southern Cross steamed steadily on down the bay, past the bleak hills of Staten Island, on by Sandy Hook, reaching out its long, desolate finger as if pointing ships out to the ocean beyond, the three boys stood together in a delighted group in the lee of a pile of steel drums, each containing twenty gallons of gasolene.

"Well, old fellow, we're off at last," cried Frank, his eye kindling as the Southern Cross altered her course a bit and stood due south down the Jersey coast.

"That's it," cried Billy, with a wave of his soft cap, "off at last; we're the three luckiest boys on this globe, I say."

"Same here," was Harry's rejoinder.

The blunt bows of the Southern Cross began to lift to the long heave of the ever restless Atlantic. She slid over the shoulder of one big wave and into the trough of another with a steady rhythmic glide that spoke well for her seaworthy qualities. Frank, snugly out of the nipping wind in the shelter of the gasolene drums, was silent for several minutes musing over the adventurous voyage on which they were setting out. Thus he had not noticed a change coming over Harry and Billy. Suddenly a groan fell on his ear. Startled, the boy looked round.

On the edge of the hatch sat Billy and beside him, his head sunk in his hands, was Harry.

"What's the matter with you fellows?" demanded Frank.

At that instant an unusually large breaker came rolling towards the Southern Cross and caught her fair and square on the side of the bow.

Deep laden as she was it broke over her and a wall of green water came tumbling and sweeping along the decks. Frank avoided it by leaping upward and seizing a stanchion used to secure the framework holding down the deck load.

But neither Harry nor Billy moved, except a few minutes later when another heavy roll sent them sliding into the scuppers.

"Come, you fellows, you'd better get up, and turn in aft," said Frank.

"Oh, leave me alone," groaned Billy.

"I'm going to die, I think," moaned Harry.

At this moment the new steward, a raw boy from Vermont, who had been at sea for several years, came up to where the two boys were suffering.

"Breakfast's ready," he announced, "there's some nice fat bacon and fried eggs and jam and----"

It was too much. With what strength they had left Billy and Harry tumbled to their feet and aimed simultaneous blows at him.

It was a final effort and as the Southern Cross plunged onward toward her mysterious goal she carried with her two of the most sea-sick boys ever recorded on a ship's manifest.

CHAPTER IV.

A MESSAGE FROM THE AIR.

It was a bright, sunshiny morning a week later. The Southern Cross was now in sub-tropic waters, steaming steadily along under blue skies and through smooth azure water flecked here and there with ma.s.ses of yellow gulf weed.

The boys were in a group forward watching the flying fish that fled like coveys of frightened birds as the bow of the polar ship cut through the water. Under Dr. Gregg's care Billy and Harry had quite recovered from their sea-sickness.

"Off there to the southeast somewhere is the treasure galleon and the Sarga.s.so Sea," said Harry, indicating the purplish haze that hung on the horizon. [Footnote: See Vol. 4 of this series, The Boy Aviators'

Treasure Quest; or, The Golden Galleon.]

"Yes, and off there is the South Pole," rejoined Frank, pointing due south, "I wish the old Southern Cross could make better speed, I'm impatient to be there."

"And I'm impatient to solve some of the mystery of this voyage," put in Billy, "here we've been at sea a week and Captain Hazzard hasn't told us yet anything about that--that,--well you know, that ship you spoke about, Frank."

"He will tell us all in good time," rejoined the other, "and now instead of wasting speculation on something we are bound not to find out till we do find it out, let's go aft to the wireless room and polish up a bit."

The Southern Cross carried a wireless apparatus which had been specially installed for her polar voyage. The aerials stretched from her main to mizzen mast and a small room, formerly a storeroom, below the raised p.o.o.p containing the cabins had been fitted up for a wireless room. In this the boys had spent a good deal of time during their convalescence from sea-sickness and had managed to "pick-up"

many vessels within their radius,--which was fifteen hundred miles under favorable conditions.

Frank was the first to clap on the head-receiver this morning and he sat silently for a while absently clicking out calls, to none of which he obtained an answer. Suddenly, however, his face grew excited.

"Hullo," he cried, "here's something."

"What?" demanded Harry.