“Yes, he’s getting out a sleeping-bag, so if he feels cold he can get into it.”
Gale seized the transmitter.
“Slander,” he called. “We’ve already found two hot bricks in Nick’s pocket, and he’s been begging like a stray kitten to be taken home!”
Up, and up, and up! The Billowcrest below grew small, then smaller, and became at last a toy boat tossed into a snowdrift. Nearer and nearer came the verge of the barrier.
“Can’t you see over it yet?” called the voice in the phone. “It looks as if you could.”
“Not yet! Soon, though. We’re half crazy with excitement!”
“Tell me the instant you can see over, and just what you can see!”
“Yes, of course! In another second now—we——”
There was a sudden movement of the car. Looking up I saw that the balloon bag, now lifting above the barrier, had been caught in an upper current of air from the north, and was being carried inward, to the wall. In another instant it struck the jagged edge of the precipice, rebounded, was caught again by the air current and lifted, and with a wild sweep went plunging over the barrier, dragging us almost horizontally behind!
There came some startled cries through the telephone. Then, from behind, a sudden jerk that nearly flung us from the car. We had reached the end of our rope, so to speak, and had been pulled up, short. Too short, for the taut line, drawn across the sharp edge of ice, could not stand the strain. Well for us that it did not. We were already clawing tooth and nail at everything in sight, and our angle was becoming momentarily more precipitous. The car swung suddenly downward into an easier position, and then once more a white world dropped away beneath. We did not need to guess what had happened. We knew. The line had parted, and on the wings of a thirty mile wind we were bound for the South Pole.