“Well, that’s over,” the visitor remarked. “The Shooting Star may be wounded, but she’s still afloat, thank heaven.”
“She must have felt lonely tonight, for there weren’t any other stars to be seen,” remarked Joe.
“That’s a fact,” admitted the captain, with a smile. “But perhaps before long her crew will have a sight of the stars farther north. That is, if she makes her projected flight to the North Pole.”
“I’ve heard she was going to try to make that trip,” put in Bob. “Perhaps this accident will put a crimp in it.”
“I hardly think so,” affirmed the captain. “Probably she isn’t so badly hurt that she can’t be repaired in a month or two.”
“What’s the idea of going to the Pole, anyway?” asked Joe. “It seems to me like taking an awful lot of risk for a very slight advantage. Peary’s been to the Pole, anyway.”
“True enough,” assented Captain Springer. “I don’t understand that the Government in any way questions the correctness of Peary’s account or the fact of his discovery. But, as the Secretary of the Navy said the other day, there is a vast unexplored area in the vicinity of the Pole that is a constant challenge to the United States. If we don’t discover and map it, some other Government will, and he wants the glory to come to this country.
“Much of this area is supposed to be land. We have a stake in it because of its nearness to Alaska, our farthest outlying possession. The trip, too, would probably result in scientific discoveries of the highest value. And whatever land might be discovered may be ultimately of advantage to this country for strategic, as well as other, purposes. In the days of sea traveling, that land, if it exists, was inaccessible. But in these days of airplanes and dirigibles and radio, communication might be easily established and maintained.”
“It will be a mighty long trip, as well as a cold one,” mused Bob.
“It will be all that,” agreed Captain Springer. “It is proposed to have the Shooting Star cruise over a million square miles of unexplored territory. It is planned that she will first go to San Diego and Seattle on the Pacific Coast and then to Nome, Alaska. At Nome there will be waiting for her a naval vessel with a mooring mast. There the airship will be moored while she is supplied with fuel and provisions. From Nome to the North Pole is about one thousand five hundred miles. She may go over the Pole and from there to Spitzbergen, about six hundred miles farther on, and then return by way of England to the United States.”