He waited a few moments, and then sent down through the dusk a long, shrill whistle. A full-throated chorus was his answer. Before he reached the mouth of the cave, Pallas and her six gray children had shot up the hill and were leaping about their master.
Basin after basin, channel on channel, the roaring lyddite tore in the ice jam at the lower end of Ross Sea. Untiringly the miners of Captain Scoland plied their drills. The steel-clad Minnetonka, ever restless as a prisoner pacing his narrow cell, churned and smashed about in each new harbor which the blasters formed for her, thus preventing the ice forming again into a solid mass, and holding her fast. Always alert, she dashed through each new passageway.
Now to the right, now to the left, the cruiser advanced, as the men blasted her zigzag channel course. As each new forward step was taken, the pressure of the vast jam closed the way and the channel was left behind. It was slow work, but sure. Behind the adventurers the sun came slowly on his southern path, turning dim twilight into weak and pallid day.
Steadily as they worked, ten days passed and saw the blasters little more than a third of the way across the enormous jam.
All around them thundered and crashed the ice in the grip of the great breaking forces. At times the uproar of smitten bergs and cracking floes made the sound of their exploding lyddite seem a puny and futile mockery of nature's mighty hammers. On the decks of the Minnetonka uneasy men paced restlessly, and worn by waiting and danger, cursed or prayed, according to their natures. In their long hutches, the Alaskan dogs, still more uneasy, snarled and howled.
Seeking to turn the delay to some advantage, Polaris selected from the forty-odd dogs on the ship seven of the likeliest, and, with sledge and harness, left the ship to acquaint himself with them. It was time that they knew the master whom they must carry both fast and far. Huskies they were, from the finest of the Yukon strains, big and shaggy, their coats splotched with brown and white, but they were not the equals in size or strength of gray Marcus and his fellows, which the son of the snows had driven aforetime. He found them not at all lacking in temper.
On a level spot in the floe, not far from the ship, Polaris laid out his harness, and chose his animals for the positions in which he would have them run. Largest of all the brutes was the tawny Boris, sullen and vicious, but intelligent. Polaris selected him as the team leader, and the lessons began.
Awed at first by their strange surroundings, affrighted by the thundering ice and the occasional shuddering of the floe, the brutes flinched and whimpered, paying little attention to the man. Then over their backs and about their ears shrieked and cracked an eighteen-foot lash that demanded notice. With ears laid flat, the dogs cowered into a tense group, burning eyes alternating from the writhing whip, which snapped above them, but fell not, to the man who wielded it.
Urged by lash and voice, not one, but the seven as one, responded in a concerted rush on the new master. Snarling hideously, they flung themselves upon the man. Sailors watching from the ship set up a cry of consternation when they saw Polaris apparently overwhelmed by a wave of maddened dogs. But the son of the snows was a match for any dog team that ever snaked a sledge. He met their rush with a powerful hand and a ready whipstock, that seemed never to miss its aim. For the whip that had only menaced before fell now in earnest, fell on tender snouts with stinging force and a most disconcerting accuracy. Once more the mutinous beasts cowered away, trotting in circles with bared teeth, but loth to try conclusions with that vengeful whip-butt.