"And, lady," he said, "wherever Kalin is, he is well content, for he has aided you toward your dearest wishes and his soul asked no more than that."
He dug with the blade of a spear at the foot of one of the icy monoliths, and laid the corpse of Kalin there, while the dogs, which always seemed to sense the presence of death, bayed a hoarse requiem above the grave. But neither then nor at any future time did Polaris tell the girl of the supreme sacrifice Kalin made at the last, not wishing to make her suffer more regret.
On the rude grave he had made he piled a few loose fragments of rock, and turned to the task of breaking camp for the next northward lap into the wild land.
Two hundred miles to the north and east, three men were gathered on the snow crust in a little valley, wrenching and thrumming at the wires and pinions of the first bird-machine that ever had penetrated into the fastnesses of the antarctic.
All was taut for the start. The wings were set. The engines responded to the power. The propeller thrilled the air. Into the seat climbed a lean, fur-clad young man, with a thin face, high cheek-bones shadowing deep-set, cold, blue eyes, and a wisp of drab moustache above thin, eager lips.
"Ready there, Aronson," he said, to a man standing by.
A second later Captain James Scoland sailed majestically away into the white mystery of the unknown polar land.
At the door of the snow house that had been their home for days, Aronson and Mikel, who had pressed with him to his farthest south camp, watched his going with shaded eyes. A tiny silken flag bearing the stars and stripes, fluttered from one of the canvas plane wings. Mikel watched it as far as it was distinguishable.
"An' here's hopin' he carries Old Glory safely through to the pole—an' back again!" he shouted.