"That we have some very undesirable neighbors at close quarters," rejoined Captain Hazzard.
CHAPTER XXI.
A PENGUIN HUNT.
Although, as may be imagined, a closer watch than ever was kept during the period of darkness, nothing more was seen that winter of the mysterious light. The dim twilight preceding spring began to appear in February without there being any recurrence of the mysterious incident. The coming of the season in which they hoped to accomplish such great things, found the camp of the adventurers in splendid trim. Everyone from Captain Hazzard down to the professor's albatross, which by this time had become quite tame, was in fine health, and there had been not the slightest trace of illness among the adventurers.
The motor-sledge was put together as soon as the September spring began to advance, and was found to work perfectly. As it has not been described in detail hitherto, a few words may be devoted to it at this point.
It was a contrivance, about twenty feet long by three wide, supported on hollow "barrels" of aluminum. The sledge itself was formed of a vanadium steel frame with spruce planking, and was capable of carrying a load of a thousand pounds at thirty miles an hour over even the softest snow, as its cylindrical supports did not sink into the snow as ordinary wheels would have done. The motor was a forty-horse power automobile machine with a crank-case enclosed in an outer case in which a vacuum had been created—on the principle of the bottles which keep liquids cold or warm. In this instance the vacuum served to keep the oil in the crank-case, which was poured in warm, at an even temperature. The gasolene tank, which held twenty gallons, was also vacuum-enclosed, and as an additional precaution the warm gases from the exhaust were inducted around it, and the space used for storing extra cans of fuel.
Specially prepared oils and a liberal mixing of alcohol with the gasolene afforded a safeguard against any sudden freezing of the vital fluids. The engine was, of course, jacketed, but was air-cooled, as water circulation would have been impracticable in the polar regions.
The test of the weird-looking contrivance was made on a day in early spring, when, as far as the eye could reach, a great solid sea of ice spread to the northward, and to the south only a vast expanse of snowy level was visible,—with far in the distance the outlines of some mountains which, in Captain Hazzard's belief, guarded the plateau on the summit of which perhaps lay the South Pole.
The Southern Cross lay sheathed in ice, and the open sea, through which she had approached the Great Barrier, was now a solid ocean of glacial ice. If it did not break up as the spring advanced the prospect was bad for the adventurers getting out that year, but at this time they were too engrossed with other projects to give their ultimate release much thought.
But to return to the motor-sledge. With Frank at the steering wheel in front and Harry, Billy Barnes, the professor, and Rastus distributed about its "deck," it was started across the snow, amid a cheer from the men, without a hitch. So splendidly did it answer that the boys drove on and on over the white wastes without giving much thought to the distance they traversed.