The boys all talked in excited tones as they made their way forward. If the object sticking above the gully's edge proved actually to be a mast it was in all probability a spar of the ship they sought. The thought put new life into every one and they hurried forward over the hard snow at their swiftest pace.
The professor was in the lead, talking away at a great rate, his long legs opening and shutting like scissor blades.
"Perhaps I may find a fur-bearing pollywog after all," he cried; "if you boys have found your ship surely it is reasonable to suppose that I can find my pollywog?"
"Wouldn't you rather find a Viking ship filled with gold and ivory, and frozen in the ice for hundreds of years, than an old fur-bearing pollywog?" demanded Billy.
"I would not," rejoined the professor with much dignity; "the one is only of a passing interest to science and a curious public. The other is an achievement that will go ringing down the corridors of time making famous the name of the man who braved with his life the rigors of the South Polar regions to bring back alive a specimen of the strange creature whose existence was surmised by Professor Thomas Tapper, A.M., F.R.G.S., M.Z., and F.O.X.I.—Ow! Great Heavens!"
As the professor uttered this exclamation an amazing thing happened.
The snow seemed to open under his feet and with a cry of real terror which was echoed by the boys, who a second before had been listening with somewhat amused faces to his oratory, he vanished as utterly as if the earth had swallowed him—which it seemed it had indeed.
"The professor has fallen into a crevasse!" shouted Frank, who was the first of the group to realize what had occurred.
Billy and Harry were darting forward toward the hole in the snow through which the scientist had vanished when a sharp cry from the elder boy stopped them.
"Don't go a step further," he cried.