"Why look here—what do you make of that?"
"The needle has steadied and is pointing north!" cried Harry, as he gazed at the compass.
"North," echoed the professor.
"There's no question about it," rejoined Frank, knitting his brows.
"What is your explanation of this sudden reversal of the wind?" asked the professor.
"I know no more than you," replied the puzzled young aviator, "the only reason I can advance is that at the polar cap some strange influences rule the wind currents and that we are caught in a polar eddy, as it were."
"If it holds we are saved," cried the professor, who had begun to fear that they might never be able to emerge from their newly discovered region.
Hold it did and daybreak found the aeroplane above the same illimitable expanse of snow that marked the pole, but several miles to the north.
"I'm going down to take an observation," said Frank, suddenly, "and also, has it occurred to you fellows that we haven't eaten a bite since last night?"
"Jiminy crickets," exclaimed Billy Barnes, his natural flow of spirits now restored, "that's so. I'm hungry enough to eat even a fur-bearing pollywog, if there's one around here."