To the southward Billy noticed a faint grayish streak in the sky, and soon he could see the white caps that the breakers always wear to keep their heads warm on windy days.
They were going very fast. Little white specks that seemed to be flying past beneath them he now saw were icebergs, and by-and-by these began to appear in great numbers, dotting the sea like schools of tiny islands in all directions.
Although the light was growing brighter all the time, he was still aware of a faint flickering glow to the northward, and this his friends told him was Aurora Borealis flashing the news that the Equator and the Evening Star were still in the neighborhood.
“I wish this thing would hurry,” said Nimbus impatiently. “We are not going more than five hundred miles an hour now. Mere dawdling, I call it.”
“Crawling,” said Jack Frost.
“I wonder how long it will be before we catch up to them,” said Billy.
“Can’t tell,” said Nimbus. “Depends on whether we are going in their direction or not.”
Suddenly Jack Frost gave a roar of rage.
“Look there!” he shouted. “Just look there. It took me centuries to make that glacier, and now look at it. Isn’t that a shame?”
Below them, where a range of snowy mountains skirted the sea, they saw a long dark streak which, when more closely observed, proved to be a mountain area entirely bared of snow and leading like a great broad road to the north.