He carefully read it over and then said:
“The man who discovered the remains said they were to be found in the ground at the head of Tchekin Bay, fifty miles north of here, on the eastern coast. The place is marked by a solitary cedar tree.”
“We shall be there in little more than an hour.”
Frank turned the flying ice ship up the coast.
As she passed the place haunted by the birds they flew away in fear, with a tremendous chorus of screams and violent whirring of wings.
The waves of the Kara Sea were breaking in a long line of foamy surf along the icy coast, and far out upon the heaving waters great bergs and ice floes were seen drifting along.
It was bitterly cold in the frozen sky, and the moisture from the low-hanging, gloomy clouds covered the Ranger with their vapor, which was quickly converted into slippery ice.
She was completely glazed with it in a short time, but the hot wires in the hollow masts kept the pivots free at the gyroscopes.
Pomp went down into the engine-room to lubricate the machinery, and as Barney was already there, he dodged out of sight behind a dynamo, from whence, he narrowly watched the darky’s movements.
The fun-loving Irishman had not forgotten the trick Pomp played on him in the Boston hotel.