An immense plain of ice stretched away ahead of the Ranger, and an hour after she started, with Barney at the wheel, Frank came rushing in from the deck, and cried, suddenly:
“Let her go for all she’s worth!”
“What’s the matter?” asked the startled Celt.
“Look back there and you’ll see!”
The Irishman did so, and a pallor overspread his freckled face as he saw that the Ranger was being pursued by an immense cyclonic cloud which was sweeping over the island.
It extended from the sky to the ground, black as ink, vivid tongues of lightning flying out of it, and it swept everything before it with irresistible fury.
Blocks of ice were flying through the air with the force of cannon balls, great clouds of it, ground to powder, rolled up like a fog before the rush of wind, and a roaring of the gale arose that sounded dreadful.
Barney put full speed in the driving wheels.
Click, click, click! they dug into the ice, the Ranger rushed on at a tremendous rate, and a wild buzz arose from the flying spokes and from under the steel runners.
“Be heavens! if that thing stroikes us it’s all over wid ther Ranger but ther shoutin’!” cried the Celt, nervously.