A day and a night passed before they finally got the ice ship out on the icy plain again, and resumed their journey over the ground toward the place where the whaler was in winter quarters.
The question that most troubled them was whether Ben Bolt had the shanghaied boy aboard his ship yet.
They did not know that he had contracted with Alfred Milburn to put Walter Grey out of the way, so the lawyer could gain possession of the boy’s fortune.
Nor did Bolt know that the lawyer was in prison, Mrs. Grey in possession of her husband’s fortune, and Frank on his track to rescue the boy.
The mammoth’s bones did not interfere with the Ranger’s work, whether she was in the sea, on the ice, or in the air, as she was calculated to carry a much greater weight.
Barney and Pomp were so delighted over their escape from the pass that they got out the fiddle and the banjo and struck up a lively melody as the ice ship sped along.
The cyclone had left a broad trail where it swept over the ice, tumbling great blocks here and there, sending the loose snow up in great drifts and sweeping the ice perfectly clean.
“Had the Ranger been caught in its grip,” said Frank, “there would by this time have been nothing left of her.”
“Then it’s lucky we ran into that cul-de-sac,” answered Vaneyke.
“Now to locate Nordenskjold Bay.”