There was certainly need of dispatch if the party was to reach the ship before the pack should break.
It was a long, arduous trip back through the fiord. It would require much time to make the trip.
Frank would have started at once, but he felt in duty bound to first learn the fate of the captain and his men for a certainty. There was a faint possibility, of course, that they had made their escape.
So a party was made up and sent along the mountain side. Frank and Barney and Randall were the members of the party.
Before he returned Frank was determined to accomplish one thing, and this was to gain the summit of the southern mountain wall and take a look at the country beyond.
They were well armed, for there was no telling what perils they might encounter on the way. They struck out along the southern verge of the crater.
Soon they were out of sight of the Scorcher among the huge bowlders. Frank led the way.
But they had little idea of the character of the region through which they were now compelled to travel.
It was fearfully rough and in places almost inaccessible.
They climbed along the mountain wall for hours and yet the southern end of the valley looked an interminable distance away. Finally they sank down from sheer exhaustion.