“We may be misled after all by these fissures,” Dick spoke when they had resumed their journey “New cracks form pretty often, and it’s possible the main fissures Corporal Thalman observed while Mistak was taking him to the prison pit are not the main ones any longer.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Sandy replied. “A lot of small fissures might show up in eight months’ time, but these big fissures are very old and they wouldn’t change much.”
By this time they had reached another small fissure, about the size of the first one, but much longer. As far as they could see on either side of them the crooked crack stretched away like a huge, black snake, wriggling across the snow-bound glacier roof.
Keeping a rough account of the miles they had traversed since reaching the top of the glacier, they believed the first main fissure could not be far away according to the map. An hour after crossing the first small fissure, they reached what they were almost certain was the first main fissure. In places it yawned to an unestimable depth, and at many points was more than twenty feet in width. After sledging along the rim of it for a half mile they located a natural bridge of ice over which they crossed without mishap.
Excited by their success so far, they increased their pace, again crossing numerous small chasms in the glacier before arriving at the rim of the second main fissure. This they finally contrived to bridge at a point where a jutting ice ledge partly spanned the seemingly bottomless void.
From there on, the top of the glacier ceased to be level. Great holes yawned everywhere amidst heaps of shattered ice many feet in height. Apparently, at some time years ago, two divisions of the glacier had met there in their slow progress, crumbling their giant fronts upon one another.
In the midst of the veritable “bad lands” of ice they came upon what they were reasonably certain was the third main fissure, somewhere at the bottom of which was the pit in which Corporal Thalman had been imprisoned. But the immensity of the task still ahead of them awed the boys. For, though they had reached the fissure, it was miles long and they had no way of judging any nearer than five or ten miles just where the prison pit was located.
“There’s nothing to do but look for a way of climbing down to the bottom of the fissure,” Dick finally spoke. “Mistak must know a way to get down there, and if we look long enough, we can find it.”
“Maybe we ought to wait until the policemen get here,” Sandy expressed his doubts, while gazing down into the black chasm that was the main fissure.
“No, it’s best we keep on trying since we’ve come this far without any fatal accidents. Corporal McCarthy can trail us wherever we go, so there’s no need waiting for him and the Constable.”