The pressure which was piling the ice diminished rapidly, and the back edge of the cake proved a safe place to make camp. Soon they were boiling tea over a small oil stove and discussing the future as calmly as they might have done had they been in the old office-shack back on the Hudson Bay Railroad.
"Now to find where we are," exclaimed the Major, knocking the tea leaves from his cup.
The interest in this project was keen. After working out his reckoning, estimating the speed of their flight and counting the hours they had been in the air, the Major laid down his pencil.
"Fifty miles southeast of the Pole," he said at last. "Shall we attempt to go on or turn back?"
The boys looked at one another. Bruce read in his companions' eyes the desire to attempt the return with the dog-team. At the same time, he realized that the real genius of an explorer lay in his desire to push on. The Major had that genius.
"As for me," Bruce said finally, "I never decide anything of great importance until I have slept over it."
Barney smiled in spite of his anxiety and weariness.
But the Major, seeing the strained expression in the boys' faces, realized that the ultimatum of Bruce was a good one.
Soon the three companions were snug in their sleeping-bags, dreaming of a land of grass and flowers far, far away.
* * * * *