"H—m." The Doctor grew thoughtful, but a flash of hope gleamed in his eye.
"Tell you what," he said presently, "there's a considerable ice-floe between the islands; the north wind brought it down last night. Have your crew ready for a try-out in the morning."
With a heart that ached from pure joy of anticipation, Dave hurried to an ancient sealer's bunk-house where his men were housed. "A try-out, try-out, try-out," kept ringing in his ears. What did it mean if they were successful? Something big, wonderful, he was sure. Russian gold? Charting Northeast Passage? North Pole? He did not know, but nothing seemed too difficult for his daring young heart.
And the next day the try-out came. And such an ordeal as it was! Gobs had surely never been put to a test like that in any navy-yard training station! For five long hours they dived and rose and dived again. They rose suddenly, rose slowly; they tipped, glided, shot through the water. They passed for miles beneath the ice-floe, to emerge at last and bump a cake, or lift themselves toward a dark spot not larger than the sub itself—a patch of open water in the midst of the floe.
With mind all in a whirl, Dave gave the final command to make for port.
It had been a great day.
That night, after "chow," the Doctor called Dave into his room at the hospital.
"Young man," he said, motioning the boy to a seat, "you and your crew have surprised me beyond belief. I feel that we shall be risking little in attempting what, to many, might seem the most difficult task ever undertaken by a submarine. I do not yet feel free to tell you what that trip will be; you'll have to take that on faith. I can only tell you that we will proceed from here directly to Nome, Alaska. There we will get more oil and provisions. We will then sail through Behring Strait due North."
For a time the two sat in silence. The Doctor's face grew mellow, then sad at recollections of years that had gone.
"I don't mind telling you," he said after awhile, "that I am an explorer, you almost might say 'by profession;' that some years ago another explorer and I sought the same goal. We went from different points; both claimed to have reached it. But he got the honors."
"And you really reached—"