"Wish we were aboard the Snowbird and that she was all right. That's what I wish."
"And I reckon the boy's right," said Phineas Roebach, with a sigh. "As much as I object to flying through the air, an airship now would be a God-send indeed."
What bear meat the wolves had not destroyed the water now washed away. The party had only that which Andy had smoked over the fire. But this was easily carried and their packs were not heavy when they prepared to leave the camp as soon after sunset as the frost would allow.
The terrific change from the heat of midsummer to the cold of midwinter, and all within something near twenty-four hours, was hard indeed to bear. The professor calculated that the drop in temperature from high noon was, two hours after sunset, exactly seventy degrees Fahrenheit.
"Human life will become extinct upon this fragmentary planet, if nothing further happens to it, in a very few years," he said, thoughtfully. "We are not attuned to such frightful changes."
They had eaten, and had packed their supplies. The earth had long since appeared again and the radiance she reflected fell softly upon the ice-field. It glistened like silver, stretching, miles and miles away before them when they climbed down from the fringe of trees in which they had encamped, and set out down the glacier.
They traveled carefully at first, for there were sinks in the ice which had barely skimmed over since sun-down. The thermometer registered 18 above zero, however, and the biting cold was congealing all lakes and pools very rapidly. Where they tramped through the slush their footprints froze behind them. In an hour the mercury had fallen ten degrees more and they were beating their gloved hands across their breasts to keep up the circulation.
They tramped on at good speed for several hours. Here and there along either edge of the glacier, were groves of fir trees like the one they had encamped in. But in places the ice had melted from under and around these patches of rock and soil and the roots of the trees were exposed, while the earth had slumped away in small land-slips until nothing but a heap of debris was left.
The old professor grew weary and Andy insisted upon making camp again and resting. While they were warming themselves over the fire the old hunter built, and Wash was boiling some coffee, Jack suddenly beheld several shining points of light in the little wood on the edge of which they had halted.
"Look out! We're being watched," he whispered in Andy's ear.