Hour after hour they drove on. The speed of the Snowbird at times, when driven by the full force of the gale, had mounted to one hundred thirty miles an hour.
Great Slave Lake was far south of their route; yet the professor told them that, had it been clear, at the altitude they traveled, they could have seen and marked this great body of water.
They actually crossed the Great Bear Lake and the Mackenzie River, however, and saw the ragged peaks of the Rocky Mountains, which here almost touch the shores of the Arctic Sea. Blown on and on, with little diminution of speed, it was not many hours before the Snowbird was flying over Alaskan wilds. The flying machine had kept closely to the course the professor had laid out for her when they left Maine. They were still headed for the slopes of the Endicott Range and the native town of Aleukan.
The question paramount in all their minds, however, was this: Would they reach their destination in safety?
CHAPTER VII
DROPPED FROM THE SKY
A thick mantle of fog masked the heavens; but beneath this the wind—traveling at great velocity—drove the ragged clouds like frightened sheep across the pastures of the firmament.
The moon and stars gave so little light that the earth seemed but a vague and shadowy mass—nothing more. The wind shrieked in many voices, as though a troop of goblins raced through the air, or rode the strangely formed and hurrying clouds.
Driven on with the tumbling banks of vapor, as vaguely outlined in the gloom as the clouds themselves, was the great flying machine, which the wind buffeted and harried about as though against it Old Boreas had some special spite.
Jack was in the operator's seat; but there was little to do but hang on to the steering wheel. The wind blew them as it listed.