“That’s right,” agreed Ned. “I did not think of that.”
“So,” concluded Tom firmly, “I am going to descend into that middle valley——”
“Not between those two peaks, Tom?” cried his friend. “That is a bad hole to get out of.”
“I mean the valley just beyond. See! Look close.”
He managed the controls so that the great flying boat headed in between the tall pinnacles of ice. As they rushed into the narrow valley between the greenish-white walls of ice, they found the cleft much deeper than they had at first supposed. There was an unexpected draught through the passage, too.
The Winged Arrow swerved unexpectedly to one side, and her right wing scraped along the ice cliff. The plane was jarred from stem to stern and several cables snapped.
The collision dislodged a huge mass of the ice that came tumbling down, barely missing the tail of the boat and falling with a thunderous crash into the bottom of the gorge.
“You’d better get out of this, Tom!” yelled Ned. “Shoot her up!”
The passage between the ice cliffs was too narrow and crooked, however, for Tom to risk any abrupt ascent. Still rocking from the force of that slam against the ice, the seaplane staggered on, but at reduced speed. The valley was several miles long.
Again and yet again the end of one wing or the other touched the ice. These slight collisions did no particular harm, but they emphasized the fact that Tom could not govern the mechanism as perfectly as he had before.