“Gee!” exclaimed Ned. “I wish you didn’t know so much. Why tell us that? I’ll get a crick in my neck now, I know, watching out for the ice to fall.”
But it was no joking matter. Kingston was right, as Tom well knew. Yet the young inventor felt that they should try as quickly as possible to find Mr. Damon and Mary’s father. If the two were still on the giant iceberg it would be well if they were discovered soon. Tom had no desire to remain marooned at the bottom of this gorge for long.
Captain Karofsen was still cheerfully optimistic about finding his seamen and passengers from the wrecked Kalrye. There were thousands of places in the iceberg where they might conceal themselves. And unless by chance they had seen the seaplane flying over the berg, the castaways would never know that a searching party had come to look for them.
The schooner captain, however, agreed that it would be unsafe to fire the guns. At least, it must not be done down here in the maw of the iceberg.
“We bane look for them—yes? If they haf been here they must leave somet’ing behind. We see where they camp—yes?”
“Come on!” Tom sang out. “We would better keep together. No knowing what there may be on this berg besides castaways.”
“Bears, for instance!” rejoined Ned Newton. “Come on, Koku. Maybe that big spear of yours may be of some use yet.”
The giant grinned and marched ahead with the spear poised for quick use. The party took up their march along the bottom of the gorge, leaving Brannigan and his helpers to repair the flying boat.
From above, as the flying boat had hovered over the ice peaks, the party had gained rather an unsatisfactory idea of what the gorge was like. But, of course, had it not been for the accident to the pontoon Tom would never have descended into the cañon between these towering, icy walls with his invention.
Beyond the place where the Winged Arrow had been forced to land there seemed to be several miles of the gorge, and it was by no means a straightaway cleft in the ice. It twisted and turned like the path of a tortured snake.