Still they all kept up their good spirits, and Mr. Damon concocted some new dishes from the meat of the musk oxen. It was about a week after the fight with the savage creatures when, one day, as Ned was on duty in the pilothouse, he happened to look down. What he saw caused him to call to Tom.
"What's the matter?" demanded the young inventor, as he hurried forward.
"Look down there," directed Ned. "It looks as if we were sailing over a lot of immense beehives of the old-fashioned kind."
Tom looked. Below were countless, rounded hummocks of snow or ice. Some were very large—as immense as a great shed in which a dirigible balloon could be housed—while others were as small as the ice huts in which the Eskimos live.
"That's rather strange," remarked Tom. "I wonder—"
But he did not complete his sentence, for Abe Abercrombie, who had come to stand beside him, suddenly yelled out:
"The caves of ice! The caves of ice! Now I know where we are! We're close to the valley of gold! There are the caves of ice, and just beyond is th' place we're lookin' for! We've found it at last!"