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The Boy Aviators\' Polar Dash

C >> Captain Wilbur Lawton >> The Boy Aviators\' Polar Dash



Produced by Paul Hollander, Juliet Sutherland, Ben Byer,
Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team




THE BOY AVIATORS' POLAR DASH

OR

FACING DEATH IN THE ANTARCTIC



BY

CAPTAIN WILBUR LAWTON
(pseudonym for John Henry Goldfrap)




Boy Aviators' Series

By Captain Wilbur Lawton

1 THE BOY AVIATORS IN NICARAGUA;
or, In League with the Insurgents.

2 THE BOY AVIATORS ON SECRET SERVICE;
or, Working with Wireless.

3 THE BOY AVIATORS IN AFRICA;
or, An Aerial Ivory Trail.

4 THE BOY AVIATORS' TREASURE QUEST;
or, The Golden Galleon.

5 THE BOY AVIATORS IN RECORD FLIGHT;
or, The Rival Aeroplane.

6 THE BOY AVIATORS' POLAR DASH;
or, Facing Death in the Antarctic.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER
I. The Polar Ship
II. A Mysterious Robbery
III. Off for the South Pole
IV. A Message from the Air
V. A Tragedy of the Skies
VI. A Strange Collision
VII. Adrift on a Floating Island
VIII. Caught in the Flames
IX. A Queer Accident
X. The Professor is Kidnapped
XI. A Battle in the Air
XII. Adrift
XIII. The Ship of Olaf the Viking
XIV. Marooned on an Ice Floe
XV. Dynamiting the Reef
XVI. A Polar Storm
XVII. The Great Barrier
XVIII. The Professor Takes a Cold Bath
XIX. Facing the Polar Night
XX. A Mysterious Light
XXI. A Penguin Hunt
XXII. The Flaming Mountain
XXIII. Adrift Above the Snows
XXIV. Swallowed by a Crevasse
XXV. The Viking's Ship
XXVI. Caught in a Trap
XXVII. The Fate of the Dirigible
XXVIII. The Heart of the Antarctic




THE BOY AVIATORS' POLAR DASH

OR

FACING DEATH IN THE ANTARCTIC




CHAPTER I.

THE POLAR SHIP.


"Oh, it's southward ho, where the breezes blow; we're off for the
pole, yo, ho! heave ho!"

"Is that you, Harry?" asked a lad of about seventeen, without looking
up from some curious-looking frames and apparatus over which he was
working in the garage workshop back of his New York home on Madison
Avenue.

"Ay! ay! my hearty," responded his brother, giving his trousers a
nautical hitch; "you seem to have forgotten that to-day is the day we
are to see the polar ship."

"Not likely," exclaimed Frank Chester, flinging down his wrench and
passing his hand through a mop of curly hair; "what time is it?"

"Almost noon; we must be at the Eric Basin at two o'clock."

"As late as that? Well, building a motor sledge and fixing up the
Golden Eagle certainly occupies time."

"Come on; wash up and then we'll get dinner and start over."

"Will Captain Hazzard be there?"

"Yes, they are getting the supplies on board now."

"Say, that sounds good, doesn't it? Mighty few boys get such a chance.
The South Pole,--ice-bergs--sea-lions,--and--and--oh, heaps of
things."

Arm in arm the two boys left the garage on the upper floor of which
they had fitted up their aeronautical workshop. There the Golden
Eagle, their big twin-screw aeroplane, had been planned and partially
built, and here, too, they were now working on a motor-sledge for the
expedition which now occupied most of their waking--and
sleeping--thoughts.

The Erie Basin is an enclosed body of water which forms at once a
repair shop and a graveyard for every conceivable variety of vessel,
steam and sail, and is not the warmest place in the world on a chill
day in late November, yet to the two lads, as they hurried along a
narrow string-piece in the direction of a big three-masted steamer,
which lay at a small pier projecting in an L-shaped formation, from
the main wharf, the bitter blasts that swept round warehouse corners
appeared to be of not the slightest consequence--at least to judge by
their earnest conversation.

"What a muss!" exclaimed Harry, the younger of the two lads.

"Well," commented the other, "you'd hardly expect to find a wharf,
alongside which a south polar ship is fitting up, on rush orders, to
be as clean swept as a drawing-room, would you?"

As Harry Chester had said, the wharf was "a muss." Everywhere were
cases and barrels all stenciled "Ship Southern Cross, U. S. South
Polar Expedition." As fast as a gang of stevedores, their laboring
bodies steaming in the sharp air, could handle the muddle, the
numerous cases and crates were hauled aboard the vessel we have
noticed and lowered into her capacious holds by a rattling, fussy
cargo winch. The shouts of the freight handlers and the sharp shrieks
of the whistle of the boss stevedore, as he started or stopped the
hoisting engine, all combined to form a picture as confused as could
well be imagined, and yet one which was in reality merely an orderly
loading of a ship of whose existence, much less her destination, few
were aware.

As the readers of The Boy Aviators in Record Flight; or, The Rival
Aeroplane, will recall, the Chester boys, in their overland trip for
the big newspaper prize, encountered Captain Robert Hazzard, a young
army officer in pursuit of a band of renegade Indians. On that
occasion he displayed much interest in the aeroplane in which they
were voyaging over plains, mountains and rivers on their remarkable
trip. They in turn were equally absorbed in what he had to tell them
about his hopes of being selected for the post of commander of the
expedition to the South Pole, which the government was then
considering fitting out for the purpose of obtaining meteorological
and geographical data. The actual attainment of the pole was, of
course, the main object of the dash southward, but the expedition was
likewise to do all in its power to add to the slender stock of the
world's knowledge concerning the great silences south of the 80th
parallel. About a month before this story opens the young captain had
realized his wish and the Southern Cross--formerly a stanch
bark-rigged whaler--had been purchased for uses of the expedition.

Their friend had not forgotten the boys and their aeroplane and in
fact had lost no time in communicating with them, and a series of
consultations and councils of war had ended in the boys being signed
on as the aviators of the expedition. They also had had assigned to
their care the mechanical details of the equipment, including a motor
sledge, which latter will be more fully described later.

That the consent of the boys' parents to their long and hazardous trip
had not been gained without a lot of coaxing and persuasion goes
without saying. Mrs. Chester had held out till the last against what
she termed "a hare-brained project," but the boys with learned
discourses on the inestimable benefits that would redound to
humanity's benefit from the discovery of the South Pole, had overborne
even her rather bewildered opposition, and the day before they stood
on the wharf in the Erie Basin, watching the Southern Cross swallowing
her cargo, like a mighty sea monster demolishing a gigantic meal, they
had received their duly signed and witnessed commissions as aviators
to the expedition--documents of which they were not a little proud.

"Well, boys, here you are, I see. Come aboard."

The two boys gazed upward at the high side of the ship from whence the
hail had proceeded. In the figure that had addressed them they had at
first no little difficulty in recognizing Captain Hazzard. In grimy
overalls, with a battered woolen cap of the Tam o' Shanter variety on
his head, and his face liberally smudged with grime and dust,--for on
the opposite side of the Southern Cross three lighters were at work
coaling her,--a figure more unlike that of the usually trim and trig
officer could scarcely be imagined.

The lads' confusion was only momentary, however, and ended in a hearty
laugh as they nimbly ascended the narrow gangway and gained the deck
by their friend's side. After a warm handshake, Frank exclaimed
merrily:

"I suppose we are now another part of the miscellaneous cargo, sir. If
we are in the way tell us and we'll go ashore again."

"No, I've got you here now and I don't mean to let you escape,"
laughed the other in response; "in my cabin--its aft there under the
break in the poop, you'll find some more overalls, put them on and
then I'll set you both to work as tallyers."

Harry looked blank at this. He had counted on rambling over the ship
and examining her at his leisure. It seemed, however, that they were
to be allowed no time for skylarking. Frank, however, obeyed with
alacrity.

"Ay, ay, sir!" he exclaimed, with a sailor-like hitch at his trousers;
"come, Harry, my hearty, tumble aft, we might as well begin to take
orders now as any other time."

"That's the spirit, my boy," exclaimed the captain warmly, as Harry,
looking a bit shamefaced at his temporary desire to protest, followed
his brother to the stern of the ship.

Once on board there was no room to doubt that the Southern Cross had
once been a whaler under the prosaic name of Eben A. Thayer. In fact
if there had been any indecision about the matter the strong smell of
oil and blubber which still clung to her, despite new coats of paint
and a thorough cleaning, would have dispelled it.

The engine-room, as is usual in vessels of the type of the converted
whaler, was as far aft as it could be placed, and the boys noticed
with satisfaction as they entered the officers' quarters aft, that the
radiators had been connected with the boilers and had warmed the place
up to a comfortable temperature. A Japanese steward showed them into
Captain Hazzard's cabin, and they selected a suit of overalls each
from a higgledy-piggledy collection of oil-skins, rough pilot-cloth
suits and all manner of headgear hanging on one of the cabin
bulkheads.

They had encased themselves in them, and were laughing at the
whimsical appearance they made in the clumsy garments, when the
captain himself entered the cabin.

"The stevedores have knocked off for a rest spell and a smoke and the
lighters are emptied," he announced, "so I might as well show you boys
round a bit. Would you care to?"

Would they care to? Two hearty shouts of assent left the young
commander no doubt on this score.

The former Eben A. Thayer had been a beamy ship, and the living
quarters of her officers astern left nothing to be desired in the way
of room. On one side of the cabin, extending beneath the poop deck,
with a row of lights in the circular wall formed by the stern, were
the four cabins to be occupied by Captain Hazzard, the chief engineer,
a middle-aged Scotchman named Gavin MacKenzie, Professor Simeon
Sandburr, the scientist of the expedition, and the surgeon, a Doctor
Watson Gregg.

The four staterooms on the other side were to be occupied by the boys,
whom the lieutenant assigned to the one nearest the stern, the second
engineer and the mate were berthed next to them. Then came the cabin
of Captain Pent Barrington, the navigating officer of the ship, and
his first mate, a New Englander, as dry as salt cod, named Darius
Green. The fourth stateroom was empty. The steward bunked forward in a
little cabin rigged up in the same deck-house as the galley which
snuggled up to the foot of the foremast.

Summing up what the boys saw as they followed their conductor over the
ship they found her to be a three-masted, bark-rigged vessel with a
cro' nest, like a small barrel, perched atop of her mainmast. Her
already large coal bunkers had been added to until she was enabled to
carry enough coal to give her a tremendous cruising radius. It was in
order to economize on fuel she was rigged for the carrying of sail
when she encountered a good slant of wind. Her forecastle, originally
the dark, wet hole common to whalers, had been built up till it was a
commodious chamber fitted with bunks at the sides and a swinging table
in the center, which could be hoisted up out of the way when not in
use. Like the officers' cabins, it was warmed by radiators fed from
the main boilers when under way and from the donkey, or auxiliary,
boiler when hove to.

Besides the provisions, which the stevedores, having completed their
"spell," were now tumbling into the hold with renewed ardor, the deck
was piled high with a strange miscellany of articles. There were
sledges, bales of canvas, which on investigation proved to be tents,
coils of rope, pick-axes, shovels, five portable houses in knock-down
form, a couple of specially constructed whale boats, so made as to
resist any ordinary pressure that might be brought to bear on them in
the polar drift, and nail-kegs and tool-chests everywhere.

Peeping into the hold the boys saw that each side of it had been built
up with big partitions, something like the pigeon-holes in which bolts
of cloth are stored in dry-goods shops--only much larger. Each of
these spaces was labeled in plain letters with the nature of the
stores to be placed there so that those in charge of the supplies
would have no difficulty in laying their hands at once on whatever
happened to be needed. Each space was provided with a swiveled bar of
stout timber which could be pulled across the front of the opening in
heavy weather, and which prevented anything plunging out.

Captain Hazzard explained that the heavy stores were stowed forward
and the provisions aft. A gallery ran between the shelves from stem to
stern and provided ready access to any part of the holds. A system of
hot steam-pipes had been rigged in the holds so that in the antarctic
an equable temperature could be maintained. The great water tanks were
forward immediately below the forecastle. The inspection of the
engines came last. The Southern Cross had been fitted with new
water-tube boilers--two of them--that steamed readily on small fuel
consumption. Her engine was triple expansion, especially installed, as
the boilers had been, to take the place of the antiquated machinery
boasted by the old Thayer.

"Hoot, mon, she's as fine as a liner," commented old MacKenzie, the
"chief," who had taken charge of the boys on this part of their
expedition over the vessel, which was destined to be their home for
many months.

"Some day," said Frank, "every vessel will be equipped with gasoline
motors and all this clumsy arrangement of boilers and complicated
piping will be done away with."

The old Scotch engineer looked at him queerly.

"Oh, ay," he sniffed, "and some day we'll all go to sea in pea-soup
bowls nae doot."

"Well, a man in Connecticut has built a schooner out of cement,"
declared Harry.

The engineer looked at him and slowly wiped his hands on a bit of
waste.

"I ken his head must be a muckle thicker nor that," was his comment,
at which both the boys laughed as they climbed the steel ladders that
led from the warm and oily regions to the deck. The engineer, with a
"dour" Scot's grin, gazed after them.

"Hoots-toots," he muttered to his gauges and levers, "the great ice
has a wonderful way with lads as cocksure as them twa."




CHAPTER II.

A MYSTERIOUS ROBBERY.


Their inspection of the Southern Cross completed, the delighted boys
accompanied Captain Hazzard back to the main cabin, where he unfolded
before them a huge chart of the polar regions.

The chart was traced over in many places with tiny red lines which
made zig-zags and curves over the blankness of the region south of the
eightieth parallel.

"These lines mark the points reached by different explorers,"
explained the captain. "See, here is Scott's furthest south, and here
the most recent advance into south polar regions, that of Sir Ernest
Shackleton. In my opinion Shackleton might have reached his goal if he
had used a motor sledge, capable of carrying heavy weights, and not
placed his sole dependence on ponies."

The boys nodded; Frank had read the explorer's narrative and realized
that what Captain Hazzard said was in all probability correct.

"It remains for your expedition to carry the Stars and Stripes further
to the southward yet," exclaimed Frank, enthusiastically, as Captain
Hazzard rolled up the map.

"Not only for us," smiled the captain; "we have a rival in the field."

"A rival expedition?" exclaimed Frank.

"Exactly. Some time this month a Japanese expedition under Lieutenant
Saki is to set out from Yokahama for Wilkes Land.

"They are to be towed by a man-of-war until they are in the polar
regions so as to save the supply of coal on the small steamer they are
using," went on the captain. "Everything has been conducted with the
utmost secrecy and it is their intention to beat us there if
possible--hence all this haste."

"How did our government get wind of the fact that the Japs are getting
ready another expedition?" inquired Frank, somewhat puzzled.

"By means of our secret service men. I don't doubt that the Japanese
secret service men in this country have also notified their government
of our expedition. England also is in the race but the Scott
expedition will not be ready for some time yet."

"You think, then, that the Japs have secret agents keeping track of
us?" was Frank's next question.

The captain's reply was cut short by a loud crash. They all started up
at the interruption. So intent had they been in their conversation
that they had not noticed the Jap steward standing close behind them
and his soft slippers had prevented them hearing his approach. The
crash had been caused by a metal tray he had let drop. He now stood
with as much vexation on his impassive countenance as it ever was
possible for it to betray.

"What on earth are you doing, Oyama?" sharply questioned Captain
Hazzard.

"I was but about to inquire if the cap-it-an and the boys would not
have some refreshments," rejoined the Jap.

"Not now, we are busy," replied Captain Hazzard, with what was for him
some show of irritation. "Be off to your pantry now. I will ring if I
want you."

With an obsequious bow the Jap withdrew; but if they could have seen
his face as he turned into his small pantry, a cubby-hole for dishes
and glasses, they would have noticed that it bore a most singular
expression.

"It seems curious that while we were talking of Jap secret service men
that your man should have been right behind us," commented Frank. "I
don't know that I ought to ask such a question--but can you trust
him?"

The captain laughed.

"Oh, implicitly," he said easily, "Oyama was with me in the
Philippines, and has always been a model of all that a good servant
should be."

Soon after this the conference broke up, the boys having promised to
have their aeroplane on board early the next day. Frank explained that
the machine was all ready and in shape for shipping and all that
remained to do was to "knock it down," encase it in its boxes and get
a wagon to haul it to the pier.

"Say, Harry," said Frank earnestly, as the boys, having bade their
leave of Captain Hazzard, who remained on board owing to press of
business on the ship, made their way along the maze of wharves and
toward a street car.

"Say it," responded Harry cheerfully, his spirits at the tip-top of
excitement at the idea of an almost immediate start for the polar
regions.

"Well, it's about that Jap."

"Oh that yellow-faced bit of soft-footed putty--well, what about him?"

"Well, that 'yellow-faced bit of putty,' as you call him, is not so
easily dismissed from my mind as all that. I'm pretty sure that he had
some stronger reason than the one he gave for coming up behind us as
silently as a cat while we were talking."

"But Captain Hazzard says that he has had him for years. That he can
trust him implicitly," protested Harry.

"Just the same I can't get it out of my mind that there is something
wrong about the fellow. I wish he hadn't seen that map and the
proposed route of our expedition."

"Oh bosh, you are thinking of what Captain Hazzard said about the Jap
secret service. Our friend Oyama is much too thick to be a secret
service man."

"He simply looks unimpressive," rejoined Frank. "For that reason alone
he would make a good man for any such purpose."

"Well, here comes a car," interrupted Harry, "so let's board it and
forget our Japanese friend. Depend upon it you'll find out that he is
all O. K. long before we sight an iceberg."

"I hope so, I'm sure," agreed Frank; but there was a troubled look on
his face as he spoke.

However, not later than the next morning, as they were screwing up the
last of the big blue cases that contained the various parts of the
Golden Eagle, Billy Barnes, the young reporter who had accompanied the
two boys in all of their expeditions, including the one to Nicaragua,
where, with their aeroplane they helped make Central American history,
as related in The Boy Aviators in Nicaragua; or, Leagued with the
Insurgents,--Billy Barnes, the irrepressible, bounced into the garage
which they used as a workshop, and which was situated in the rear of
their house on Madison Avenue, with what proved to be important news
of the Jap.

"Aha, my young Scotts and Shackletons, I behold you on the verge of
your departure for the land of perpetual ice, polar bears and
Esquimaux," exclaimed the reporter, striking an attitude like that
assumed by Commander Peary in some of his pictures.

"Hullo, Billy Barnes," exclaimed both boys, continuing their work, as
they were pretty well used to the young reporter's unceremonious
calls, "What brings you out so early?"

"Oh, a little story to cover in the Yorkville Court and I thought as I
was up this way I'd drop off and pay my respects. Say, bring me back a
polar bear skin, will you?"

"A polar bear skin?" laughed Frank, "why there aren't any polar bears
at the South Pole."

"No polar bears," repeated Billy lugubriously, "what's the good of a
pole without polar bears. Me for the frozen north then. I suppose
you'll tell me next there are no natives at the South Pole either."

"Well, there are not," rejoined Frank.

"But there are sea-elephants and ice-leopards and--" began Harry.

"And sea-cats, I suppose," interrupted Billy.

"No," exclaimed Harry, rather nettled at the young reporter's joking
tone, "but there is the ship of Olaf--"

Frank was up like a shot.

"Didn't we give our word to the Captain not to mention a word about
that?" he demanded.

"That's so," assented Harry, abashed, "but I just wanted to show this
young person here that he can't treat our expedition with levity."

"The ship of Olaf, eh?" mused the young reporter, "sounds like a
story. Who was Olaf, if I may ask?"

"You may not ask," was Frank's rejoinder. "As you know, Billy, we have
been frank with you, of course under the pledge of secrecy which we
know you too well to dream of your breaking. You know we are bound for
the South Polar regions. You know also that the object of Captain
Hazzard is to discover the pole, if possible; in any event to bring
back scientific data of inestimable value; but there's one thing you
don't know and of which we ourselves know very little, and that is the
thing that Harry let slip."

"All right, Frank," said the young reporter, readily, "I won't say any
more about it, only it did sound as if it had possibilities. Hullo!
ten o'clock; I've got to be jogging along."

"What are you going to court about?" inquired Frank.

"Oh, a small case. Doesn't look as if it would amount to a row of
pins. A Jap who was arrested last night, more for safe-keeping than
anything else, I guess. He was found near the consulate of his country
and appeared to be under the influence of some drug. Anyhow, he
couldn't look after himself, so a policeman took him to a
station-house. Of course, there might be a story back of it and that's
why I'm on the job."

"A Jap, eh?" mused Frank curiously.

"Yes; do you number any among your acquaintance?" inquired Billy.

"Well, we do number one; don't we, Harry?" laughed Frank.

At that moment the telephone bell rang sharply in the booth erected in
the workshop in order to keep out noise when anyone was conversing
over the wire.

"Wait a second, I'll see what that call is," exclaimed Frank, bolting
into the booth. He was in it several seconds and when he came out his
face was flushed and he seemed excited.

"What's the matter--trouble?" inquired Billy, noting his apparent
perturbation.

"Yes, it is trouble in a way," assented Frank, "I guess we'll take a
run to court with you and look over this Jap of yours, Billy."

"Think you know him?"

"That's just what I want to see."

"You seem very anxious about it. Anything wrong?"

"Yes, very wrong. That was Captain Hazzard on the wire, and a
mysterious theft has occurred on the Southern Cross."




CHAPTER III.

OFF FOR THE SOUTH POLE.


The court-room was crowded as the boys entered it, but armed with
Billy's police card they soon made their way through a rail that
separated the main body of the place from the space within which the
magistrate was seated. On the way over Frank had related his
conversation over the wire with Captain Hazzard. It appeared that
Oyama, the Jap, was missing and that several papers bearing on the
objects of the expedition which were,--except in a general way,--a
mystery to the boys themselves, had been stolen.

Putting two and two together, Frank had made up his mind that the Jap
whose case Billy had been assigned to investigate was none other than
Oyama himself, and as they entered the space described above his eyes
eagerly swept the row of prisoners seated in the "Pen."

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