I went up on the bridge one morning to find Captain Biffer gazing intently through the glass at some distant object.

“There’s your South Shetlands,” he announced, as I approached, “Elephant Island, I should say. Looks pretty cold to me.”

I did not reply for a moment, but stood looking out over the black tossing waters that lie below Cape Horn. Somewhere it was, in this cold expanse, that my uncle’s vessel was believed to have gone down. Here, amid the crash of storm and surge, she had been last seen, more than twenty years before, and here must have perished: I swept the sea in every direction, as if seeking to locate the very spot.

“They used to come to the Shetlands after seal,” continued the Captain, “and they say there’s gold and precious stones on some of ’em. I never saw anybody that got any, though. Too cold, I guess, to look and dig for ’em.”

“Colder than the Klondike?”

“Klondike! Well, I should say so. There’s a warm current runs up that way. I never heard of any warm currents down here except the one you’re going to find. Just take a glance at that for a cold-looking country.”

I leveled the glass and scrutinized the blue outline ahead. It was a flat-topped, square formation, and there was a peculiar prismatic glow about it that suggested ice. I hesitated for some moments, however, before risking a reply. At last I was convinced.

“Yes, Captain Biffer,” I said, lowering the glass, “it is pretty cold—it’s an iceberg!”

Edith and Chauncey Gale, followed by Ferratoni, came up the stairs just in time to hear the Captain’s reply.

“An iceberg!” he jeered. “Well, I’ve seen a good many icebergs up north, but I never saw one like that. You mean an ice-box.”

I was quite calm. I could afford to be, for I felt that a moment of triumph was at hand.

“Yes, Captain,” I admitted, “you might liken it to that, I suppose, but it is an iceberg, nevertheless. The Arctic bergs which you have seen were split from glaciers and topped by tall pinnacles and turrets. They were more like castles or cathedrals. The Antarctic berg is usually a section of that great ice wall or barrier which we hope some day to reach. It is nearly always of this general character, and is frequently crossed by blue horizontal lines, showing its stratified formation from year to year.”

Before I had finished speaking the Captain was again studying the object ahead. A light mist had drifted across our bows, but it lifted now, and the square fortress-like walls in the distance shone clearly in the morning sun. Captain Biffer waited a moment longer. Then he came down handsomely.

“You’re right!” he said heartily, “I can see those lines from here. I know the Arctics,” he added, “but I guess I’m all at sea in these God-forsaken waters!”

It was a slight incident—an opportune display of a bit of knowledge which any boy familiar with Antarctic literature might have possessed—but my command of the expedition may be said to have dated from that moment. The next day fairly completed my triumph. Some large fragments of surface ice had come drifting to the ship and we were looking at them, over the side.

“Pancake ice,” commented the Captain. “We’ll get all we want of that, pretty soon.”

“Not exactly pancake ice, Captain,” I observed respectfully. “A combination of salt-water pancake with splinters of fresh-water, barrier ice. Those clear spots are the fresh-water formation.”

Captain Biffer regarded me a moment doubtfully. Then he gave an order to some sailors.

“Get up a piece of that ice!” he growled, “I want to look at it.”

A man was lowered over the side, and hacked off a fragment which was hauled on board. The Captain chipped out pieces of the white and the clear ice and tasted of them. Then he flung them overboard.

“You win!” he laughed, “I’m out of it, down here.”

“What’s that brown color on it?” asked Edith Gale.

“Dirt,” said the Captain. “Comes from the shore.”

“Captain,” I objected, “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to differ with you again.”

“What is it, then, if it ain’t dirt?” he grumbled.

“A growth,” I replied, “a plant—at least, I think it is. I can’t be sure, for I have never seen it before, but former explorers have reported an algÆ as giving such an appearance to old ice, and I think I can show that this is what they found.”

I ran down to my stateroom, and presently returned with a powerful microscope—a treasure from boyhood. I placed it upon a small table and putting a bit of the brown color on a slide adjusted the lenses. Then I beckoned to the Captain. He came and squinted into the glass steadily for a moment.

“Humph! seaweed!” he commented. “Well, I’ll be —— Say, look here, this is your ocean, and your expedition—you can have ’em!”

You see, it was my innings. Theoretically I knew more of this part of the world than any one on board, and theory was about all we had now to go on. I could see that Chauncey Gale was pleased. I suppose it had not always been easy to stand for me against the Captain’s poor opinion, and he felt that in some measure now he had been justified. Edith Gale, too, was not made less happy by these incidents, and the sailors, taking their cue from their chief officer, paid me an added and daily increasing respect. True, the Captain continued to navigate the ship, but in a general way I directed our course and experiments, and was regarded more and more as authority in matters of discussion and dispute.

High up on the mainmast I had constructed for me a crow’s nest, or lookout, from which to make observations. Chauncey Gale attended to this, and did it well, as he did everything he undertook. It was a stout, comfortable barrel arrangement, capable of holding three persons if necessary.

When it was done I viewed it from below with interest and misgivings. I had never been aloft, and I felt that an error in reaching my perch might conclude the expedition. The eyes of the ship were upon me, however, and it would not do to hesitate.

With a faint but resolute heart, I began the ascent. I did not dare to look back, and when at last I found myself safely inside the snug box, I was a bit weak and trembly, but swelling with triumph.

“Let me in, too, please!”

I looked down at my feet. It was Edith Gale, who had run lightly up behind me. I concealed any pride I may have had in my own accomplishment and drew her up.

“How pale you are,” she said, “are you ill?”

“No, oh no, it’s the—the excitement, I think.”

We leaned over and waved to those below. They waved back at us and cheered.

“How’s the weather up there?” called Gale.

“Cold,” I said. “Feels like the North Pole!” (It was, in fact, about zero at the time, but we did not mind it in the least.)

“What’s the matter with the South Pole?” This from Captain Biffer.

“Hot, there!” I yelled.

The Captain laughed.

“Well,” he shouted, “you’re right about some things, but you’ll find that barrel a parlor stove compared with the South Pole.”

Edith Gale leveled a glass toward the southern horizon. We were well down in the sixties, now. Icebergs and floating pack-ice had become common. To the southward lay mystery that in some weird form might at any moment rise above the somber waters. Presently she handed me the glass.

“See if you make out anything,” she said.

I looked steadily, and at first saw nothing. Then, low down, and stretching from rim to rim across our watery world, far-off and faint, rising, falling, lifting and disappearing. I saw a thin, uncertain, glittering edge—the ice-pack!

It was our turn, now, to cheer. Captain Biffer ran up to see and verify. By nightfall (the radiant dusk fell late now, for it was November, and the sun shone till ten o’clock) we were in the midst of loose, grinding ice—the edge of the pack.

The second stage of the Great Billowcrest Expedition had begun.