CHAPTER XII.

THE BOY AND THE WOLVES.

“Frank! Frank!”

This cry startled the inventor.

He glanced up and saw the ice ship launch itself into the air and come sailing toward him.

Vaneyke was in the turret, and it was he who shouted.

The professor darted the searchlight down into the eyes of the whalers, bringing them to a pause.

Barney had gone out on deck with a rope.

One end was tied to the rail, and the other was dangling down.

As the boat swept over him, Frank grasped the noose in the end of the line, and shouted cheerily:

“I’ve got it!”

Up went the Ranger the next moment.

To the astonishment of the pursuers Frank was whirled up into the air over their heads, and before they could recover from their surprise he was far beyond their reach.

Pomp now rushed out upon deck.

Assisting Barney, they pulled Frank up.

As soon as he reached the deck he thanked his friends for their timely assistance and going into the turret with them he explained what Ben Bolt confessed to him.

“The case looks hopeless now,” said the professor.

“I don’t agree with you,” said Frank.

“How can you expect to find the boy?”

“By searching, of course. You must remember that the Gulf Stream sweeps along this shore. It would carry the quarter boat along with it. We must follow its course.”

“Are yez shure ther captain didn’t lie?” asked Barney.

“I noticed that one of the quarter boats was missing. That fact seems to bear out what he asserted.”

“But mebbe the boy got asho’,” suggested Pomp.

“He might,” Frank admitted; “but if the boat was towing, she would not be apt to have oars in her by means of which Grey could row her.”

“Why don’t you think so?” asked the professor.

“Because,” replied Frank, significantly, “if it was to the financial interest of Ben Bolt to have the boat break loose he would have taken mighty great pains to see that no oars were in the boat.”

“Den yo’ fink de boat wuz bruk loose apuppose, honey?”

“Most decidedly I do. I can see the hand of Captain Ben Bolt in that rascally deed most plainly.”

“How shall I steer the Ranger?”

“Up the coast, doctor.”

They left the Red Eric out of sight astern in the gloom, and were soon flying over the sea close to the shore.

The rays of the searchlight were bent down.

Sweeping the coast and sea continually as the boat was lowered, there was not much chance of an object so large as a quarter boat being missed by its broad glare of light.

The Ranger hovered but one hundred feet above the sea.

She went along very slowly.

To the left lay a great patch of clear, open water, in which no ice could stay without melting.

This was the northern arm of the Gulf Stream.

Supper was served.

Our friends now kept watch two by two.

Outside it was frightfully cold, for the thermometer mercury had fallen to thirty-five degrees below zero.

The air was fogged around the boat by clouds of fine needles of ice, through which the moonlight shone, making the sky gleam and glisten like polished silver.

To go out in this frozen moisture of air, leaving any part of the body exposed, meant frost bites of the severest kinds, as our friends knew by experience.

The night passed wearily away.

When day came, no sunlight appeared until eleven o’clock.

Even then it only lasted three hours.

“It hardly seems probable that the boat could have landed here,” said Frank. “That shore ice would keep it away.”

“There’s more likelihood of it having been crushed by the floating ice cakes,” replied the professor.

Just then Barney came in from the deck.

“Shtop her!” he exclaimed.

“What for?” demanded Frank.

“Shure, I see ther quarter boat.”

“You do? Where?”

“We’ve passed it.”

Frank lowered the Ranger, turned her around, and flung the light ahead at a spot indicated by the Irishman.

It was a heap of pack ice on the frozen coast.

Jammed in among the ice was a boat.

The position of the boat, half buried under the shelving ice, was such that it was almost hidden from view.

“No wonder we missed it,” said Frank.

“Faix, I’d a misht it meself,” replied Barney, “only I had a telescope in me fisht, so I did.”

The Ranger was brought to a pause above the boat a few yards, they saw that it was empty.

It contained no oars.

At the bow was a painter with a frayed end.

Frank eyed the ice with a glass, and saw a mantle of snow on it.

Presently he gave utterance to an exclamation.

“By jingo! A trail!”

“What?” eagerly asked Dr. Vaneyke.

“There’s a track of human footprints in the snow on the ice that run in toward the coast yonder.”

“Made by Walter Grey?”

“The marks are small, evidently those of a boy’s feet.”

“Frank, I think we will find him now.”

“I hope so, professor. Anyway, we’ll follow the tracks.”

He kept the flying machine within a few yards of the ice, and sent her slowly along inland toward some steep cliffs.

The enormous precipices towered up a thousand feet in the air, and formed the base of a tremendous mountain, which stood on the verge of the sea.

Along went the Ranger, and she presently drew close to the base of the cliffs.

Here a big beach was seen.

It looked as if it were the bed of a great mountain torrent.

The well-defined trail passed into this place, and the Ranger followed it up into the gloomy defile.

Frank had to raise the boat every few moments, as the path sloped at an acute angle.

After awhile they reached a level plateau at the top of the cliffs and observed that the trail ran to the left.

The Ranger still pursued it.

“How fortunate that no wind or snow storm occurred here since these tracks were made,” commented Frank. “Had it occurred the trail would have been eliminated.”

“Wha’ de deuce dat chile gwine up heah fo’?” asked Pomp.

“He must have had some purpose in view for doing it.”

“Begorra, there’s no ind to ther spalpeen’s walkin’,” said the Irishman. “It’s off we’ll foind his legs when we roon across him.”

“Hark! What’s that?” interposed Frank.

They all listened.

For awhile deep silence ensued.

Then they heard a faint, distant cry.

It came from the direction they followed.

And it was in a human voice, too.

“Some one in distress,” said the professor.

“Wha dem yudder voices?” asked the coon.

“Wolves!” cried Frank after a pause.

“Faith, it’s afther ther lad they must be!” cried Barney.

“I’ll hurry the boat along,” said Frank.

But just as he was about to do she sank to the ground, her gyroscopes having almost stopped whirling.

“Heavens! What’s this?” gasped Vaneyke.

“Something must have happened to the dynamo.”

“I’se gwine down fo’ to see.”

“We can use the batteries on the runner wheels yet!” cried Frank.

He started them going and followed the trail easier now.

At the same moment he heard a terrible noise up the mountain and saw an enormous snow slide coming down the side toward them.

Once this mass of tons upon tons of snow fell on them, the ice ship would be buried.

The Ranger was now rushing ahead again down a steep declivity that terminated at the edge of the lofty cliffs.

Ahead Frank now saw a boyish figure in the midst of a pack of ravenous wolves.

He was armed with a revolver, with which he was firing into them, while he shrieked to frighten them away.

Up to him rushed the ice ship.

Barney ran out on deck, and stood at the side of the boat to render the boy aid.

“Pomp!” screamed Frank, “is the dynamo fixed?” “Yassah!” came the reply. “Only a wire got unfastened.”

“There’s a wall ahead. We can’t go much further this way, Frank.”

“I’ll have to go over the edge of the cliff, then, doctor.”

“Good heavens!”

Into the pack of wolves rushed the boat, scattering the howling beasts right and left, and a scream of joy burst from the boy’s lips when he saw her coming.