CHAPTER IX.

CAUGHT IN A TRAP.

An immense plain of ice stretched away ahead of the Ranger, and an hour after she started, with Barney at the wheel, Frank came rushing in from the deck, and cried, suddenly:

“Let her go for all she’s worth!”

“What’s the matter?” asked the startled Celt.

“Look back there and you’ll see!”

The Irishman did so, and a pallor overspread his freckled face as he saw that the Ranger was being pursued by an immense cyclonic cloud which was sweeping over the island.

It extended from the sky to the ground, black as ink, vivid tongues of lightning flying out of it, and it swept everything before it with irresistible fury.

Blocks of ice were flying through the air with the force of cannon balls, great clouds of it, ground to powder, rolled up like a fog before the rush of wind, and a roaring of the gale arose that sounded dreadful.

Barney put full speed in the driving wheels.

Click, click, click! they dug into the ice, the Ranger rushed on at a tremendous rate, and a wild buzz arose from the flying spokes and from under the steel runners.

“Be heavens! if that thing stroikes us it’s all over wid ther Ranger but ther shoutin’!” cried the Celt, nervously.

“We may be able to outstrip it in a race,” said Frank.

“It’s a-gainin’ on us now.”

“We’ll hoist the sails.”

“Can’t we rise in ther air an’ escape it?”

“No; don’t you see that it would reach us before we got above it?”

“Thrue for you, Misther Frank.”

The inventor dashed out on deck again, where Pomp and the doctor then were swiftly unfurling the sails.

Lending them his assistance, Frank quickly succeeded in getting the canvas up, and as there was a beam wind they hauled around the braces and stays, and the speed of the Ranger was materially increased.

She was now flying over the ice with all the speed at her command, and made a mile a minute.

The terrible cyclone was roaring on in her wake, its sable cloud spreading over a large tract of territory.

“We hold our own so far,” muttered the doctor.

“Golly, dis am wuss dan a lightnin’ express train,” said Pomp.

“It’s lucky we’ve got a clear field of ice ahead,” Frank remarked, as he clutched the railing. “If we hadn’t, that monster would soon reach us and hurl the Ranger up in the air.”

They had to watch the sails closely.

The canvas was bulging as if it would burst from the bolt ropes, and the wheel motors inside were fairly howling as the armatures flew around at the top of the speed imparted by the battery.

Along they shot, the terrific pace undiminished, the runner’s bumping over the lumpy spots, crashing across the cracks, and plowing up the snow they encountered.

Mile after mile was covered.

The exciting race was kept up for the northeast, for the cyclone followed the trend of the land.

Suddenly the strain on one of the square sails became so great that it burst in two with a report like a gun-shot.

In a moment the tattered canvas was wildly flying ahead from the yard, and as considerable power was lost, the speed of the Ranger was slightly diminished.

It made a vast difference, for the storm now began to gradually gain upon the ice ship.

The cloud was only a mile behind them.

“What a misfortune!” muttered Frank, in disgust.

“Kain’t we rig a new sail, honey?” asked the coon.

“We couldn’t,” replied the doctor. “We haven’t got strength enough. The wind would tear the canvas from our hands.”

Just then a shower of small icy lumps carried on in advance of the storm struck the boat.

It rattled against her like a volley of bullets.

Pelted all over, Frank and his companions were obliged to run into the turret for protection.

The missiles flying through the frozen sky in back of the first ones were very large.

As the Ranger continued to lose ground she now began to get pelted with these lumps.

Every blow that struck her gave back a metallic ring and the clattering clash of the ice breaking.

Barney now observed some vast ice hills off to the northwest about a league, and pointing at them, he said:

“Faith, it’s pertection we’d be afther havin’ if we wor ter get undher shelter av thim cliffs, sor.”

“Steer for them,” said Frank.

“But we’se gwine ter lose ground if we does.”

“Never mind, Pomp; we’re losing, anyway.”

“Begorra! we’re in a bad fix entoirely!”

“By heading for those cliffs we’ll have a free wind,” said Vaneyke.

“Good! You are right,” cried Frank. “That will increase our speed.”

Around spun the wheel which had been geared to the ice rudder, and as the boat swung off on the new tick, Frank and the coon hastened out, and slackened off the braces.

Around went the yards.

The wind now caught them free.

Instantly the ship’s speed was increased.

They did not feel the wind, now that they were going with it, but they continued to lose ground by tacking athwart the course of the cyclone, and the pelting ice blocks continued.

All hands were kept busy dodging them.

One of these blocks struck Pomp in the back and knocked him across the slippery deck.

He would have gone overboard, had Frank not reached out his hand and seized him.

Such a fall would have meant certain death for the darky, as the ice ship would have left him astern, and the raging storm would soon have reached and destroyed him.

They could do nothing further out there, so in they dove again.

The Ranger now resounded from the repeated blows she received; but she was rapidly nearing the icy cliffs.

Barney worked the wheel like a veteran ice boatman, and kept his eyes open for pitfalls filled with snow and crevices that could trip the boat or wedge the runners.

There were many openings among the ice cliffs, and as the Ranger dashed up to one of them the cyclone was only a short distance astern of her.

“Take that narrow gorge,” cried Frank.

“Shure, it may not go in all ther way,” expostulated Barney.

“True; but it will afford us most protection.”

“Jist as you say, me bye.”

And into it dashed the ice boat like lightning.

The pass was winding, and the bottom lumpy, and Barney grasped the levers with one hand.

All the rest went out to haul down the sails.

Around a curve swept the Ranger, as the canvas fluttered down, and Barney gave utterance to a startled exclamation, and hastily cut out the current, for the pass terminated in a cul-de-sac.

The ice ship was plunging with fearful velocity straight at the wall that rose to an immense height in front of her.

It seemed for a moment to Barney that she must run her long bowsprit against the hard wall.

Such a collision would probably smash her to pieces.

He rapidly lowered the side wheels.

Putting on the current, he reversed the wheels, and they tore through the ice with a terrific ripping sound.

The boat did not pause at once.

She slid along a considerable distance, her wheels ripping up the ice and sending it flying in two streams on each side of her.

Barney was frightened.

Then came a bang as the bowsprit struck.

But the shock was not heavy enough to break it.

The pole had run into a crevice, and there it was jammed.

Flung down by the collision, every one thought for a few moments that some serious injury had been done to the ship.

In this belief they were undeceived, as soon as they got upon their feet and saw how she struck.

The cyclone had by this time hit the cliffs.

Huge fragments of ice were torn off and hurled in the air, and a shower of splintered particles rained down in the ravine.

They drove Frank and his companions inside.

Further retreat was cut off by the dead wall, and the boat could not move any way on account of the bowsprit being caught.

All they could do was to wait.

The storm cloud raged fiercely about the cliffs.

It seemed to make an effort to tear them to pieces.

In this design it met with some success, but it finally passed on, leaving a broad trail of devastation behind, and sending enormous blocks of ice thundering down from the cliff tops.

Once it had passed ahead, Frank and his companions broke the ice away from around the bowsprit with axes, and released her.

She was then turned around.

Going aboard, they ran her back for the entrance to the ravine to get out on the icy plain again.

But when they reached the place where the opening had been, they found it blocked up by tons of the ice that had fallen down from the cliff tops.

The ice ship could not get out.

Every one was alarmed by this, for the ice blocks were so high and thick that they saw no possible means of getting the ship over it, for the top of the gorge was too contracted to allow her to fly up and thus pass the barrier.