Part 3

“It has always seemed to me that the people who see only firewood in trees, weather-signs in skies, and water-supply in rivers, miss a good deal of what is best in this world, and are perhaps not so well prepared for what they find in the next. And sometimes even those who care in a way for the beauties of the earth and sky miss a good deal of them, or care not in the best way. Sometimes they cut their trees into queer shapes, or chop away all the pretty tangle of foliage from a river bank, or lay out their gardens with a square and compass. I sketch and paint a little, and now and then I try to make people realize the beauty as well as the usefulness of nature, and that it’s a waste of time to do all those artificial things to it. It is quite simple to explain with pictures, you know, like an object lesson, and I show them that star-shaped flower-beds, and bare river banks, and ornamentally trimmed trees do not make as pretty pictures as they would the other way, and then sometimes I go further and say that maybe children, and grown folks, too, would be better and less artificial themselves if they were taught to care less for nature in its unnatural forms, and more as God made it. Your dream of an Antarctic world and an undiscovered race is very fascinating to me. I, also, have long had a dream of finding such a people, though it is far more likely that I should go to them to learn than to teach.”

Chauncey Gale had been watching her admiringly while she spoke. As for myself, if there had been one thing needed to complete my conversion, it was this revelation of her gentle doctrines. Gale, however, could not be long repressed.

“You’ve no idea how that sort of thing takes with commuters,” he said reverentially. “It’s sold more additions for me than all my advertising put together.”

“Oh, Daddy, how can you!”

“Look at that air of innocence,” said Gale, “it would deceive the oldest man living. You know very well, Johnnie, that the Bilgewater lots would never have moved in the world if you hadn’t gone out there and got those people all crazy on art values. Why, the art value of every lot in Bilgewater doubled in ten days, and they went off like chromos at a picture auction.”

“Papa!” said Miss Gale severely, “I went to Bridgewater, or Bilgewater, as you persist in calling it, and showed the people my pictures out there, because I was invited to do so, and because I saw by their lawns and gardens that they needed me. I had no thought of the material value and sale of your old lots, I can assure you, and I don’t believe my going made a particle of difference. If I had thought it possible, I shouldn’t have gone.”

It was evident that Gale’s fond pride in his daughter grew with every sentence.

“She’d deceive anybody in the world, except her old Daddy,” he persisted. “Get your pictures, Johnnie, and let Mr. Chase see them.”

I hastened to assure Miss Gale that I should consider it a privilege to look at her work, and she rose, leaving me with her father, whose eyes followed her proudly. For myself, I was in a decidedly miscellaneous condition, mentally. I could not permit myself even to hope that Gale really intended to undertake the expedition I had proposed. Yet there had been something about it all that suggested a sincere interest in my plans, in spite of the fact of his rather boisterous and perhaps undue tendency to levity. It seemed to me that his daughter, and his old-time associate, Sturritt, had taken him seriously, and they must know his moods better than I. At most I would not allow myself to do _more_ than hope. I had waited so long—I could restrain the frenzy of joy in me a little longer. One thing was assured. I was to sit at luncheon with Edith Gale, and even should there be no voyage to the South, I might hope to see her again, when from time to time I could make the excuse of coming to her father with new sources of amusement. I reflected that I would invent the most absurd propositions that human ingenuity could devise, for Chauncey Gale to play with, if he only would let his daughter take part in the merry pastime.

Gale, meantime, had turned to me, and was about to speak when Miss Gale entered. She was accompanied by a stout, resolute-looking colored woman, bearing a large portfolio.

“Put it right down on the rug, Zar, against the chair, so.”

Miss Gale herself adjusted the heavy book, then seated herself comfortably on the floor beside it. The servant withdrew. Gale slid over to a low stool, and, half unconsciously, I slipped from my chair to a position on the floor between them. We were like a group of children around a toy book.

The cover of the portfolio was turned back and the first picture, a bit of landscape in water color, was shown. I had no great technical knowledge of art, but I could see at a glance that Miss Gale’s work was of unusual quality. The admiration, at first expressed in words, soon became the silence of unquestioned tribute. Yet I was not surprised that Edith Gale should do this masterly work. What did surprise me was the genuine appreciation of her father, as shown by his occasional comment. Evidently the daughter’s ability had not been wholly due to the dead mother. At the end of the portfolio there was a series of illustrations for an old Yorkshire ballad.

“Daddy and I always sing this when folks will let us,” announced Miss Gale, with an affected diffidence that made her all the more beautiful, I thought.

“You can’t get away now till after lunch, Chase,” said Gale; “you’ve got to stand it.”

Edith Gale had set the first of the series up before us, and sang the opening lines of the ballad in a voice that might have come from the middle strings of a harp. Then, at the refrain, there joined in a deep, rich resonance that I could hardly realize proceeded from her father. I came in at the end of the second stanza—feebly at first, but gaining in courage until I sang with volume enough to have spoiled everything had I not been more fortunate than usual and kept to the right key.

“Well,” said Gale, “what do you think? Do you think those pictures and that singing of hers will convert the heathen?”

I looked at the wonderful girl, who was laughing and closing the portfolio.

“They would convert me,” I said fervently, “to anything.”

Gale seemed to enjoy this enthusiasm.

“People mostly like us when they know us, eh, Johnnie?”

But Miss Gale was retiring with the portfolio. He turned to me.

“That’s a great girl,” he said. “The only piece of property but one that I never wanted to part with. The other one was her mother. Johnnie came just in time to take her place, and I don’t know what I’d’ a’ done if she hadn’t. Being a mother to her kept me busy, and she’s been mother and father and whole family to me. She’s kept me going straight for about twenty-five years now, and is about the finest south-slope blue-grass addition that the Lord ever helped lay out. And she cares more for her old daddy than for anybody else in the world. Her old daddy and her pictures. She never saw a young man that she cared to look at twice, unless he could do something, and then it was for his talents, and not for him. When they fall in love with her she generally gets tired of their paintings, or their music, or whatever it is, and they go away. They all seem to do it, though. You’d be in love with her yourself in a week, if you lingered about this ship. It’s in the air, and everybody gets it. I wouldn’t say much about it, though, if it was me. If we should go to the South Pole, you’d want to stay with the expedition, and after we got out to sea you’d have some trouble getting ashore again in case you didn’t find the ship comfortable. There’s another young man that comes here. He’s got a scheme for——”

But Miss Gale re-entered at that moment. She had made some slight changes in her toilet, and was more entrancing than ever. Her father had been right, I thought, only he had named too long a period. He had said “in a week.” His prophecy was already fulfilled.

“I say, Johnnie,” greeted Gale, “why wouldn’t our wireless telegraphy scheme go well with this expedition, especially with the balloon part? How about that, Chase? Would it fit in?”

“Perfectly, but Marconi seems to have it all in his own hands, as yet.”

“Not by a jug-full! Johnnie’s got a young man, I was just going to mention him when she came in, a sort of portigee——”

“_Protégé Papa!_ Though he’s not that, either. He’s——”

“Oh, well, _protyshay_, then. Anyway, he’s got a system that beats Macarony’s to death. I call this chap Macarony, too, because he’s Italian, and his name is a good deal the same.”

“His name is Ferratoni, Papa, and the other isn’t Macaroni, either, but Marconi. Papa never calls anything by its right name, if he can help it,” she apologized. “He gets into dreadful trouble sometimes, too, and I’m glad of it. He should be more particular.”

“All right, then, it’s Ferry—Ferry what? How is it again, Johnnie?”

“Fer-ra-toni.”

“Now we’ve got it. Oh, well, let’s compromise and call him Tony, for short. Well, Tony’s got a system that does all that Macarony’s does, and goes it one better. Obstructions in the way don’t seem to make much difference, and you can use it with a telephone attachment instead of a—a what do you call it—a knocker?”

“A sounder, Daddy.”

“A sounder, that’s it, instead of a sounder. We tried it here the other day, and could talk to him over in the Tract building as well as if we’d been connected with the central office. He’s perfecting it now for long distance, and we might take him right along with us, and let him experiment between the balloon and the ship. How’s that?”

“It would complete our plans perfectly,” I agreed, “if his system of communication prove successful. But do you think he would care to go on such a voyage?”

Gale looked at his daughter.

“Do you think he would go, Johnnie?” he asked, and I thought there was a suggestion of teasing in his voice. Also, it seemed to me that there was a little wave of confusion in Miss Gale’s face, though the slight added color there may have been due to other causes.

“I—why, I think he might——” she began hesitatingly. “I think he would consider it an opportunity. He is deeply interested in what he calls chorded vibrations. Wireless telegraphy, or telephoning, is like that, you know, but Mr. Ferratoni goes much farther. He attributes everything to vibrations. He analyzes my poor little hobby until there’s nothing left of it. He may be here to luncheon to-day, and you can talk with him,” she added, and I thought the blush deepened.

Assuredly he would come to luncheon, and of a certainty he would go to the South Pole, or anywhere that Edith Gale went, and would let him go. It was too late now, however, for me to raise objections. My only comfort lay in the memory of her father’s assurance that it was in their talents, and not in her protégés themselves, that his daughter was interested.

Still, I argued miserably, there must some day come a time—I was sure she had blushed——

A cabin boy entered bearing a tray on which there was a card. He presented it to Miss Gale.

“Mr. Ferratoni,” she said, glancing at it, and an instant later I saw in the doorway a slender figure, surmounted by a beautiful beardless face—the face of southern Italy—of a poet.

My heart sank, but I greeted him cordially, for I could not withstand the beauty of his face and the magnetism of his glance. It seemed to me that it was a foregone conclusion, so far as Miss Gale was concerned, and then I suddenly realized that the South Pole without Edith Gale would not be worth looking for. Even a whole warm Antarctic continent would be a desolation more bleak than people had ever believed it. Yet I would find it for her if I could—and then my reward—she had said I should name it—it had been but a jest, of course——

I realized that Miss Gale was speaking.

“We were just talking of you, Mr. Ferratoni. We have a plan which we think will interest you. Mr. Chase will talk to us about it during luncheon.”

VI. WHERE ALL THINGS BECOME POSSIBLE.

We passed out into the dining saloon—a counterpart, I learned later, of the dining-room in Mr. Gale’s former cottage at Hillcrest. We were presently joined by a stout and grizzled man of perhaps sixty, with a slight sinister obliquity in one eye. He was arrayed in a handsome blue uniform, and was presented to me as Mr. Joseph Biffer, captain of the Billowcrest. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Mr. Sturritt was also to be with us. The customs on the Billowcrest, as I presently learned, were quite democratic, and William Sturritt, though nominally steward, remained the trusted friend and companion of Chauncey Gale, as he had been for many years. It is true there was an officers’ mess, at which both Mr. Sturritt and Captain Biffer usually preferred to dine, but at the Admiral’s table (they had conferred the title of Admiral on Gale) there was always a welcome for his officers, while on occasions such as this they were often present by request. Gale and his daughter were seated at opposite ends of the table, Ferratoni and myself next Miss Gale, while Captain Biffer and Mr. Sturritt occupied the same relative position to the Admiral.

The Admiral wasted no time in coming to the fun.

“Captain Biffer,” he said, “we want you to take us to the South Pole.”

Mr. Biffer continued the grim process of seasoning his soup for several seconds without replying. Perhaps some rumor of the expedition had already come to him. Then he fixed his sound eye severely on Gale, while he withered the rest of us, and particularly myself, with the other.

“When do you want to start?” he asked.

There was that about Mr. Biffer’s tone and attitude which indicated, so far as he was concerned, an entire lack of humor in the proposition. Even Gale, I thought, seemed a trifle subdued as he answered:

“Oh, I don’t know; we’ll consider that after Mr. Chase has told us what we are going to need to be ready. In three or four months, perhaps.”

Once more the deflected vision of Captain Biffer laid its scorn heavily upon us.

“And get down there and stuck in the ice below Cape Horn about the middle of March, just when their winter and six months’ night begins.”

It was a clean hit for the Captain, and I gave him credit. Gale was clearly out of it for the time being, and looked at me helplessly. His very dismay, however, encouraged me. A man must be in earnest, I thought, to look like that. I hastened to his rescue.

“I have naturally considered the Antarctic solar conditions,” I said, with some dignity, though I confess that with the Captain’s piercing searchlight upon me, the latter was not easy to maintain. “I am aware that their seasons are opposed to ours, and that the year at the poles is divided into a day and a night of six months each.”

Gale, who had been regarding me anxiously, at this point relieved himself in an undertone.

“Six months,” he murmured. “Think of going out to make a night of it in a country like that! Oh, Lord, what is life without a latch-key?”

“I have considered these facts,” I repeated, “and while a period of several months of semi-darkness and cold is not a cheering anticipation to those accustomed to the more frequent recurrence of sunlight, I am convinced that, under favorable conditions, it is not altogether a hardship; also, that in the pleasant climate which I believe exists about the earth’s axis, the extended interval of darkness and semi-twilight would be still less disturbing, and may have been overcome in a measure, or altogether, by the inhabitants there, through artificial means.”

I could see that Chauncey Gale was reviving somewhat as I proceeded, and this gave me courage to continue, in spite of the fact that the Captain’s contempt was only too manifest. As for Mr. Sturritt, he was non-committal, while Ferratoni appeared to have drifted off into a dream of his own. But Edith Gale sustained me with the unshaken confidence in her eyes, and my strength became as the strength of ten.

“As for the time of starting,” I continued——

“Wait,” interrupted Gale, “go over the whole scheme again for the benefit of those who didn’t hear it before. Then we can consider ways and means afterwards.”

Accordingly, and for the third time that day, I carefully reviewed my theories and plans for the expedition. As I proceeded I observed that Captain Biffer’s contempt softened into something akin to pity, while, on the other hand, Chauncey Gale rapidly regained his buoyant confidence.

“That’s where you come in, Bill,” he laughed, as I spoke of the balloon car and its condensed stores.

Mr. Sturritt nodded eagerly.

“And you, Johnnie,” as I referred again to the possible inhabitants in the undiscovered world.

“And Mr. Ferratoni is not to be left out,” answered Miss Gale. “Mr. Chase says that a wireless telephone is the one thing needed to make his plan perfect.”

“To keep the balloon in communication with the ship, in event of our making the voyage overland would be of the greatest advantage,” I admitted, “if it can be done.”

Ferratoni’s face flushed.

“Yes, oh, yes,” he said anxiously, “it can be done. It is the chance.”

“And would you be willing to go on a voyage like that, and leave behind your opportunities of recognition and fortune?” I asked.

Ferratoni’s face grew even more beautiful.

“Fortune? Recognition?” He spoke musically, and his English was almost perfect. “It is not those that I would care for. It is the pursuing of the truth, the great Truth! Electricity—it is but one vibration. There are yet many others—thought, life, soul! Wireless communication—the answering of electric chords—it’s but a step toward the fact, the proving of the Whole Fact. To-day we speak without wires across the city. Later, we shall speak across the world. Still later, between the worlds—perhaps even—yes, yes, I will go! I have but shown the little step. I would have the time and place to continue. And then the new world too—yes, oh, yes, I will go, of a certainty!”

A respectful silence had fallen upon the table. Chauncey Gale’s face showed thoughtful interest. Mr. Biffer was evidently impressed. Me he had regarded as a crazy land-lubber with fool notions of navigation. In Ferratoni he acknowledged a man of science—a science he did not understand and therefore regarded with reverence and awe. Edith Gale’s face wore the exalted expression which always gave it its greatest beauty. For myself, I had been far from unmoved by Ferratoni’s words. I felt that it would be hard to feel jealousy for a man like that, and still harder not to do so. Gale recovered first, and turned to me.

“What about the superintending of the balloon?” he asked. “Who have you got for that?”

I knew as little of practical ballooning as of navigation, but as a boy I had experimented in chemistry, and the manufacture of gases. More lately I had done some reading, and I had ideas on the subject. I said therefore, with becoming modesty, that I had made some study of aeronautics and that, as the science had not yet progressed much beyond the first principles of filling a bag with gas and waiting until the wind was in the right quarter, I believed I might safely undertake to oversee this feature of the enterprise, including the construction of the boat-sledge-car combination.

“And I can take a hand in that, too,” said Gale.

“I’ve got a pretty good mechanical head myself; I’ve planned and built about a million houses, first and last. Commuters say I can get more closets and cubbyholes into a six-room cottage than anybody else could set on the bare lot. I’ll take care of that boat. Now, how about the time, Chase? When do we start?”

“I had thought,” I answered, “that it might require a year for preparation. If we started a year from now, or a little later, we would reach the Antarctics easily by the beginning of the day or summer season, and might, I believe, hope to reach a desirable position at or near the ice-barrier by the beginning of the winter night. During this we would make every added preparation for the inland excursion to be undertaken on the following summer——”

“Say, we’d be apt to get some frost on our pumpkins laying up against an ice-wall through a six months’ night, wouldn’t we?” interrupted Gale.

I called attention to the comfort with which Nansen and his associates had passed through an Arctic night with far fewer resources than we should have on a vessel like the Billowcrest.

“Look here,” said Gale, “what’s the use of waiting a year? Why not go _this_ year?”

“Why,” I suggested, “we could hardly get ready. There will be food supplies to get together, instruments, implements, the balloon, and then the engaging of such scientists as you might wish to take along——”

“Scientists,” interrupted Gale, “what kind?”

“Well, perhaps a meteorologist, a geologist, an ornithologist——”

“See here, what are all those things? What are they for?”

“To observe and record conditions,” I said. “An ornithologist, for instance, would classify and name any new birds that we might find in the Southern Hemisphere, and an——”

“Hold on,” interrupted Gale, “we don’t want any of that yet. We’ll discover the country first. We’ve got science enough right here to do that, I guess, if anybody has. Besides I’m a pretty good hand at naming things myself, and if we find any strange animals or birds wandering about down there without titles, I’ll just give ’em some.”

“Oh, Papa,” laughed Miss Gale.

“Why, yes, of course; and now as to those other things. Mr. Sturritt here can give an order in five minutes for enough provision to last ten years, and have it on board in twenty-four hours. Whatever instruments and material you need for your balloon and telephone machine can be had about as quick, I’m thinking, and if we need any mechanics of any kind I can put my finger on a hundred of them to-morrow. If we’ve got to lay up six months against an ice-wall we’ll want something to do, and will have time enough to build things to fit the case in hand. What I want to know is, if we can be ready to start from here in a week, so’s we’ll miss this winter up here and get safe in the arms of that ice-wall before winter sets in down there! I’m simply pining to get up against that two thousand foot ice-bluff, and I don’t want to wait a year to do it. What do _you_ say, Bill, can we be ready to start from here in a week?”

My heart sank. It was but a huge joke then, after all, and this was his way out of it. But Sturritt, who knew him, was taking it seriously.

“Yes—that is—why certainly, in—er—three days!” he said with nervous haste.

“I can be ready to-morrow,” said Ferratoni, quietly.

“I am ready to start to-night,” said Edith Gale.

I hastened to add that the materials needed for the balloon could doubtless be procured without delay.

“And you, Biffer?” Gale turned to the Captain who had been a silent unprotesting martyr during this proceeding. “Are you ready to start in a week for the South Pole?”

“Admiral,” said the Captain solemnly, and making a sincere effort to fix him with both eyes at once, “you own this boat and I’m hired to sail it. I don’t believe in no South Pole, but if there _is_ one, I don’t know of a better place for a crowd like this. And if you give the order to go to the South Pole, I’ll _take_ you to the South Pole, and sail off into space when we get there, if you say so!”

Mr. Biffer’s remarks were greeted with applause and a round of merriment in which the Captain paid himself the tribute of joining.

“We’ll have the balloon for navigating space, Captain Biffer,” said Edith Gale.

“And my opinion is that we’ll need it, ma’am, if we ever get back.”

But amid the now general enthusiasm Chauncey Gale had sprung to his feet. There was a flush of excitement on his full handsome face, and when he spoke there was a ring of decision in his voice.