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.”

100“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 101ice 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 102with 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 s............