We ran forward like boys. No, it was not land, after all, but the next thing to it—a great black expanse of bare, wind-swept rock! We could not tell, of course, how high it rose above the normal surface, but we did not believe it could be many feet. Looking ahead with the glass we saw many other black patches, stretching away and blending together, as it seemed, on the horizon. We made all haste forward, and when we stopped for our noon rest I made a calculation of our position. We were not quite to the eighty-third parallel, and a little more than two hundred miles from the Billowcrest. I had calculated that the habitable zone would begin here, but it appeared that I had been in error. The cold from the sea reached farther inland than I had supposed. Still, I reflected, this place might be altogether clear of snow a month later, and only uninhabitable because of barrenness.
Immediately after our coffee we pushed on again. All at once I made out what seemed to be the opening, or chasm, among the bare patches to the right. Leaving the others, I ran over to investigate and came back shouting and breathless.
“A river! a river!” I called, “and smooth ice. We can sail on it!”
We steered our boat-sled over there as rapidly as possible. It was difficult getting down to the surface, some forty feet below, but we managed it at last. Then we stopped for breath and observation.
“I’ll bet this is _our_ river,” said Gale, “and that we haven’t been more than a mile from it since we started.”
“No doubt of it,” I said, “and we even may have been on top of it part of the time. Of course it’s filled level full of snow somewhere below here, and we shouldn’t have known the difference. It is a channel that cuts through and carries the melting snow to the sea. If it didn’t the center of the Antarctic Continent would be a big circular pond. There may be many of these rivers.”
“Well, one is enough for us, just now,” said Gale. Then he promptly confessed to Edith that we had “abandoned” our balloon bag, owing to “adverse winds,” but that we didn’t care, for we had reached a river and “good sailing.” She didn’t appear to notice any discrepancy in this statement, and we decided that it would be unsafe to attempt to mend it. The “good sailing,” at least, was true, for the wind continued favorable, and we were presently going up-stream at a fair rate of speed. Gale leaned back and lit a cigar.