Doctor Jones' Picnic Part 20

"Well, it agrees with you, Mattie," replied Denison. "Just look at her plump cheeks, and the beautiful roses upon them!"

"Indeed, I never saw you look so well as you do now," said Mrs. Jones, looking at her admiringly.

"And I am glad that I can return the compliment," replied Mattie.

"I am of the opinion that a trip to the Arctics in Silver Cloud would cure any case of dispepsia in the world," said Dr. Jones.

"What a wonderful stimulant coffee is," remarked the Professor, as he sipped a cup of that beverage.

"I never realized that fact so much as when in the army," replied Dr.

Jones. "After a long day's march we would get into camp so tired that we could scarcely move. We would start our camp-fires, and very soon after you could hear a musical clink, clink, clinking in every direction. It was the sound produced by the soldier boys, pounding their coffee fine in their tin cups with the b.u.t.t of their bayonets. And the effect of a pint of that hot Government Java coffee was perfectly marvelous. It would almost instantly take the aching and tired feeling from the muscles, and we could have marched all night if necessary."

"I cannot realize that this is midnight," said Mattie, as they stood upon the balcony, well wrapped in furs, looking over the vast fields of ice and snow. "One would hardly know when to get up or go to bed in this wonderful country."

The time rapidly pa.s.sed; they reached the 86th, 87th, 88th, 89th degrees of lat.i.tude, and the strain upon their nerves grew to be tremendous. The Doctor and Professor could not rest anywhere but in the observatory, gla.s.ses in hand. Each was pale with excitement.

"I believe that to be land ahead," said the Doctor, pointing to a high elevation directly before them.

The Professor looked at it earnestly a few moments and replied:

"It is, Doctor, and we have settled the fact that the North Pole is situated upon an island. The open sea at the Pole is a myth, as I always believed it to be."

The rest of the party was notified of the fact that land was near at hand, and that very shortly the North Pole would be reached. So they all a.s.sembled upon the balcony, except Sing. That individual could not be enthused upon so small a matter as the discovery of the North Pole; and after washing the supper dishes and cleaning up the kitchen and dining-room, retired as unconcernedly as if nothing unusual were at hand.

Rapidly and unerringly as a dart flew the beautiful ship to the place of all places upon earth to our exultant voyagers. Nearer and nearer grew the elevation before them.

"We are within less than half an hour of the Pole," announced the Professor in a low constrained voice.

"Glory be to G.o.d!" said Dr. Jones with great solemnity. "I never felt His presence more than at this moment. To Him be all the praise."

"Amen!" responded every one of the little company.

They were now pa.s.sing over the island. They could see that it was several miles in diameter, and nearly circular in form. Almost exactly in the center arose a conical hill or mountain, about one thousand feet in alt.i.tude.

"Upon the summit of that mount I am of the opinion we will find the North Pole," said Professor Gray.

"And we are heading directly for it!" cried Dr. Jones. "Just a few moments more, dear friends, and we shall have reached our journey's end.

Now get ready to drop the anchor when Professor Gray gives the signal."

Silver Cloud was lowered as they neared the mount. They were just over the summit at but fifty feet from the surface. The signal was given, the anchors dropped. At first they dragged upon the frozen snow, but soon the flukes caught in the crevices of the icy ma.s.ses, and the great globe was securely anch.o.r.ed at the North Pole!

They instantly prepared to descend in the cage. The cold was terrible, so much so that they could not have endured it at all but for provisions that Dr. Jones had made for this very event. Besides their splendid silk-lined and padded sealskin suits, he had brought a large number of j.a.panese fireboxes. The punks in these were lighted, and when all were very hot they were wrapped in flannels and distributed about their persons inside their sealskins. With this arrangement, Jack Frost's chances of nipping their persons were very slim indeed.

The thermometer registered seventy degrees below zero. Having taken every possible precaution, the Doctor and Professor descended. Their feelings cannot be described as they stepped upon the solidly frozen surface, and realized that they were the first human beings who had thus stood upon the summit of the earth! After looking about a few moments, Professor Gray said:

"We must settle the globe to the earth, and from the observatory I can make observations that will locate the Pole exactly."

This was accordingly done. From the observatory with a s.e.xtant he made an observation every six hours, making allowance for the declination of the sun, meantime. This was an exceedingly delicate problem, but the Professor was fully equal to it. At the end of twenty-four hours he and the Doctor again donned their furs, stepped over the railing of the balcony and walked out upon the snow. The rest of the party had amused themselves while awaiting the Professor's observations by setting up little mounds of ice, upon what they guessed to be the spot where the learned Professor would declare the geographical pole to be. His mind, meantime, was too engrossed with the momentous business in hand to pay the least attention to their frivolities; and, utterly unmindful of the fur-clad figures that stood scattered about, each by its respective ice mound, he measured a certain number of lengths of a sharp pointed steel rod which he carried in his hand, directly to Mrs. Jones, and with a side swipe of his foot he swept aside her pile of ice lumps, raised the steel rod in both hands and drove it down with all his force just where the ice mound had stood, and cried with all his power in a fur-m.u.f.fled voice, "The North Pole!" And Mrs. Jones jumped up and down as nimbly as her load of furs and fireboxes would permit, banged her great sealskin mittens together, and cried, "Goody! Goody! I guessed it! I am the discoverer of the North Pole! I always knew that a woman would be the first one there!"

CHAPTER XIX.

The Planting of the Flagstaff.

The whole of the party now shouted--Sing always excepted. That individual was strictly attending to his business in the kitchen during the excitement. They ran--or waddled, for they moved with difficulty, loaded as they were--to the spot where the two men and Mrs. Jones were standing. They gathered in a circle about the steel rod that marked the exact spot for which the boldest navigators and explorers have longed, and striven, and died by thousands during many decades of the past.

The Doctor broke out in his sonorous voice, the rest immediately joining him in the familiar doxology, "Old Hundred,"

"Praise G.o.d from whom all blessings flow."

When they had finished, at a signal from the Doctor, they all kneeled upon the icy pavement, and he offered up a fervent prayer of praise and thanksgiving for the preservation of their lives, and for the wonderful success that had attended their enterprise. Then in unison they repeated the Lord's prayer.

And what could be more appropriate? The echoes first awakened in this ultra-frigid region by the human voice were praises to G.o.d in song and prayer. The ends of the earth had bowed the knee to the Father Almighty, and it seemed to the little band to be the beginning of the good time foretold, when the glory of G.o.d shall cover the earth as the waters do the face of the deep.

"Now let us see what Sing has for breakfast, lunch, or whatever meal it may be. I have been so interested in our work the last few hours that I have paid no attention to time," said Dr. Jones.

A few moments later they were seated about their dining table, and no happier company could be found in Christendom that day.

"Did anyone note the time that we arrived here?" asked Will.

"At 7 o'clock, 45 min., 20 sec., August 6, 19--, we located the North Pole, and planted our steel rod as marker thereof," replied Professor Gray.

"What is the next thing on the program, Doctor?" asked Denison.

"We will immediately set about planting our aluminum flagstaff. We are liable to a terrible storm at any moment, and might be driven away before we had accomplished that important ceremony. It would possibly be months before we should encounter so favorable a gale again. Let us not rest until we have finished all we came to do, then away for home."

"It is all very well to say 'Plant the flagstaff'; but how on earth can we possibly set up a 300 foot metal pole at this extremity of the earth, without derrick, blocks and tackles, or any machinery whatever?"

returned Denison.

"I'll show you a Yankee trick in a short time," cried Dr. Jones.

They hurried through the meal and prepared again to go out into the terribly cold atmosphere. The fireboxes were again lighted and distributed about their clothing as before. All then went out and a.s.sembled again about the rod.

"I must get through this crust of ice and see what depth of snow there is below," said the Doctor.

With the sharp-pointed steel rod he picked and worked several minutes, but made very little progress in the flinty ice.

"Get a hammer, Denison," said he.

The tool being procured, they hammered upon the upper end of the rod, and drilled as miners do in rock. After some time of this work the Doctor said:

"This will never do. We have evidently a great thickness of ice to go through, possibly more than we can ever penetrate. We can do no work in these fur suits, and we should instantly freeze if we took them off. We must settle the globe upon this spot, then we shall be within the cabin and can throw off our coats and go to work. We have a big job on hand.

Let's pull the ship over at once."

The wind had subsided to a nearly dead calm, and it was remarkable how all nature seemed to be auspicious to the occasion. She had been forced to yield up her secrets, fast locked and frozen by the chill hand of Jack Frost so many centuries, and now seemed disposed to surrender them with a good grace. The globe was raised a few feet from the earth. Two of the anchors were carried to the opposite side of the Pole, and Will turned on the spring windla.s.ses. Thus they easily drew the ship to the desired spot, and it was slowly settled down so that the "manhole," as they called the hole in the floor through which the cage operated, came directly over the steel rod, the rod standing precisely in the center of the manhole.