to conduct an investigation.

"Those are my two guesses. Take 'em for what they're worth."

"You don't think," said Dave, "that we'd attempt the Pole?"

The ensign was silent for a time. "No," he said at last, "I don't. Of
course, Stefansson has said that a 'sub' is the most practical way to go
there; that ice-floes are never more than ten feet thick and twenty-five
miles wide, and all that; but there are too many unsettled problems
relating to such a trip."

"But say!" exclaimed Dave, "who is this doctor of ours, anyway?"

"Blamed if I know," said Blake, as he turned away to go below.

"Well, anyhow," Dave remarked, "whoever he is, he's going to take us
where the white ice-floes are drifting. Look at the color of this craft;
blue-white, like the ice itself."

The journey North, save for a storm, which they avoided by submerging,
was uneventful until they found themselves in the company of scattered
ice-cakes with the snow-capped ridges of the Aleutian Islands looming up
before them.

In no time at all every man on the craft realized that on these islands
was to be found one of the objects of their quest; for, once they had
sighted the shores, the funnel was dropped, electric power applied, and
watchers, dressed in white to match the color of the craft, set to scan
the shores for signs of life. They stole through the water like some