the station at Cape Tariff. The Dipsey will carry one of those
light, portable cables, which will be wound on a drum in her
hold, and this will be paid out as she proceeds on her way.
Thus, you see, by means of the cable from Cape Tariff to St.
Johns, we can be in continual communication with Sammy, no matter
where he may go; for there is no reason to suppose that the ocean
in those northern regions is too deep to allow the successful
placing of a telegraphic cable.

"My plan is a very simple one, but as we have not talked it over
for some time, I will describe it in full. All explorers who
have tried to get to the north pole have met with the same bad
fortune. They could not pass over the vast and awful regions of
ice which lay between them and the distant point at which they
aimed; the deadly ice-land was always too much for them; they
died or they turned back.

"When flying-machines were brought to supposed perfection, some
twenty years ago, it was believed that the pole would easily be
reached, but there were always the wild and wicked winds, in
which no steering apparatus could be relied upon. We may steer
and manage our vessels in the fiercest storms at sea, but when
the ocean moves in one great tidal wave our rudders are of no
avail. Everything rushes on together, and our strongest ships
are cast high upon the land.

"So it happened to the Canadian Bagne, who went in 1927 in the
best flying-ship ever made, and which it was supposed could be
steadily kept upon its way without regard to the influence of the
strongest winds; but a great hurricane came down from the north,