The anchor of the Southern Cross was dropped to hold her firmly while
the steel hawser was reconnected with the Brutus, and soon the coal
ship and her consort were steaming steadily onward toward the Barrier
and the polar night.

It grew steadily colder, but the boys did not mind the exhilarating
atmosphere. They had games of ball and clambered about in the rigging,
and kept in a fine glow in this way. The professor tried to join them
at these games, but a tumble from halfway up the slippery main shrouds
into a pile of snow, in which he was half smothered, soon checked his
enthusiasm, and he thereafter devoted himself to classifying his
specimens.

Great albatross now began to wheel round the vessel and the sailors
caught some of the monster white and gray birds with long strings to
which they had attached bits of bread and other bait. These were flung
out into the air and the greedy creatures, making a dive for them,
soon found themselves choking. They were then easily hauled to deck.
Captain Hazzard, who disliked unnecessary cruelty, had given strict
orders that the birds were to be released after their capture, and
this was always done. The birds, however, seemed in no wise to profit
by their lessons, for one bird, on the leg of which a copper ring had
been placed to identify him, was captured again and again.

The professor, particularly, was interested in this sport, and devised
a sort of lasso with a wire ring in it, with which he designed to
capture the largest of the great birds, a monster with a wing spread
of fully ten feet. Day after day he patiently coaxed the creature near
with bits of bread, but the bird, with great cunning, came quite close
to get the bread, but as soon as it saw the professor getting ready to