destined to encounter a spell of bad weather.

One evening Ben Stubbs announced to the boys, who had been admiring a
sunset of a beauty seldom seen in northern climes, that they were in
for a hard blow, and before midnight his prediction was realized.
Frank awoke in his bunk, to find himself alternately standing, as it
seemed, on his head and his feet. The Southern Cross was evidently
laboring heavily and every plank and bolt in her was complaining. Now
and again a heavy sea would hit the rudder with a force that
threatened to tear it from its pintles, solidly though it was
contrived.

Somewhat alarmed, the boy aroused the others, and they hastened out on
deck. As they emerged from the cabin the wind seemed to blow their
breath back into their bodies and an icy hand seemed to grip them. It
was a polar-storm that was raging in all its fury.

As she rose on a wave, far ahead the boys could see the lights of the
Brutus. Only for a second, however, for the next minute she would
vanish in the trough of a huge comber, and then they could hear the
strained towing cable "twang" like an overstretched piano wire.

"Will it hold?" That was the thought in the minds of all.

In order to ease the hawser as much as possible, Captain Barrington,
when he had noted the drop of the barometer, had ordered a "bridle,"
or rope attachment, placed on the end of the cable, so as to give it
elasticity and lessen the effect of sudden strains, but the
mountainous seas that pounded against the blunt bows of the Southern
Cross were proving the stout steel strand to the uttermost.