trate. 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 windlasses. 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.

"Now, my hearties, furs off!" cried the energetic little Doctor. He
doffed his own suit hurriedly, pulled on a pair of woolen gloves in lieu
of the sealskin ones, pulled the steel rod out and laid it aside,
grasped an axe and began chopping into the ice with all his might. The
ice chips flew about the engine-room in a shower. He was soon obliged to
stop for breath. Will shoveled the loosened ice out, then seized the axe
and worked for a short time with the same spirit that animated the
Doctor. And so by turns they kept the axe and shovel flying, making very
rapid progress. They soon were too deep to use long-handled tools, and
resorted to mallet and chisel, and a short-handled hand axe. Slowly and
more slowly progressed the work as the shaft grew deeper. Finally the
head of the man in the shaft disappeared below the surface, being now
nearly seven feet deep.

"We shall have to devise some plan for hoisting before long," said Dr.
Jones.

"Can't we use the windlass?" suggested Denison.

"So we can!" cried the Doctor. "The steel springs forever! Will never
did a better thing than when he invented the spring power windlass. We
may have to go twenty-five or thirty feet. But we will hoist by hand for
awhile yet."

They had reached the depth of between eight and nine feet, when Will,
who was in the hole, shouted, "Hurrah! I've broken through!" and he
tossed up a handful of snow.

"Good boy!" cried the Doctor. "Now try with the rod