A minute later the man who had been looking death in the face was safe on the catwalk, grateful to Andy for the risk he had taken.
Bert, who had sensed something wrong when the watch in the forward cockpit had failed to answer, came charging up. Andy was in no condition to remain up top longer and Bert made him go below into one of the engine rooms to thaw out.
Crews on top of the Goliath were changed every half hour and in this manner the dirigible wallowed through the fog. It was mid-forenoon before the haze showed any signs of lifting but at noon there was a definite break and the Arctic sun soon dispelled the menace in gray.
When Andy was able to shoot their position again, he found that the Goliath was approaching Cape Morris Jessup, the northernmost tip of Greenland.
There were irregular leads in the ice pack which surrounded the cape, but these soon dropped behind and the Goliath moved out over the white expanse of the silent Arctic. They were on the last leg of their long flight, heading east and north now for the position from which Harry had sent his appeal for help. The second day slipped away and they recorded the coming of the third in their log book.
They were fifty-five hours out from Bellevue. The sky was clear but the chill wind still swept out of the north. The interior of the main cabin and control room was warm again and the crew experienced no discomfort in its flight.
They crossed the Greenwich meridian at noon the third day. The Neptune was somewhere east of them by nine degrees and 31 minutes and about two degrees north. Andy altered the course slightly and the Goliath swept nearer the North Pole, although still some three hundred miles from that visionary goal.
Every man who was not on duty in the control or engine rooms was at the windows or stationed in the observation cockpits atop the dirigible, straining ahead for some glimpse of the Neptune and its marooned crew.
Static had been bad all morning but Bert kept up an incessant call for Harry. It was an hour after crossing the Greenwich meridian when he received his first answer and his wild whoop of joy brought Andy into the radio room on the run.
“I’m talking with Harry now,” cried Bert. “He says to hurry. The pack ice is breaking up and the Neptune may be lost at any minute.”