Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/100

86 and keep records of air and water temperatures, wind directions and velocities and magnetic variations. When she would be in the way on the deck, patiently for days on end she kept herself in her stuffy cabin.

As the Viborg buffeted its way against hard seas and slipped and squeezed between the icebergs of choken channels, Margaret constantly was studying the men about her. She noted with a thrill of admiration how the men accustomed to the Arctic steadied to their work and seemed to welcome, indeed invite, difficulties and obstacles for the triumph of overcoming them. They were more cheerful in exhaustion as more and more endurance was required of them; they loved the dangers that made them dare more, they gloried in the constant challenge of the elements.

Margaret saw with pride that her brother already was catching some of the sense of this challenge and was responding to it. A storm which had kept all hands above for thirty hours blew out; and Geoff, staggering with exhaustion, passed her on the way down to his bunk. Within half an hour, as the gale was