pt prisoners in
one of those mounds, like I was. That is, if they haven't killed any
of the creatures. It hangs on that!"

An hour's time, he had reckoned; but it was more than an hour. For
soon the world was blotted out by a howling dervish of wind and driven
snow that time and time again snatched the amphibian from Ken's
control and hurled it high, or threw it down like a toy toward the
inferno of sea and ice he knew lay beneath. He fought for altitude,
for direction, pitched from side to side, tumbled forward and back,
gaining a few hundred feet only to feel them plucked breathtakingly
out from under him as the screaming wind played with him.

Now and again he snatched a glance at the torpoon behind. The
gleaming, twelve-foot, cigar-shaped craft, with its directional
rudders, propeller, vision-plate and nitro-shell gun lay safely
secured in the passenger compartment, a familiar and reassuring sight
to Ken, who, as first torpooner of the _Narwhal_, had worked one for
years in the chase for killer whales. Soon, it seemed, he would have
to depend on it for his life.

For all the Diesel's power, it was not enough to cope with the dead
weight of ice which was forming over the plane's wings and fuselage.
He could not keep the altimeter up. However he fought, Ken saw that
finger drop down, down--up a trifle, quivering as the racked plane
quivered--and then down and down some more.

He saw that the plane was doomed. He would have to abandon it--in the
torpoon--if he could.

He was some thirty miles from his objective. The sea beneath would be
half hidden under ragged, drifting floes. In fair weather he could
have chosen a landing space of clear water, but now he could not
choose. The altitude dial said that the water was three hundred feet
beneath, and rapidly rising nearer.

A margin of seconds in which to prepare! Ken locked the controls and
scrambled back into the passenger compartment. Steadying himself on
the bucking floor, he opened the torpoon's entrance port and slid in;
quickly he locked the port and strapped the inner body harness around
him; and then he waited.

Now it was all chance. If the plane crashed into clear water, he was
safe; but if she hit ice.... He put that thought from him.

The locked controls held the amphibian for perhaps thirty seconds.
Then with a scream the storm-giant took her. A mad up-current of wind
hurled her high, whirled her dizzily, toyed with her--and then she
spun and dove.