"You said, Professor," Jack observed, "that its ultimate end would either be to fall into the sun, or collide with the earth." "And that is my belief yet; but I have no means of knowing surely." "I hope she bumps the world again!" cried Jack. "Maybe we can get off then." "It will do a lot of damage when it falls," said Andy Sudds, reflectively. "Some folks up there in the earth will get hurt." "Perhaps not," the professor said, hastily. "How can it be otherwise?" Mark demanded. "This fragment of the world must be enormously heavy. Cities--counties--whole states will be buried if we should fall into the earth." "Not if we came down into one of the big oceans," said Professor Henderson. "We would probably sink some vessels, and might overwhelm islands; but if this island in the air is as big as Australia it could easily fall into the Pacific and do no particular harm to any present existing body of land--save through the great tidal waves that would result from such a fall." "It is an awful thing to think of," cried Mark. "I don't see, no matter how this awful affair ends, but that we are bound to be overwhelmed." "We do not know that," declared the professor, with his wonted cheerfulness. "Never say die. Our safety is in the hands of Providence. We have not got to worry about that." "Isn't he a wonder?" whispered Jack to his chum. "We ought to take pattern by him. Our grumbling and anxiety is a shame." Yet it was very difficult to remain cheerful under the circumstances as they then were. Their provisions, even for the dogs, were at a low ebb. Not a shot at edible bird or beast had they obtained since leaving Aleukan. And the torrid sun by day and the frost by night were most trying. "However," said Professor Henderson, "I have kept a careful account of the fluctuations of temperature since the catastrophe, and I find that the mercury does not descend into the bulb so far now as it did at first. We are circling the earth, as the earth circles the sun. At present we are turning more toward the sun. It is coming summer. The sun will more and more heat this torn-away world. I do not believe that vegetation will start, and I look for nothing but frost during the hours of the sun's absence. But the cold night is not so intense as it was at first." "It's quite cold enough, just the same," Phineas Roebach grunted. "It was summer a few days ago--the best summer this part of Alaska ever has. And to jump right into cold weather--midwinter, as ye might say--is enough to kill us all." The oil man simply ignored the professor's scientific explanations of their situation and the changes in their environment. He absolutely would not believe that they were floating in the air above the earth's surface. The trail down the valley of the Anakturuk was fairly smooth and well defined; when they struck the Coleville--a much wider stream--the shore was very rugged, and the dogs could scarcely drag the sleds over some stretches of the route.