We were awakened rather rudely by a sudden harsh grinding below, and felt the vessel heave, first to one side, then to the other. Then there was an ominous rumble, which became a deafening roar. I hurried on deck, to find that a strong pressure was taking place, and that we were directly in its midst. Our peril was great and imminent. I was turning hastily toward the cabin, when Captain Biffer ran down the deck yelling: “Take to the ice! Take to the ice! She’s going down!” At the same instant Chauncey Gale hurried out of the cabin, followed by Edith Gale and the others. The sailors were skurrying about helplessly. “To the ice!” roared the Captain. “To the ice! She’s going down!” Most of us scrambled for the rail. If I did not do so it was perhaps because there were others in my way. But Chauncey Gale, his hand on his daughter’s arm, stood firm. “Stop!” he shouted. “Going down, _nothing_! She’s going up!” And this was true. Everybody saw it, now it was pointed out to them. Thanks to the shape and strength of her hull, the sturdy Billowcrest was being squeezed and lifted bodily into the air, instead of being crushed like a peanut, as would have been the case with an ordinary vessel. For ten minutes or more the heaving and grinding continued. Huge pressure ridges formed on every side, and the ice world about us was a living, groaning agony. Then it seemed that there came relief. The pack split and thundered apart in every direction. The Billowcrest settled back into place, and before us lay a long way of open water, stretching northward as far as the eye could reach. Our steam was ready, and in a very brief time we were on our way back to the sea. “That was about the tightest squeeze I ever got caught in,” observed Gale, “and, say, I didn’t build her for a nip like that, but didn’t the old Billowcrest do noble?” “Chauncey Gale,” I said, “you’re the best ship builder, and the bravest man God ever made!” “How much do you want to borrow?” asked Gale, but he said it without bitterness. XV. AS REPORTED BY MY NOTE-BOOK. If we were more fearless now, we were also more careful. Our faith in the Billowcrest was complete, but we profited by experience. At the next indication of bad weather, we headed northward in time, and rode out the storm at sea. I think Captain Biffer had hoped that we would abandon our project after the ice squeeze, but Christmas Day found us far to the westward, and still creeping slowly along the edge of the ice-fields. Our days were a never-ending glory now, for it was midsummer, and of good weather we were having far more than we had been led to expect. We did not need to go to the crow’s-nest to see the midnight sun on Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day we celebrated by crossing the one hundred and fortieth meridian, and by telling, after dinner, where we had been and what had happened to us the year before.