“Me look,” cried Koku, who understood fully the situation and its attendant dangers. “If there be hole, I come back and tell Master.” “Hold on, Koku!” exclaimed Tom Swift. “I know you can pretty well see like a cat in the dark. But I think we had better stick together. We will all go with you on this search for another opening to the cave.” “Undt leaf das bear? Not even skin him? It is meat. We may need it,” said the schooner captain, in some doubt. “We have provisions for a week aboard the _Winged Arrow_,” Tom said lightly. “And one sure thing,” supplemented Ned. “Nobody will get this bear if we leave it where it lies.” “But if we do not skin him while das body he iss warm, we haf a pad time doing so,” declared the Icelander. “I do not think we should bother with the bear,” Tom said slowly. “I am worried about getting back to the seaplane. We may get through this cave and find ourselves far up in these mountains of ice. We will have difficulty in lowering ourselves down into that gorge where the plane is. Don’t bother with this bear. Let us go on.” “By jinks!” exclaimed Ned. “They say every cloud has a silver lining. It is so blamed dark right now that I cannot see any silver behind this cloud.” “Cheer up!” cried Tom, his own voice changing with an effort. “Lead ahead, Koku. Give me that torch, Ned. Look out where you step. There may be fissures here, or sink-holes, to fall into. Have a care, Koku.” “Me have much care, Master,” said the faithful giant. “I feel wind again.” He held up a finger he had wetted. “Yes. Wind come through big ice cave. We find um place to go out. Wait and see.” “I hope so,” muttered Ned, as he came along in the rear of the small procession. Farther back in the chamber in the ice was the entrance to a tunnel more than man-high. It was of considerable width, too, and when the party had entered it, almost at once the explorers found that the pitch of the floor was sharply upwards. The tunnel was by no means straight, twisting around and around, and in places it proved to be open to the sky. There were deep clefts in the ice mountain that exposed the passage to the light of day. Some of these cuts were deep with snow, for there had already been snow flurries in the Arctic Ocean from which this giant iceberg had drifted. The explorers became quite hopeful as they pressed on, for it seemed as though finally there must be an exit to the tunnel. They spoke cheerfully together, but were somewhat worried over the fact that Brannigan and his mates would be disturbed by their delayed return. “They won’t know what to make of the delay,” said Ned. “But if they heard the avalanche—and of course they did—they may suspect what has happened to us,” Tom remarked. “Hullo! What is it, Koku?”