CHAPTER XV
A VAIN SEARCH
Several hours later Tom had a curious dream. He imagined he was wandering about in the polar regions, and that it was very cold. He was trying to reason with himself that he could not possibly be on an expedition searching for the North Pole, still he felt such a keen wind blowing over his scantily-covered body that he shivered. He shivered so hard, in fact, that he shivered himself awake, and when he tried to pierce the darkness that enveloped him he was startled, for a moment, with the idea that perhaps, after all, he had wandered off to some unknown country.
For it was quite dark and cold. He was in a daze, and there was a curious smell about him—an odor that he tried to recall. Then, all at once, it came to him what it was—chloroform. Once his father had undergone an operation, and to deaden his pain chloroform had been used.
"I've been chloroformed!" exclaimed the young inventor, and his words sounded strange in his
