midnight
This wail fairly convulsed Jack Darrow and Mark Sampson ; but they knew that if Wash paid more attention to his duties and thought less about his own situation he would be better off . Mark insisted on his going at once into the tiny , covered `` galley , '' as the boys called it , hung amidships , in which were the means of heating water , making coffee , and cooking certain simple viands in their stores . Wash went to his duties grumblingly ; but he was an ingenious and skillful cook and when he got to work he forgot his `` feeling of mal-de-merry . '' It was now approaching midnight and the flying machine had been steadily traveling northward for some hours . Both Andy Sudds and the professor awoke and offered to relieve the boys in their work . But Mark had taken Jack 's place in the controller 's seat and neither he nor his chum felt that he wished to give over the guidance of the _ Snowbird _ to anybody else . Now , some distance ahead , the peak of Mt. Katahdin , gloriously mantled in moonlight , rose before them .