“Dan! Dan! He’s the man!Dan, Dan Speedwell!”
“Dan! Dan! He’s the man!Dan, Dan Speedwell!”
“Dan! Dan! He’s the man!Dan, Dan Speedwell!”
“Dan! Dan! He’s the man!
Dan, Dan Speedwell!”
The yell from the crowd made everybody in the snowy square turn to look; but when they saw the crowd of boys from the academy the spectators merely smiled. Boyish enthusiasm in Riverdale frequently “spilled over,” and nobody but Josiah Somes, the constable, minded it—andheconsidered it better to give the matter none of his official attention.
“Meeting to-night, fellows, in the Boat Club house—don’t forget!” shouted one of the bigger boys. “We’ll give this iceboat scheme the once over.”
“It’s a great idea,” declared Wiley Moyle, enthusiastically. “And they tell me the river above Long Bridge is already solid as a brick pavement.”
“It isn’t so solid below the bridge—or it wasn’t this morning,” chuckled Billy Speedwell. “Mr. Spink can tell us all aboutthat.”
But Barrington Spink was hurrying rapidly away.
“Why, if the Speedwells have all the money Wiley says they have, they’re worth cultivating,” he muttered to himself—which isoneof the mysteries that bothered Dan and Billy during the next few days. They wondered much why Spink’s manner should so change toward them. The boy hung about them and tried to make friends with “the milkmen” in every possible way.
The other—and more important mystery—met Dan and Billy when they arrived home that very afternoon. The strange boy that Billy had knocked down the evening before, had disappeared.
“When we got up this morning, after you boys had gone,” explained their father, “that fellow had skedaddled. What do you think of that? And without a word!”
“Then Money Stevens may have seen him over by Island Number One!” cried Billy.
“It looks so,” admitted Dan. “I didn’t think there could be two chaps who couldn’t talk, in the neighborhood.”
“That’s not all, boys,” cried Carrie Speedwell. “Just see what little ’Dolph picked up.”
She presented a crumpled slip of paper for Dan and Billy to read.
“’Dolph found it right there beside the bed that strange boy slept on. He must have dropped it. See how it reads, Dan?”
Dan read the line scrawled on the paper, aloud:
“Buried on the island. Dummy will show you the spot.”
There was no signature, nor address—just the brief line. What it could refer to—what thing was buried, and on what island, was hard to understand. Only, it was quite certain that the “Dummy” referred to was the youthful stranger who could not talk English understandably.
“I am awful sorry he went away without his breakfast,” sighed Mrs. Speedwell. “And he didn’t look half fed, at best. It is too bad.”
“He’ll have a fine time living over on Island Number One at this season,” whispered Billy to Dan.
“Don’t let mother hear you,” replied the older boy, quickly. “She’d only worry.”
“Better let ‘Dummy’ do the worrying,” chuckled Billy.
“Well! it’s mighty odd,” said Dan, shaking his head. “And I really would like to know what’s buried on the island.”
“So would I,” said Billy. “Treasure—eh?”
“You’ve got treasure on the brain, boy,” grinned the older youth. “You’re getting mercenary. Haven’t you got wealth enough? We’re capitalists.”
“Yes—I know,” said Billy, nodding. “But I wonder if we’ve got money enough to get us the fastest iceboat that’s going to be raced on the Colasha this winter?”
“Ah! now you’ve said it,” agreed Dan. “But it isn’t going to be money that will get usthatboat. We’ve got to learn something about iceboat building as well as iceboat sailing.”
“Huh! that blamed little wisp, Barry Spink,” grunted Billy.
“What about him now?” asked Dan, laughing.
“As inconsequential as he is, he’s got the whole town ‘bug’ on iceboating. He’ll be all swelled up like a toad.”
“We should worry!” returned Dan, with a shrug of his broad shoulders.
CHAPTER IV
THE “FLY-UP-THE-CREEK”
THE “FLY-UP-THE-CREEK”
THE “FLY-UP-THE-CREEK”
Mildred Kent, the doctor’s daughter, and her closest friend, Lettie Parker, halted the Speedwells at the close of school the next day. Mildred was a very pretty girl and Dan thought she was just about right. As for the sharp-tongued Lettie, she and Billy appeared to be always quarreling—in a good-natured way.
“We want to know what’s in the wind, boys?” demanded Mildred, her pretty face framed by a tall sealskin collar and her hands in a big shawl muff.
“There’s snow inthiswind,” replied Billy, chuckling, for a few sharp flakes were being driven past the quartette as they stood upon the corner.
“Aren’t you smart, Billy Speedwell!” scoffed the red-haired Lettie. “Doesn’t it pain you?”
“You bet it does!” agreed Billy, promptly. “But they tell me that you suffer a deal yourself, Miss Parker, from the same complaint.”
“Now, children! children!” admonished Mildred. “Can’t you be together at all without scrapping?”
“And what about the wind, Mildred?” asked Dan.
“You boys were all down to the Boat Club last night, I hear. What is doing?”
“Aw, don’t tell ’em, Dan!” urged Billy, as though he really meant it. “They’ll want to play the part of theButtinsky Sisters—you know they will!”
“I like that!” gasped Lettie, clenching her little gloved fist. “Oh! I wish sometimes I was a boy, Billy Speedwell!”
“Gee, Lettie! Isn’t it lucky you’re not?” he gasped. “There’d be no living in the same town with you. I like you a whole lot better as you are——”
Dan and Mildred laughed, but Lettie was very red in the face still, and not at all pacified, as she declared:
“I believe I’d die content if I could just trounce you once—as you should be trounced!”
“Help! help! Ath-thith-tance, pleath!” begged Billy, keeping just out of the red-haired girl’s reach. “If you ever undertook to thrash me, Lettie, I know I’d just be scared to death.”
“Come now,” urged Mildred. “You are both delaying the game. And it’s cold here on the street corner. I want to know.”
“And what do you want to know, Miss?” demanded Billy.
“Why, I can tell you what we did last evening, if that’s what you want to know, Mildred,” said Dan, easily. “There’s nothing secret about it.”
“You can’t be going to plan any boat races this time of year?” exclaimed Lettie. “The paper says we’re going to have a hard winter and the Colasha steamboat line has laid off all its hands and closed up for the season. They say the river is likely to be impassable until spring.”
“That’s all you know about it,” interposed Billy. “We justdidagree to have boat races on the river last evening. Now, then! what do you think?”
“I think all the Riverdale boys are crazy,” returned Lettie, promptly.
“What does he mean, Dan?” asked Mildred.
“Poof! Boat racing! Likely story,” grumbled the red-haired girl.
“Now, isn’t that the truth, Dan?” demanded Billy, but careful to circle well around Miss Parker to put his brother and Mildred between himself and the county clerk’s daughter.
“As far as it goes,” admitted Dan, chuckling. “But he doesn’t go far enough. We did talk some about having boat races—iceboat races.”
“Oh, ho!” cried Lettie. Her eyes flashed and she began to smile again. “Iceboats, Dannie? Really?”
“But I thought they were so dangerous?” demurred Mildred, rather timidly. “Didn’t Monroe Stevens and somebody else almost get drowned yesterday morning trying out an iceboat?”
“’Deed they did,” admitted Billy. “But the river wasn’t fit.”
“And you boys got them out of the water, too!” exclaimed Lettie, suddenly. “I heard about it.”
“Somebody had to pull ’em out, so why not we?” returned Dan quickly, with perfect seriousness.
“And you boys are going to build another boat?” asked Mildred.
“A dozen, perhaps,” laughed Billy.
“We’ll build one if nothing happens to prevent—Billy and I,” said Dan. “And if the interest continues, and there are enough boats on the river to make it worth while, we’ll have a regatta bye and bye.”
“An iceboat regatta! Won’t that be novel?” cried Mildred.
But Lettie was interested in another phase of it. She demanded: “How big is your boat going to be, Billy?”
“Oh, a good big one,” he said, confidently. “Eh, Dan?”
“We haven’t decided on the dimensions. I want to make a plan of her first,” Dan said, seriously.
“Well, now! let me tell you one thing,” said the decisive Lettie. “You have got to build it big enough to carry four—hasn’t he, Mildred?”
“Four what?” demanded Billy.
“Four people, of course. You’re not going to be stingy, Billy Speedwell! You know our mothers wouldn’t hear of our sailing an iceboat; but if you boys take us——”
“Ho!” cried Billy. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Let!”
“There isn’t any place you go, Billy Speedwell, thatIcan’t!” cried the red-haired one, who had always been something of a tomboy. “And I’m not afraid to do anything thatyoudare to do—so there!”
“Dear me, Lettie don’t get so excited,” advised Mildred. “Do you suppose girls could sail on your iceboat, Dan?”
“Why not? An iceboat is no more dangerous than a sailboat. And I intend to build our boat with a shallow box on the body so that at least two passengers can lie down in it comfortably.”
“Lie down in it?” queried Lettie, in a puzzled tone.
“Of course,” grunted Billy, “or the boom would knock their silly heads off when the boat comes about. Don’t you know?”
“To be sure! ‘Low bridge!’ I’ve sailed enough on a catboat to know when to ‘duck,’ I hope,” returned Lettie.
“And we can sail with you, Dan?” Mildred was saying. “Do—do you think it will be safe?”
“Perfectly,” replied the older Speedwell. “Not, of course, when we race. We’ll carry only ballast, then, and one of us will have to stand on the outrigger to keep the boat from turning turtle——”
“Oh, that sounds dreadfully exciting!” gasped Lettie, her eyes shining.
“It sounds pretty dangerous,” observed Mildred. “You two boys are speed crazy, I believe! Burton Poole’s got a new car—have you seen it? He says it is a fast one.”
“Pooh!” returned Billy. “Burton’s got to get up awfully early in the morning to be in the same class with us.”
“Never mind the autos,” said Mildred, briskly. “We’ve got what we want, Lettie,” and she laughed. “Remember, boys! we’re to have first call on your iceboat when it is built.”
“Oh, yes! When it is built,” said her chum, laughing. “We’re all counting our chickens before they’re hatched.”
“You wait till a week from Saturday, Let,” said Billy, with confidence. “By that time we’ll have hatched a pretty good-sized chicken—eh, Dan?”
His brother would not promise; but that very night the boys drew plans for the ice racer they intended to build. Mr. Speedwell owned a valuable piece of timber, and the boys always had a few seasoned logs on hand. They selected the sticks they needed, sledded them to the mill, had them sawed right, and then set to work on the big barn floor and worked the sticks down with hand tools.
They even made their own boom, for Mr. Speedwell helped them, and he was a first-class carpenter. The iron work they had made at the local blacksmith shop. The canvas for the sails came from Philadelphia, from a mail order house. Before the middle of the next week the Speedwells carted the new boat down to old John Bromley’s dock in sections, put it together on the ice, and John helped them make the sails and bend them, he knowing just how this should be done.
They had a private trial of the boat one afternoon, towards dark, and she worked beautifully. Even Bromley, who had not seen many iceboats and was an old, deep-water sailor was enthusiastic when he saw the craft, with Dan at the helm, skim across the river, tack beautifully, and return on the wind.
They then started to give her a couple of coats of bright paint.
“What you goin’ to call her boys?” Bromley asked.
“Ought to be something with feathers—she’s a bird,” laughed Billy.
“And we’re going to ‘hatch’ her about as quick as you promised the girls,” his brother remarked.
“Barry Spink’s is theWhite Albatross—he’s going to name it after the boat he and Money wrecked.”
“Bird names seem popular,” said Dan. “Fisher Green has sent for a craft already built. He showed me the catalog.Hiswill be called theRedbird.”
“Say!” shouted Billy, grinning. “I got it!”
“Let’s have it, then,” advised his brother.
“What’s the matter with theFly-up-the-Creek? There’s nothing much quicker on the wing, is there?”
“Bully!” agreed Dan, with an answering smile. “And I bet nobody else on the river will think ofthatfor a name. She’s christened!Fly-up-the-Creekshe is. But I wonder what Milly and Lettie will say to that name?”
CHAPTER V
WINGED STEEL
WINGED STEEL
WINGED STEEL
There was a moon that week and the nights were glorious. While most of the Riverdale young folk were skating in the Boat Club Cove, the Speedwell brothers were trying out the iceboat each evening, and “learning the ropes.”
The proper handling of a craft the size of the one Dan and Billy had built is no small art. With the huge mainsail and jib they had rigged, she could gather terrific speed even when the wind was light. She might better have been called an “ice yacht.”
When the ringing steel was skimming the ice at express-train speed, the two boys had to have their wits about them every moment of the time. Dan handled the helm and the sheet, while Billy rode the crossbeam for balance, and to keep the outrigger runner on the ice.
For boys who had entered in semi-professional motorcycle races, and had handled a Breton-Melville racing car, the speed gathered under normal conditions by this sailing iceboat seemed merely ordinary. What she would do in a gale was another matter.
While they had been building the craft just enough rain fell to wash the snow from the roads; and as the frost came sharply immediately upon the clearance of the rainstorm, almost the entire river surface was like glass. The cold was intense, and the Colasha froze solid. The icemen were cutting eighteen inches at Karnac Lake, it was reported.
There were few airholes between the Long Bridge and the lake (Dan and Billy covered the entire length of the river between those two places) and almost no spots where the swiftness of the current made the ice weak. As for the tides—the ice was too firm now to be affected by ordinary tides above the Boat Club Cove.
As Bromley’s dock was above the Long Bridge, few of their mates saw the Speedwells’ craft at all. The Speedwell house was within a short distance of John Bromley’s and not many of the academy boys and girls lived at this end of Riverdale.
So what theFly-up-the-Creekcould do was known only to Dan and Billy. They sailed her one night away up the river, past Meadville, the mills, and the penitentiary, and so on to the entrance to Karnac Lake. It was certainly a great sail.
“Would you believe she’d slide along so rapidly with nothing but a puff of wind now and then?” gasped Billy, as they tacked and came about for the return run.
“That’s all right,” Dan returned. “But suppose we got off so far and the wind gave out on us altogether? Wouldn’t that be an awful mess?”
“Gee!” exclaimed Billy, laughing. “We ought to have an auxiliary engine on her—eh? How about it, boy?”
“Why, Billy!” exclaimed Dan, “that might not be such a bad idea.”
“Wouldn’t work; would it?” asked the younger boy, curiously. “I only said that for a joke.”
“Well——”
“You’re not serious, Dan?” gasped Billy, seeing his brother’s thoughtful face.
“I—don’t—know——”
“Whoo!” burst out Billy. “You’re off on a cloud again, Dan, old boy! Whoever heard of a motor iceboat? Zing!”
“Hits you hard; does it?” chuckled Dan.
“I—should—say! Wouldn’t it be ‘some pumpkins’ to own an engine-driven craft that would make Money, and Spink, and Burton Poole, and all the others that are going in for iceboating, look like thirty cents?”
“I admire your slang, boy,” said Dan, in a tone that meant hedidn’tadmire it.
“Well, but, Dan! you know that idea is preposterous.”
“You’re wrong. There are sleds, or boats, being used on the Antarctic ice right now, propelled by gasoline—an air propeller and a series of ‘claws’ that grip the ice underneath the body of the sledge.”
“Air propeller?” cried Billy. “Why, there isn’t resistance enough in the air to give her any speed.”
“Not like a propeller in the water, of course. Yet, how do aeroplanes fly?”
“Gee! that’s so.”
“But, suppose we had a small engine on here and a sprocket wheel attachment—something right under the main beam to grip the ice and force her ahead?”
“Great, Dannie!” exclaimed the younger boy, instantly converted.
“Well—it might not work, after all,” said Dan, slowly.
“Let’s try it!”
“We’ll see. Where we lose headway on thisFly-up-the-Creekis when we head her around, or the wind dies on us altogether.Thenthe auxiliary engine might help—eh?”
“Great!” announced Billy again. “We wouldn’t get becalmed out here on the river then, that’s sure.”
The boat was creeping down the river right then, failing a strong current of air to fill the canvas. The string of islands that broke the current of the Colasha below Meadville was on their left hand. The last island—or, the first as they sailed up the river—was the largest of all, and was called Island Number One.
As the iceboat rumbled down stream Billy asked, suddenly:
“What do you think about that dummy, Dan? Suppose he’s over yonder?”
“On the island?”
“Yep.”
Dan viewed the high “hogback” of the island curiously. It was well wooded, but the boys had often been ashore and had never seen a hut, nor other shelter, upon it. Dan shook his head.
“Where would the poor fellow stay? What did he do through that cold rainstorm—don’t see a sign of smoke. Hecan’tbe there, Billy.”
“I know it doesn’t seem probable,” admitted the younger boy. “But remember that paper ’Dolph found. Something’s buried there, and Dummy was left to guard it.”
“How romantic!” chuckled Dan.
“Well! isn’t that so?” demanded the younger lad.
“We don’t know what that line of writing really means,” said Dan.
“Huh! It’s plain enough. Oh, Dan!”
The younger boy had turned again to look at the island as the iceboat slid out of its shadow.
“What’s the matter now?” demanded Dan.
“Look there! Up—up yonder! Isn’t that smoke?”
“Smoke from what?” demanded Dan, glancing over his shoulder quickly. He dared not neglect the course ahead for long, although the boat was not traveling fast.
“From fire, of course!” snapped Billy. “What does smoke usually come from?”
“Sometimes from a pipe,” chuckled Dan. “I don’t see anything——”
“Above the tops of those trees—right in the middle of the island.”
“I—don’t—see——”
“There! rising straight against the sky.”
“Why—it’s mist—frost—something,” growled Dan. “It can’t be smoke.”
“I tell you it is!” cried Billy. “What else could it be? There’s no mist in such frosty weather asthis.”
“But—smoke?”
“Why not?” cried Billy. “I bet that Dummy is over there.”
“Then he must have his campfire in the tops of the trees,” chuckled Dan. “Nowwhere’s your smoke, Billy?”
A puff of wind swooped down upon them. Dan had to attend to the management of theFly-up-the-Creek. The puff of wind was followed by another. Soon the current of air became steady and the iceboat whisked down the river at a faster pace.
“Where’s your smoke now?” Dan repeated.
“Wind’s whipped it away, of course,” grinned his brother. “Gee! can’t this thing travel?”
The experience of skimming the crystal surface of the river was yet so new that Billy gave his whole mind to it, and forgot Dummy and the faint trace of smoke he had seen against the starlit sky, hovering over Island Number One.
This slant of wind that had suddenly swooped down the icy channel drove the craft on as though it really were a bird winging its way homeward. The steel rang again, and at every little ripple in the ice the outrigger leaped into the air.
As the speed increased, Billy crept out upon the crossbeam so as to ballast it. A little cloud of fine ice particles followed the boat and the wind whined in the taut rigging.
They had no means of telling how fast the boat flew, for it was impossible to properly time her by their watches and the landmarks along the river bank; but Dan and Billy were quite sure that they had never come down the stream any faster in their power boat than they did now.
There was a piece of “pebbly” ice inshore, not far below Island Number One, and Dan remembered its location. Therefore he changed the course of the iceboat and she shot over toward the far bank.
Billy shouted something to him, but he could not hear what it was. The younger boy pointed ahead, and Dan stooped to peer under the boom.
The moon had drawn a thin veil of cloud over her face and, for the moment, her light was almost withdrawn. A mist seemed rising from the ice itself; but Dan knew that was a mere illusion.
Suddenly the moon cast aside her veil and her full light scintillated across the river. Billy uttered a yell and waved a warning arm as he gazed ahead. Dan saw it, too.
It seemed as though a wide channel had suddenly opened right ahead of the rushing iceboat—they could see the moonlight glinting across the tiny waves of an open stretch of water.
CHAPTER VI
GETTING INTO TRIM
GETTING INTO TRIM
GETTING INTO TRIM
Ready as the Speedwell boys were in most emergencies, here was an occasion in which it seemed that disaster could not be averted. That is the principal peril of iceboating; it is impossible to stop a craft, once she is under fast way, within a reasonable distance.
It was too late to drop the sail and hope to bring theFly-up-the-Creekto a halt before her nose was in the open water. For the instant Dan Speedwell’s heart seemed to stand still.
There flashed across his mind the remembrance of how that other iceboat—theWhite Albatross—had gone into the open river. Had he and Billy not been on the spot, as they were, Money Stevens and Barrington Spink would doubtless have been drowned.
And here was another such accident. The iceboat flew right down to the wide channel where the moonbeams glanced upon the ripples——
But she kept right on in her flight, and to Dan’s amazement the runners rumbled over the apparently open water with an increasing roar!
“Crickey!” shrieked Billy, turning a grin upon his brother, “didn’t you think that was open water, Dan? I thought we were done for—I really did! And it was only the moonlight glistening upon a rough piece of ice.”
Dan’s heart resumed its regular beat; but he knew that—had it been daylight instead of moonlight—his brother would have observed how pale he was. Seldom had his coolness been put to a keener test than at that moment.
“I tell you what it is,” Dan said, discussing the incident with his brother afterward, “iceboating is a job where a fellow has to have his head about him all the time. And we’ve got to be especially careful if we take the girls riding on this thing.”
“Ifwe do!” grunted Billy. “Why, if we don’t, Mildred and Lettie will give us no peace—you know that, Dan.”
“Just the same, we’ll not take ’em with us when there’s any sign of a gale on the river. It means too much. There are too many chances in iceboating.”
During this week some of the other Riverdale boys had been busy. Monroe Stevens’sRedbirdarrived and made a pretty show on the river near town. Money maneuvered it about the cove and up and down the stretch of river near the Boat Club very nicely.
Barrington Spink had saved the mast and sail from the wreck of his old boat and local mechanics had built for him anotherWhite Albatross. As he had plenty of money he easily obtained what he wanted, including a mate to help handle the iceboat. But, as a whole, the boys and girls of Riverdale did not quite “cotton” to the new boy.
Came Saturday, however, and there were more than a few of the Outing Club down by the river to watch the maneuvers of the iceboats. Although the skating was excellent, it was neglected while the young folk watched Money Stevens get under way and shoot out of the cove in hisRedbird.
TheWhite Albatrosswas a larger boat than Money’s and it was rigged up quite handsomely. There were cushions in the box-body, and neat hand-rails. Money had taken out his sister Ella and Maybell Turner; so now Barry wanted to inveigle some of the girls intohiscraft.
Mildred and Lettie were waiting for the appearance of the Speedwells, but not altogether sure that they would come. The girls hadn’t had a chance to speak to Dan and Billy for several days.
“Do you suppose they have finished the boat they were building?” Lettie asked the doctor’s daughter.
“When Dan promises a thing——”
“I know,” Lettie broke in, hastily. “But he isn’t infallible. And Idowant to try iceboating. That Barry Spink hinted that he’d take me out if I wanted to go. Here he comes now.”
Spink came forward, all smiles and costume—and the latter was really a wonderful get-up for Riverdale. Most of the boys of the Outing Club were content to wear caps lettered “R. O. C.” and call it square. That is as near to a uniform as many of them got.
But Barry Spink was dressed for the occasion. His outfit was something between a Canadian tobogganing costume and a hockey suit. He wore white wool knickerbockers, gray stockings, high-laced boots, a crimson sweater and a white “night-cap” arrangement on his head—one of those floppy, pointed caps with a tassel.
Lettie couldn’t help giggling when he approached; nevertheless she managed to greet him with some show of calm.
“This is my friend, Miss Kent, Mr. Spink,” said Lettie. “How nice your boat looks, Mr. Spink!”
“Ya-as,” drawled Barry. “I think she’s the goods, all right. I’m just going to hoist the sail. Wouldn’t you ladies like to take a little trip?”
“In theWhite Albatross? Oh! I don’t know that we reallycould,” said Lettie, her eyes dancing.
“You needn’t be afraid,” returned Barry, airily. “I have managed iceboats since I was a child—re’lly!”
“Let’s go!” whispered Lettie to her friend.
“No,” said Mildred, firmly. “I am obliged to you, Mr. Spink; but we have promised to go out with Dan and Billy Speedwell in their boat—if they come down the river. And I would not care to disappoint them.”
“Oh, pshaw!” laughed Spink. “I heard they were trying to build an iceboat. But, of course, having no experience, they’ll never be able to do it. Money bought his boat all ready to put together, and it is a fairly good one; but it takes experience to build—as well as to handle—an ice racer.”
“What’s that coming?” cried Lettie, suddenly.
They stood where they could get a view of several miles of the upper reaches of the Colasha. TheRedbirdwas just swooping around to return to the Cove; but beyond Money’s boat there had suddenly appeared another sail.
It was a huge sail and it flew over the ice at a terrific pace. Everybody about the Boat Club landing saw it, and the interest became general.
“There’s another iceboat, Mr. Spink,” exclaimed Lettie. “And see it fly! I guess there are others besides you and Money who know how to sail such craft.”
“I declare!” said Spink, in surprise. “It’s re’lly coming finely. Must be, Miss Parker, that you have some professionals here after all.”
“It’s Dan and Billy, of course,” declared Mildred.
Spink laughed at that statement. “Hardly,” he said. “I have seen the professional racers on the Hudson, and that is the waytheymanage their craft. See it! what a swoop. See that fellow standing up on that out-runner, and hanging on just by his teeth, as you might say!That’ssome sailing—believe me!”
“ItisBilly Speedwell!” cried Lettie, suddenly becoming anxious. “He’ll be killed! The reckless boy!”
“And it’s Dan at the helm,” added the doctor’s daughter.
“Never!” exclaimed Barry. “It can’t be those milkmen.”
But nobody paid any attention to the new boy just then. The crowd all ran to watch the fast-flying ice yacht speed down the river. Monroe Stevens’sRedbirdwas nowhere. The strange craft flew fully two lengths to its one, and was very quickly at the entrance to the Boat Club Cove.
They beheld Billy Speedwell hanging to the wire cable that helped steady the mast, and swinging far out from the out-runner, so as to help keep that steel on the ice as the boat swung into the cove.
Dan let go the sheet at just the right moment, and the sail rattled down into the standing-room. Billy dived for it, and kept the canvas from slatting, or getting overboard under the runners. Thus, under the momentum she had gained, the craft ran in to the landing amid the cheers of the Speedwells’ school fellows.
“Great work?”
“I’ve got something to tell you right now, Billy Speedwell!” shouted Jim Stetson, above the confusion.
“Shoot, Jim! let’s have it,” returned the younger Speedwell.
“You needn’t think you’re going to have it all your own way in this iceboat game—so now, Billy!”
“We don’t want it all our own way,” growled Billy. “But I reckon we’ll show you fellows some class, just the same.”
“Wait!” yelled Jim.
“What for?” demanded Billy.
“Wait till you see what Biff Hardy and I have got. We’ll have theSnow Wraithon the ice next week and then we’ll show you some sailing,” declared Jim, confidently.
“Bully!” cried Billy. “The more the merrier. I can see right now that if we have an iceboat regatta here at Riverdale, it will be some occasion.”
Indeed, the enthusiasm for the new sport increased hourly. The sight of the Speedwells’ boat sweeping in to the landing had made the heart of every spectator beat quicker. And, of course, every fellow who was building an iceboat believed thathiswas the better craft!
The girls had run down to the ice to see the Speedwells’ boat at closer range.
“What under the sun do you call it?” gasped Lettie Parker. “That’s a name for you! ‘Fly-up-the-Creek!’ Whoever heard of such a thing?”
“It’s the blue heron; isn’t it?” asked Mildred, laughing.
“That’s what some folks say; but, anyhow,” explained Dan, “the fly-up-the-creek flies so fast that few people have ever seen one in full flight.”
“My goodness! aren’t you smart?” quoth Lettie. “But why not select a pretty name for it?”
“Goodness! not ifyouare going to sail with us,” cried Billy. “We couldn’t afford such a superabundance of beauty. A pretty name for the boat as well as a couple of howling beauties like you and Mildred——”
But Billy had to dodge Lettie’s vigorous palm then, and for the next few moments he kept well out of her reach.
He and Dan swung the craft around, raised the sail again, tucked the two girls in under the rugs with which they had furnished her, and then shoved theFly-up-the-Creekout from the land.
“We’re off!” yelled Billy, as he leaped aboard the outrigger. “Bid us a fond farewell, and you can reach us by wire at Lake Karnac.”
Meanwhile Barry Spink and his helper had got theWhite Albatrossunder way. She was already running for the mouth of the cove.
“You won’t be so lonely as you think, Billy,” said Miss Parker, pointing a red mitten at Spink’s craft. “Mr. Spink is going to show you boys how an iceboat ought to be handled.”
“Crickey!” ejaculated Billy. “What a get-up!”
“Yes! isn’t he gay?” asked Mildred, smiling.
“Just the same,” Dan observed, quietly, “I reckon that fellow can handle his boat all right. He’s been living where they know all about iceboating.”
“Huh!” exclaimed his brother. “The only time I ever saw him handle one he ran it into the water. We ought to be able to do as well.”
“Oh!” cried Mildred. “Don’t you dare! I wouldn’t have come if I thought there was any danger ofthat.”
CHAPTER VII
OUT ON THE ROAD
OUT ON THE ROAD
OUT ON THE ROAD
The humming runners of theFly-up-the-Creekquickly drowned their voices. The wind was light, and it was not fair for the boats running up stream; yet handled right, the ice craft made good speed in that direction.
Billy, by Dan’s order, shook out the jib, and with all canvas drawing they made a long leg to the farther shore of the Colasha, so that when they tacked they were ahead of both theRedbirdand Barry Spink’s craft.
The three iceboats, however, were not far apart at any time as they tacked up the river. Money Stevens did not handle theRedbirdas smoothly or as neatly as did Barry Spink and his mate; therefore theWhite Albatrosswas the nearer to the Speedwells’ craft.
Once the Spink boat crossed the bows of theFly-up-the-Creek, and the excited Lettie cried:
“Oh, dear! that boy is beating us. Can’t you go faster, Dan? I thought you always were speedy?”
“No. Only Speedwell,” returned Dan, gravely.
“I think we’re going quite fast enough,” remarked Mildred, who was clinging tightly to the hempen loop that Dan had put into her hand when they started.
“It does not follow that we’re being left behind because theAlbatrosscrossed in front of us,” Dan reassured Lettie.
The girl raised up her head to look, and Billy yelled at her:
“Low bridge! Down, I say! Do you want your head knocked off?”
For at that moment Dan had brought the helm about. The boom swept across the body of the iceboat. Billy himself dropped to a horizontal posture.
With creaking and groaning the huge sail bellied out at just the right angle and the slant of the wind flung the iceboat forward on the new tack. She fairly leaped from the ice under the momentum of that sudden gust, and both girls screamed.
Billy laughed happily, for nobody was hurt, and theFly-up-the-Creekwas almost at once on even keel again. But the two girls could only cling tight for the next few minutes and gasp their fear into each other’s ears.
“Look behind!” commanded Dan, after a minute.
Mildred and Lettie did so. To their amazement both theWhite Albatrossand theRedbirdwere far astern. At least a mile separated them from the Speedwells’ craft.
“How—how did you do it, Dannie?” asked Mildred, wonderingly.
“Oh! whatever you did, don’t do it again,” gasped Lettie.
“We went fast enough to suit you that time; did we, Let?” chortled Billy.
“I merely took advantage of a flaw in the wind,” declared Dan. “You see, the wind is not steady this afternoon, and really, bye and bye, I expect it will get around into a new quarter and stick there. I was looking for that puff, and Spink wasn’t. He tacked too soon and thought he had beaten us. But now——”
“He won’t catch us in a week of Sundays!” finished Billy, in delight.
The wind became so uncertain, however, within the next few minutes, that Dan decided it was inexpedient to continue farther than Island Number One. There were clouds in the northeast, too, and a storm might be on the way.
Therefore the boat was headed about and the canvas filled again as the steel runners squealed around the head of the island.
“Don’t see our friend the dummy anywhere, Dan!” yelled Billy.
“Pshaw! there isn’t anybody on this island,” returned his brother.
This attracted the girls’ attention and Lettie asked, curiously: “Who is ‘the dummy,’ Billy? Anybody I know?”
“Give it up! he may be one of your particular friends for all I know,” returned the younger boy. “But he doesn’t speak English—not so’s you know what he says; and I never heard, Let, that you were very proficient in French or German. How about it?”
“What does he mean, Dan?” asked Lettie, turning her back upon the other boy. “Who is this dummy?”
Dan was pretty busy with the steering of the boat, but he managed to tell the girls—briefly—of his short association with the strange boy whom Billy had almost run over in the snowstorm.
“Isn’t that strange!” exclaimed Mildred. “And do you suppose the poor dumb boy is still somewhere about here?”
“Billy says he’s camping on the island yonder,” chuckled Dan.
“Of course, that’s just like Billy,” scoffed Lettie Parker. “Chock full of romance.”
“All right, all right,” grumbled the younger boy. “You folks wait. Dummy’ll turn up again when you least expect him.”
And oddly enough Billy proved to be a prophet in this event; but the others did not believe it at the time.
The uncertainty of the wind shortened the stay of the Speedwell iceboat on the river that day. The boys took the girls back to the landing and then were quite two hours in getting theFly-up-the-Creekto John Bromley’s.
There was some snow that night; but not enough to clog the roads, and it all blew off the ice. The intense cold continued and most of the Riverdale Academy pupils spent their spare time on the ice the following week. But Dan and Billy Speedwell had work in another direction.
Their racing car was now four years old, for they had bought it second hand. For short distances there were probably a dozen cars right in Riverdale that could best the boys’ racer.
But when it came to the longer runs, Dan and Billy were well aware that skillful handling counted really more than the machine itself. There were frequent amateur road races and the Speedwells never refused a challenge.
Now they intended to put their old car into tip-top order, and most of the boys’ spare time that week was devoted to this object.
They got her out on the road Monday afternoon and despite the cold worked for three hours between their house and the Meadville turnpike. Dan drove her and the speedometer registeredwhat they would have considered very good time indeed for an ordinary run. But they didn’t make racing time——“Not by a jugful!” as Billy grumbled.
“There’s something wrong,” admitted his brother, seriously.
“S’pose she needs a regular overhauling? Have we got to knock her down and overhaul her from the chassis up?”
“I don’t know. It’s not so long ago that we had her in on the machine shop floor, you know, Billy, and Mr. Hardy, Biff’s father, went all over her himself. She’s getting old, of course, and we’ve used her a lot.”
“I—should—say—yes,” drawled the younger boy. “Nobody’s got more out of a motor car around Riverdale than we have out of this one.”
“But I believe she’s good for many a race,” asserted Dan. “You see, it may be some little thing. There might be a leak——”
“Leak? pshaw! you know the gas runs as clean as a whistle. And what wouldthathave to do with her losing time?” demanded Billy.
“Wait. I mean a leak in the ignition wiring.”
“Wow!”
“Never thought of that—eh?” demanded Dan.
“No. And I’m not thinking much of it now, Dannie—you old fuss.”
“Don’t you be too fresh calling me names, sonny,” advised the older youth. “You want to remember that the wiring of this car is old. A tiny break in the insulation would be enough to spell ‘trouble.’ Get me, Billy?”
“Uh-huh! But I don’t see——”
“Let’s try it. That’s the only thing to do to make sure.”
“How are you going to do it?” demanded Billy, anxiously.
“Watch me,” returned his brother, with assurance, and he immediately went to work to test the insulation.
Billy was sure he was “some punkins” (as he often remarked) when it came to mechanics; but he knew Dan had him “beaten to a mile” when once the elder boy put his mind to a mechanical problem. So he watched Dan narrowly.
To find a leak in the ignition wiring of a machine is no joke; the break may be of the tiniest and in a remote location, too. But Dan had a practical idea about it and he started right.
First he disconnected the conductors, one at a time, replacing them with temporary connections made with an ample length of free wire, laid outside the motor parts.
It did not take long to do this, and this method of “bridging” the conductors without dismantling the connections brought about just what Danwished. There were two tiny leaks and in an hour Dan had corrected the faults and put everything in shape again.
“Now, we’ll give her another spin,” he grunted. “If I’m not mistaken, Billy, she will act like a different car.”
“Come on. You’ve got to show me,” returned the other. “Doesn’t seem as though those two little cracks in the insulation could put her in so bad.”
They got the car out on the hard road. There was still an hour before sunset and they could go far in an hour.
And how the old car spun along! Billy was delighted and Dan grinned happily. “You sure hit the trouble, old boy!” declared the younger brother. “You are one smart kid——”
Dan punched him good-naturedly in the ribs, and said:
“Be respectful—be respectful, sonny. Remember I’m older than you.”
“That doesn’t worry me much,” returned Billy. And then suddenly he jumped up, demanding: “D’ye see that, Dan? Look!”
They had been going pretty fast, but Dan shut off the power at once. Far ahead of them on the road a red touring car was approaching—a brilliant patch of color against the background of saffron sky.
If the color scheme had caughttheireye, so much more did it catch the eye of Farmer Bulger’s black bull, that had just broken out of bounds and entered the highway from the barnyard lane.
Instantly the beast saw the red car coming and it bellowed a challenge, pawing the frozen ground and shaking his horns threateningly. His back was to the Speedwells’ gray car, and he paid that no attention; the boys saw that the brilliantly painted touring car was filled with girls.
“It’s Burton Poole’s new car!” gasped Billy.
“And Mildred and Lettie are in it!” added Dan, quite as excited as his brother.
“Crickey! why doesn’t that Poole know enough to back out. That bull is an ugly fellow.”
“It isn’t Burton at the wheel,” growled Dan, suddenly. “It’s Barry Spink——By George!”
There were other girls in the car besides the doctor’s daughter and Lettie. They were all screaming as the red car dashed toward the great beast that barred the way. At last Spink stopped; but then it was too late to turn the car and escape.
With a vicious bellow the bull charged and struck the radiator of the car a solid blow, breaking it. He bounded back from the collision and shook his head from side to side; but he showed every intention of making a second charge and this time he might clamber into the car itself!