CHAPTER XX

“NEVER SAY DIE!”

It was, of course, Billy who first found his tongue after the three robbers had left the trio of boys bound in the cavern on Island Number One.

“We got into a nice mess this time; didn’t we?” he complained.

Dan was silent; and it was not strange that the tongue-tied youth was likewise dumb.

“We’ll have a nice time getting away, too,” growled Billy. “Dad will have something to say about it, Dan. He’ll have to go on the milk route in the morning——”

“Is that all that’s worrying you?” demanded Dan, in his quiet voice.

“Well!”

“If the storm continues, and nobody gets out here to the island to find us, it looks to me as though we’d be in quite a pickle. What doyouthink? Getting the milk to the customers around Riverdale isn’t bothering me.”

“Crickey! we’ll be hungry bye and bye, I suppose,” admitted Billy.

“We must find some way of getting out of this place, or we’ll be more than hungry. Can you stretch those cords a little bit, Billy?”

“Crickey!” exclaimed the younger lad again. “I’ve done all of that I want to. Don’t you see my wrists are bleeding?”

“I know, Billy. So are mine. And Dummy——”

He rolled over with an effort to look at the strange lad. The latter was weeping softly, the tears running unchecked down his dusty face. His legs still hurt him most woefully, without doubt.

“Well,” grunted Dan, “I guess we needn’t look tohimfor much help. If we are going to get out of this mess, Billy, we’ve got to do it ourselves.”

“I have a sharp knife in my pocket, Dannie——”

“So have I. Sharper than yours. But how’ll we get at either of them—and how use them?” demanded Dan.

“Well! what else is there?”

“Let me think,” said Dan.

“A lot of good thinkin’ will do us,” growled Billy.

“Never say die!” quoted Dan. “There’s got to be a way out of it.”

“Out of this cave? Sure!” snorted his brother. “The way we came in. And I wish to goodness we hadn’t come in at all!”

“They’d have burned Dummy badly if we hadn’t.”

“And is he any better off? Besides,” added Billy, “those scamps got what they were after, just the same. What do you suppose was in that box, Dan?”

“Ask Dummy,” suggested Dan, with a grim smile.

“Huh! And how far will they get with the box through this storm?”

“Maybe the storm has eased up,” said Dan. “If they try to walk to the shore—either shore—they’ll have a job; for I fancy there is a lot of snow on the ice by this time.”

“They said they’d take our boat,” declared Billy.

“And they’ll have a nice time sailing her through the drifts.”

“Just the same, they are better off than we are right now,” declared Billy.

Dan only grunted. He had been at work during the past few minutes, and was rolling himself over and over on the floor.

“My gracious!” exclaimed his brother, “do you expect one part of this hard floor is any better than another?”

Dan made no reply. Billy and the dummy watched him. Dan was gradually working himself near to the hearth.

The overturning of the forge with the live coals in it had done no harm, after the smoke had cleared away. There was nothing for the coals to set afire. But the heap of ash-covered coals was still hot underneath.

Dan was very well aware of this; yet Billy saw him rolling quite close to the embers. He called out:

“Look out, Dan! You’ll be burned!”

“Never mind yelling about it,” growled the older youth, between his set teeth.

He knew he had a peculiarly unpleasant job to perform; but Dan was just brave enough to do it. Once he had won a motorcycle race with flames eating into his leg while he covered the last lap—and he bore the scar of that yet.

He judged his distance well, gritted his teeth, and rolled close to the heap of embers. He could feel them scorching his back, while his tied wrists were right over the stirred embers.

At once a flame sprang up. There was the smell of scorching flesh. Billy, suddenly understanding what his brother was about, screamed aloud as though it werehewho was being burned.

He tried to throw himself across the floor of the cave to reach Dan, by his action forcing the cords deeper into his own flesh.

And then Dan Speedwell flung himself over and over on the floor, still silent but in evident agony. His hands, however, were free!

“Oh, Dan! Dan!” sobbed Billy. “What have you done?”

He wouldn’t have cried for himself; but that his brother should have sacrificed himself in this way cut Billy to the heart.

“I know what I’ve done,” said Dan, shakenly, at length sitting up and trying to get a hand into his trousers pocket. “I know what I’ve done. I’ve made a chance for us to get free. Shut up your bawling, Billy! Somebody had to do it.”

He got out the knife, despite his burned wrist—and the burn was deep and angry. The skin of both wrists for at least half the way around was scorched.

Dan’s face worked with pain as he opened the blade, then cut the cords that bound his own ankles, using both hands. It hurt him dreadfully to use his hands at all.

But he was free, and he proceeded at once to free the other boys. Billy fairly hugged him, when once his arms were loose again.

“Oh, Dan! you’re the best fellow—the verybestone!—who ever lived,” he cried. “I wouldn’t have had the pluck to do that——”

“Shucks!” grunted Dan. “Yes, you would. You didn’t just happen to think of it. We’ve got to get out of here quick, it seems to me; we couldn’t wait for rescue.”

“But in this storm——?”

“Well, if those fellows dared venture out into the blizzard, I guess we can follow them; can’t we?” the older Speedwell demanded.

“Follow them!”

“Of course. I’m not going to lose theFollow Meif I can help it. And that box, too——”

“We don’t know what’s in it!” cried Billy.

“Whatever it was, it didn’t belong to them,” cried Dan, his eyes flashing with anger.

“Ask Dummy,” suggested Billy, as Dan bent over the other boy to cut his lashings. Dan did so. But all they got was a mumble which meant nothing, and many head shakes.

“Oh!” cried Dan, “I don’t believe he knows.”

“And yet he had charge of it?”

“Of the box?”

“Well, didn’t he? Remember that paper he dropped at our house? He was taking that message to somebody—and it wasn’t to any of those three who got the box—not much!” exclaimed Billy.

“He did his best to keep the place secret from those who shouldn’t know, I reckon,” Dan agreed. “I bet somethingbigdepends upon that box.”

“Money in it!” exclaimed Billy, his eyes sparkling.

“Never mindwhat. Those fellows oughtn’t to have it. Let’s find out where they’ve gone.”

“Oh, I’m with you, if you’re bound to try following them,” agreed Billy. “But not before you’ve had those wrists bound up. I’ve a clean handkerchief in my pocket.”

“Guess your own wrists need a little attention, too,” returned Danny, making a grimace of pain. “And how about Dummy’s legs?”

The kettle, hung on the hook over the open fire, was steaming cheerfully all this time. Dan threw on some more wood, and Billy unhung the kettle and poured some water into a pan. They laved the burns with just as hot water as they could bear, to take the sting out.

Dummy’s trousers were burned in great holes between his ankles and his knees. His legs were merely scorched and blistered, however; his burns were not as deep as Dan’s.

Billy had crawled out of the cave for some snow with which to fill the kettle and reduce the temperature of the water poured into the pan. He reported the snow as blinding and the wind howling in the higher trees like a pack of wolves.

“If those fellows got away from this island, they’ve got pluck—that’s all I got to say,” he grunted.

“You bet they got away,” Dan returned, quickly. “Otherwise they’d be back here to the cave—don’t you see? No other place of shelter; is there, Dummy?” he asked the third boy.

The latter shook his head vigorously. He watched Dan with the eyes of a devoted dog. Evidently he was ready to fall down and worship Dan Speedwell.

It had been Dan who interfered and saved him from his captors. Dan had released him from his bonds. And now, it appeared, he was ready to follow the Speedwells in their attempt to trail the three robbers who had borne away the ironbound chest.

“You understand, Dummy?” demanded Billy. “We’re going to chase those men. Mebbe we’ll have another fight with them.”

He was whittling a handle on a husky stick of firewood, and showed by his motions what he purposed to do with the weapon if he caught up with the men who had so abused them.

It did not, however, shake Dummy’s determination. He was ready to start when the Speedwell boys were ready.

CHAPTER XXI

THE CRY FOR HELP

After the fight in the cave Dan and Billy were sore and tired, and their wrists and ankles very painful. But it seemed to them both that it was their business to follow the outlaws, if they could, and learn what disposition was made of the “treasure box,” as Billy insisted upon calling the chest that had been hidden under the hearthstone in the cave.

Besides, the boys were very anxious about their new iceboat. The robbers, if they used it to get to the mainland, as they evidently intended, might hide theFollow Mewhere Dan and Billy would be unable to find it before the races, a week away.

“Though right now,” Billy remarked, as they crept out of the passage leading into the cavern, “it doesn’t look as though we’d hold iceboat races next week on the Colasha. Goodness, Dan! did you ever in your life see so much snow?”

“It’s worse on this side of the island, don’t you see?” said his brother. “The snow is drifting this way. The high back of the island breaks the wind and the snow piles up here in drifts.”

“But ourFly-up-the-Creekis on this side of the island,” complained Billy. “She’s buried a mile deep, I bet!”

The boys started up the hill, but the snow beat down upon them so heavily, and the wind was so boisterous, they were glad to lock arms. Although Dummy made a “bad botch” of talking, as Billy said, he proved to be pretty muscular and the trio got along famously until they reached the summit.

They had come in this direction because Dan pointed out that it was not likely the three robbers, burdened with the heavy box, would face the gale either with theFollow Me, or afoot.

“And I don’t believe they will go towards Riverdale,” he observed. “You see, they knew old John Bromley was stirring things up over the ’phone when they burst into his house and captured him. Although they left him bound, they realized that whoever John was ’phoning to would look the old man up pretty quick.

“Now, naturally, the whole of Riverdale would be aroused by the robbery—and it sure would be if we hadn’t started right out after theFollow Me. Even now perhaps Bromley has called people up on the ’phone because we are out in the storm so long.

“So, it seems to me,” concluded Dan, with an effort, “that the three robbers are more likely to try for Meadville and the railroad.”

Dummy nodded violently and tried to speak his agreement with this statement. Billy only grunted. He had all he could do to plow through the drifts without wasting any breath in discussion.

They got over the ridge and slid down the steep rocks for several feet until the island itself broke the force of the gale. The wind did not blow directly across the island, but the slant being from up stream the heights acted as a windbreak.

“Now where?” asked Billy, with a sigh.

“Listen!” commanded his brother, unexpectedly.

Dan held up his hand and all three strained their ears for several moments. Then, simultaneously, the trio heard again the sound that had startled Dan. It was the distant explosions of the motor—the motor of theFollow Me!

“They have taken her,” growled Dan. “There they go,” and he pointed up stream.

“But they’re not so far away,” returned the surprised Billy. “And it’s more than an hour since they cleared out and left us in the cave.”

“I guess they had trouble in digging the boat out of the snow and getting her started. It’s a wonder the motor wasn’t frozen up on a night like this.”

It was in a sort of lull of the blizzard that they heard the explosions of the engine. Now the wind and snow swooped down again, and muffled the sound. But Dan started straight down the hill.

“Are you going after them?” yelled Billy.

“Surest thing you know!”

“I believe we’re crazy! We’ll be lost in this snow.”

“Not much we won’t,” declared his brother. “I’ve got a compass.”

He showed it—a very delicately adjusted instrument which he kept in a case in his pocket. At the edge of the ice (there was not so much snow on this side of the island) he waited to hear the sound of the engine again. Then he took his bearings, and at once set forth into the storm.

This time Dan led, Billy hung to his coat-tail, and Dummy brought up the rear. Thus, keeping literally in touch with each other, they would not be likely to drift apart while battling with the elements. And battle they actually had to.

The moment they got from under the shelter of the island the snow and wind almost overwhelmed them. Never had the boys experienced such a gale. Sometimes they were beaten to their knees, and had they not clung together, one or the other surely would have been driven away and lost.

“No wonder those men have gotten no farther from the island!” yelled Dan, with his lips close to Billy’s ear.

“Right-O!” agreed the younger boy. “And can we catch up with ’em?”

“We don’t want to; we want to trail ’em,” returned Dan.

On they pressed, taking advantage of every flaw in the gale. Had it not been for Dan’s compass they would have become turned about and lost their way ere they had left the island behind them ten minutes.

The wind blew between the points of Island Number One and the next above it with such force that the boys made very slow progress. When at last they got in the lee of the second island, they stopped to breathe, and to listen.

They did not at once hear the exhaust of the engine on theFollow Me; but theydidhear something else. Voices were shouting—seemingly far out on the frozen river.

Again and again they heard the sounds. “Ahoy! Ahoy!” came plainly to their ears. Then—and much to the Speedwells’ amazement—the boys heard their own names called—and in accents whose note of peril was not to be doubted:

“Dan! Billy! Help us Dan and Billy Spe-e-e-dwell! He-e-e-lp!”

CHAPTER XXII

THE BATTLE IN THE SNOW

Both Mildred Kent and Lettie Parker believed with the latter’s father that the explosions of the engine near them in the storm meant that Dan and Billy Speedwell were near at hand.

The girls, tossing aside the sheltering robe and the accumulation of snow, stood up, too, and clinging to each other shrieked their boy friends’ names into the sounding gale.

Their own cries might not have carried very far, save in the lulls of the tempest; but with the voices of Mr. Parker and the sheriff, they raised a cry that was certainly heard by whoever was working the motor iceboat through the blizzard.

The “put-put-put” came nearer. A hoarse hail reached the ears of the quartette in the sleigh.

Mr. Kimball had brought his horses to a dead stop. Indeed, the beasts were glad to breathe, although they were far from exhaustion. No better pair of colts, as Mr. Kimball said, were to be found in the county.

“I don’t hear that engine now,” cried Mr. Parker. “Have they stopped?”

He called again, then waited for an answer. The snow seemed to have smothered the sounds. Again Mildred and Lettie shrieked the names of Dan and Billy. They had every confidence in the boys being able to help them if they only heard.

There was another answer—this time nearer. “Got ’em!” cried the delighted Mr. Parker.

“I don’t just see how they are going to help us,” grumbled Mr. Kimball.

“Dan will find a way,” asserted Mildred, now the most hopeful of the quartette.

The next moment a figure appeared in the swirling snow. But it was not Dan or Billy. It was much too tall for either.

“Hullo, there!” exclaimed the stranger, in a very hoarse voice. “What’s the matter here?”

A second figure appeared before either Mr. Parker or the sheriff could answer. The second man said, quite as roughly as the first:

“Gals, by thunder! And a fine pair o’ horses, Tom.”

“You hit it right, Jake,” said the first man. “And just what we want—hey?”

“I wouldn’t try ter go on in that blamed old scooter—not much! And we won’t have to lug the box.”

“Shut up!”

“Aw, it’s all right. Thisisluck——”

The sheriff interposed suddenly. “I take it you fellows consider that your meeting with us is providential; don’t you?”

“Huh?” growled the first speaker. “You’re slingin’ fine language, I guess. What we means ter do is ter take the sled an’ the hosses. That’s all. And there won’t be room for youse gents—or the gals.”

“Why, you scoundrel!” exclaimed Mr. Parker. “What do you mean?”

“Cut that out!” commanded the man called Tom, stepping quickly to the county clerk’s side of the sleigh.

Lettie screamed. The man grabbed Mr. Parker by the collar and dragged him out of the sleigh. Mr. Parker shouted aloud in his anger, and tried to grapple with the man, but was struck a hard blow with a short club, or piece of gas pipe, by the other man. For the moment he was knocked almost senseless.

The sheriff was not frightened, however. He dropped the reins and leaped to the ice, where the snow was now almost knee deep.

“Get down in the sleigh, girls—down!” he commanded. “Look out for bullets! Hands up, you two fellows—put your hands up, quick! Quick, I tell you, or I’ll fire!”

He had drawn a pistol and his tone was so earnest that the men must have known that he would use it. They were amazed for the moment.

“I am the sheriff of this county. I believe you are two fellows for whom I have been looking. Tom Davis—Scar-Faced Tom—I recognize you from the warden’s description. You were discharged from the Meadville penitentiary only a week ago, and it looks very much to me as though you were going back there again.”

The man whom the sheriff addressed—the redoubtable “Scar-Faced Tom”—was not a little cowed by the sheriff’s speech—and extremely so by the business-like look of the revolver. But while Mr. Kimball kept this fellow under surveillance, and Mr. Parker was still lying stunned in the snow, the other fellow dived into the darkness and the storm, yelling for the third, who had remained with the motor iceboat.

The sheriff sent a pistol ball after him; but he would better have refrained. Tom Davis, seizing his opportunity (as he thought) made a great stride for the sheriff as the flame of the discharged revolver flashed right over his shoulder.

Davis would have had Kimball by the throat had it not been for the county clerk. The latter struggled to a sitting posture just at the right moment, and seized the villain’s ankle. He twisted it and, roaring, the man went down.

Sheriff Kimball tossed his pistol to Mr. Parker, and jumped on the fallen robber’s back. His attack was so unexpected that the other was helpless and it seemed as though the sheriff was going to make one capture, at least, without much trouble.

Mildred and Lettie were about as scared as they could be. The firing of the sheriff’s pistol, and the rough tones and fighting seemed terrible to both the doctor’s daughter and her chum.

Once Mildred had been troubled by tramps in the swamp up near Karnac Lake; but Dan had rescued her at that time. So it was not strange that now she should cry aloud:

“Oh, dear, me! I wish Dan were here.”

“And I’d like to know what’s got Billy Speedwell!” rejoined her chum. “Do you suppose these awful men have stolen the boys’ new iceboat?”

“Oh! they’re wicked enough to do anything,” gasped Mildred.

Mr. Parker was staggering to the sheriff’s assistance. But before he reached him he dropped the pistol in the snow. In the darkness and storm it was not easy to find the weapon again; and while he was scrambling about on all fours to obtain it, two figures dashed out of the smother and fell upon him. The second robber and his mate had returned.

They overpowered Mr. Parker in a moment. Then they hauled Mr. Kimball off the prostrate ex-convict; but in that minute the sheriff had choked the fellow into subjection.

He could not rise to help his comrades. Mr. Parker and the sheriff faced but two of the gang, but the latter had the advantage.

Mr. Parker was not used to such rough work. The sheriff, however, was a quick and agile man, ready for almost any emergency which might arise.

He was, too, one of those men who “never give up till the last gun is fired.” He kept on fighting, and the two robbers found him hard to subdue. Suddenly Mr. Parker went down under a swing of the blackjack that had previously felled him.

“Oh! my father! My father!” shrieked Lettie, who was peering over the back of the sleigh. “Billy! Billy Speedwell! Why don’t you help us?”

She screamed this last question at the top of her voice, and it did not go unanswered. First aroused by the explosions of the motor iceboat engine, and led on by the shouting of the girls and their guardians in the sleigh, the two Speedwell boys and Dummy had come near to the scene of the battle in the snow just as the sheriff fired his pistol.

The boys recognized the girls’ voices, and also Mr. Parker’s.

“Mildred!” exclaimed Dan, in amazement. “She’s in trouble.”

“And that’s Let—as sure as shooting!” agreed Billy. “And her father.”

Dummy said nothing, but he kept on with his new friends—and he had to travel some to keep up with them. For neither the wind nor the snow retarded the Speedwells just then.

As the two robbers sprang upon Mr. Parker and the sheriff for the second time, Dan, Billy, and Dummy appeared. The Speedwells gave a great shout and plunged into the affray, swinging their clubs. Dummy kept in the rear, but he helped some in the end. The man, Tom Davis, whom the sheriff had overpowered, began to stir. The Dummy ran to him and threatened him with the club he had brought from the cave on Island Number One.

The battle in the blizzard was soon over. The three rascals were down in the snow, rubbing their heads, and begging for mercy almost as soon as reinforcements in shape of the three boys appeared.

CHAPTER XXIII

DUMMY “GETS IN GOOD”

There was not a weapon found on the three robbers, save the blackjack. The sheriff’s pistol was lost; but once the gangsters had been subdued, they made no effort to attack their captors again.

Besides, Billy and Dummy stood over them with their clubs while Dan took one of the dim lights from the sleigh and went through the storm to find the iceboat on which the thieves had reached the spot.

He found it, got some rope, and the wrists of the three captives were tied behind them. And as Dan and Billy were the ones who did the tying you may be sure they made the bonds quite as taut as their own had been!

“I don’t see as those fellows have done her any harm, Billy,” the older boy told his brother in a whisper. “But she’s almost buried in the snow.”

“And how’ll we get her back to-night?” demanded Billy, anxiously.

“I’m afraid we’re not likely to.”

“Who knows what will happen to theFollow Meaway out here? Crickey, Dan! let’s stay and watch her.”

But they could not do that. In the first place, the girls would not hear of it.

“You stay here, Dan Speedwell?” gasped Mildred. “No, indeed! You mustn’t!”

“Why, I’ll never speak to you again if you don’t go back to town with us, Billy,” declared Lettie, with quite as much emphasis.

“You can see just how we stand with these young ladies, Parker,” broke in the jolly sheriff. “The Speedwell boys forever! And I don’t know but the girls are about right. We wouldn’t have got this bunch if it hadn’t been for the boys.

“Besides, what they tell me makes me believe that this adventure has been a very fortunate one indeed. These men were after those buried plates and the other evidence. They have maltreated this poor chap,” and he put his hand on Dummy’s shoulder. “Tom Davis, here, undoubtedly heard about the buried box before he left the penitentiary. Some of his pals are already there, and prisoners have ways of circulating intelligence.

“Tom, here, got these other two blacklegs to help him, and they thought they’d make a getaway with the box. Now we’ll take that box along with us to Riverdale.”

Dummy and Dan went to the stranded iceboat again and brought back the ironbound box. It was all they cared to stagger under in that storm.

As soon as Dummy had been made to understand who the sheriff was, he made no objection to giving up the box. Indeed, he seemed glad to be quit of the responsibility.

“And let me tell you, there is a reward coming to somebody for the recovery of that box, if not for the arrest of these three fellows,” said Sheriff Kimball. “I shall see to it that this poor lad gets his share.”

“Well, we may say thatthisill wind is going to blow somebody good, then,” remarked Mr. Parker. “But I believe it is blowing harder than ever, Kimball. Do you know where we are?”

The sheriff had little idea; but Dan knew. His compass came into play and they found that the horses had really headed around and were going up stream again when they made their halt.

“We certainly got well turned around,” admitted the county clerk.

“Now, you see, Pa!” exclaimed Lettie. “You big men would have dragged us around in the snow all night, and we’d been lost, and frozen up tight maybe——”

“I don’t see that your boy knights are going to do much better,” returned Mr. Parker, rather grimly. “This is a bad storm. I wish we had never left that farmhouse, Kimball.”

“So do I,” admitted the sheriff.

“We can’t all pile into this sleigh—the horses can scarcely draw it as it is. That box is a weight, and no mistake.”

“I say, sir,” said Dan to the sheriff, again consulting the compass. “I know we can get to John Bromley’s dock, all right. It is a good distance, but as long as we know which way to head, we’re bound to bring up there if we keep near enough the shore.”

“Sensibly said, boy,” agreed Parker.

“I’ll walk ahead of the horses. You can’t get them out of a walk, anyway,” pursued Dan. “You folks get into the sleigh again, and let those fellows walk behind. Billy and Dummy will see that they don’t fall out of the procession.”

The sheriff made one amendment to this. He refused to ride in the sleigh, but made Mr. Parker and the girls snuggle down under the robes. He declared he preferred to keep moving, anyway, and he led the colts himself.

They acted better with him at their heads, for the poor beasts were frightened and pretty well winded. Thus the procession started—and there were no stragglers. The dummy and Billy Speedwell saw to that.

They were all tired and half-blinded by the snow and wind; but the work kept their blood in circulation. Those afoot were better off than Mr. Parker and the girls.

The three prisoners suffered a good deal before long. It is not easy to walk at any time with one’s hands tied behind one’s back; but to wade through knee-deep snowdrifts under those conditions is very hard indeed.

The cords around their wrists stopped the circulation, too; and the men were in danger of suffering frost-bitten hands. Tom Davis, the ex-convict and the ugliest man in the trio, was the quickest to suffer and make his suffering known.

Like every other bully, he was a coward. He had invented the way to torture Dummy when they desired to know where the hidden box lay, and he had exulted in the lad’s pain. But he could not have held out against the scorching for a minute.

Now he begged and pleaded with Billy to loosen his bonds. He even cried and declared his hands would “freeze and drop off.”

“Then, by crickey!” exclaimed young Speedwell, “you’ll be able to keep them out of other people’s pockets. Get on with you!” and he poked the fellow in the back with his stick.

“It was all right when you tied us up and left us to starve, or freeze in that cave on the island,” pursued Master Billy. “You might have known you were bound to get yours.”

Tom blubbered along, stumbling through the snow, and even his mates scorned him.

They were not a pleasant party, to say the least. Once or twice one of the prisoners fell. Billy and Dummy helped him up again; and they were sure that the cords held. The guards did not neglect their captives at any stage of the game.

The procession moved slowly on, Dan in the lead. He brought them in near to the high bank of the Colasha. There were farmhouses somewhere along the riverside; but the bank was so steep that it would have been very difficult to get the horses up to the highway. Furthermore, in this blinding snowstorm, it was impossible to see a light.

They struggled on with a desperate attempt at cheerfulness, shouting encouragement to each other, and trying to be brave. But the snow was piling into such drifts against the shore that it was scarcely possible for them to win through.

“Don’t know but we’ll have to strike out on to the clearer ice again, sir,” suggested Dan to Mr. Kimball.

“Where’d you find a piece of cleared ice—unless you cleared it yourself?” grumbled the sheriff. “This is anicemess!”

“It’s tough on the team,” admitted Dan. “But I reckon we’ll pull through after a fashion.”

“I admire your pluck, lad,” grunted the sheriff. “And it’s one o’clock right now!”

“Then we ought to be somewhere near old John’s. He can’t be very far ahead——There! isn’t that a light?”

“Where?” exclaimed the sheriff, excitedly.

“Dead ahead. Don’t you see? It’s moving! I believe that’s the little searchlight we rigged on Bromley’s wharf. Yes, sir! The good old fellow! He’s hoping we will see it—Billy and I—and be able to get back in the iceboat.”

“Iceboat!” snorted the sheriff. “You’ve a fat chance of ever seeing your iceboat tied up at this dock again until the snow goes away.”

“Well, now!” exclaimed Dan, with some emphasis. “You just watch. Billy and I don’t propose to let ourFollow Melie out there on the river for very long. We’re going to win the races next week in that boat, and don’t you forget it!”

“I wish I had your hope, boy,” grunted the county officer. “Come up, Dandy! What’s the matter with you, Poke?”

Itwasthe light on Bromley’s dock. The old boatman had recovered from the rough usage he had received at the hands of the three robbers, and was out on the watch for the Speedwell boys.

To say he was surprised at the appearance of the procession is to but faintly express old John’s emotions.

“Strike my colors!” he ejaculated. “This is the beatenest thing I ever see. And I’d made up my mind that Master Dan and Billy had got into trouble this time for sure.”

“And you were quite right—we did,” admitted Dan, tenderly arranging the bandages on his wrists.

“And you got them sculpins?” said the boatman, eyeing the three exhausted captives with much disfavor. “Well! the rest of you pile into my house an’ git warm. Let them fellers stay out here and freeze a bit more.”

But he was not as bad as all that. Old John opened the fishhouse and built a fire in the little stove there, and soon the three prisoners were getting warm, too.

Mr. Parker telephoned to his home and to Dr. Kent’s and so relieved the anxiety of the girls’ mothers. Dan called up his own house and caught his father just before he started for the barn to get the milk truck ready.

“Though, in this storm, it is lucky if we get around. I shall take Bob and Betty, rather than the motor truck,” said Mr. Speedwell. “Your mother says to bring that poor boy home with you. We must look after him.”

“And I tell you,” said the enthusiastic Billy, to Mildred and Lettie, “Dummy is going to ‘get in good’—don’t you forget that! Sheriff Kimball says there will be several hundred dollars coming to him.”

“If there’s any chance of a doctor’s helping him your father will know, Mildred,” said Dan. “Make him promise to come out and see Dummy just as soon as he can.”

“I will,” Mildred declared. “He is a real nice boy, I think. And if he learns to talk and goes to school——”

“Oh, he’ll do all of that!” promised Dan. “We’ll see to it, Billy and I.”

“Do see that he gets a new name—or a better one, at least,” suggested Lettie Parker. “Anybody would be handicapped with such a nickname ashehas had.”

CHAPTER XXIV

“IT’S A RINGER!”

It was proved that the nephew of the wild Harry Bigginhada proper name of his own. His unfortunate and ignorant parents had never allowed a doctor to see the boy when he was small, or the discovery that Dr. Kent made as soon as he examined the patient would have resulted in a simple operation and a change for the better in the boy’s speech.

He had been properly named Albert Biggin. He was not at all a backward boy, save in speech. And he showed his gratitude to the Speedwells in every way possible.

The doctor kindly went with him to the hospital at Compton, and aided in the operation that gave Bert Biggin the proper use of his tongue. Afterward, when the wound was well, he returned to the Speedwell farm, and there went to work cheerfully to repay the boys and their parents for their kindness to him.

He was to make his home with them, and the sheriff put the part of the reward offered for the recovery of the “treasure box,” which rightfully belonged to “Dummy,” into the bank in his name.

The three fellows who were captured later were punished by the law for their work. Out of the adventure in the blizzard a number of good things sprang.

But this is somewhat ahead of our story. The morning after the great snowstorm was a busy time for Dan and Billy Speedwell. Although the storm ceased and the sun broke through the clouds, they were worried about the motor iceboat that the robbers had abandoned up the river. Before noon the brothers, with their new chum, started up the river road on the lookout for the lost boat.

“It’s all right to have theFly-up-the-Creekover there at Island Number One. We know wheresheis,” said Billy. “But if any of the fellows got hold of the other——”

“Barrington Spink, for instance?” suggested Dan.

“Crickey, Dan! I believe he found those plans of yours. Jim Stetson declares that Barry and that mechanic of his are building a regular wonder of an iceboat. He’s going to call it theStreak o’ Light.”

“Well, we can’t help that,” returned his brother, gruffly. “If he beats us, he beats us! That’s all there is to it.”

“But it isn’t fair if he has based his construction on your invention.”

“Humph!” grunted Dan. “I won’t be the first inventor who has been beaten out of his rights; will I?”

They spied the mast of the motor iceboat after a long tramp. She was nearly a mile from the bank of the river.

They hired a pair of horses from the neighboring farmer, and got down on the ice and out to the stranded boat.

“Won’t be much more iceboating on the Colasha this winter if this snow remains,” Billy declared.

“Don’t you be too sure of that,” returned Dan. “If there comes a slight thaw, andthenshe freezes——Wow!”

“My goodness me!” gasped Billy, seeing the prospect at once. “Then she’ll be all ‘thank-you-ma’ams’ and the boats will bound like rubber balls. Say! if that happens there’s bound to be some fun.”

They dug theFollow Meout of the snowdrift, and dragged her ashore after taking down the mast and stowing the frozen sail. The motor and engine had not been hurt as far as the boys could see.

They dragged the iceboat back to John Bromley’s dock on a sledge, and by that time it was dark. One of the boys stayed with Bromley each night after that until the day of the races.

For the regatta, so long looked forward to, was held on the date appointed. On Christmas night there was a rise in the temperature and a gentle rain. In the morning around went the wind again to the northwest, and the mercury went down to almost the zero mark. The snow-covered river was a glare of icy crust.

The boats were soon out in full force, although the skating was not good. For the first time the boys learned just what it meant to maneuver an iceboat on a rough surface.

Dan and Billy, with the help of Bert Biggin, dug out theFly-up-the-Creekon the shore of Island Number One, and took the girls to Karnac Lake the day before the regatta.

Mildred and Lettie had enjoyed the sport before; but although the breeze was light, the big iceboat got under great headway coming home, and when she leaped from the summit of a particularly big hummock of snow-ice, and did not touch a runner to the surface for forty feet, the girls thought they had come as near to flying as they ever wished to.

“And do you mean to say you believe you can get greater speed out of your new boat thanthis, Dannie?” panted Lettie Parker. “Why! I can’t believe it.”

“To-morrow will tell the story,” returned Dan, grimly.

“The boys say thatStreak o’ LightBarry Spink has built is just a wonder,” said Mildred, anxiously.

“Well, of course,” returned Dan, seriously, “I can’t tell what Barry has built. But it’s got to be a good one to beat ourFollow Me, now that we have overhauled her and adjusted her again—eh, Billy?”

“Believe me!” agreed his enthusiastic brother, “it’s some boat, girls. Wait till you see it.”

The Speedwell boys sailed their new invention down to the Boat Club Cove the morning of the regatta, using only her canvas. Barrington Spink and his foreign looking mechanic were running the new boat Spink had built all about the cove to show her paces, using, of course, only the motor. She did not go so very fast, but the owners of ordinary iceboats looked on theStreak o’ Lightwith envy.

“Say!” grunted Monroe Stevens; “we haven’t the ghost of a show with that thing. And Mr. Darringford’s got a power boat, too. What haveyougot under that canvas, Dan?”

“Never mind,” said the older Speedwell boy. “We’ll show our engine after the races—not before.”

But the brothers went over to Spink’s boat and examined it. Barry seemed very nervous and eyed the Speedwells askance while Dan was closely examining the mechanism that drove theStreak o’ Light.

“What do you think of it, Dan?” asked Mr. Darringford, who was standing near.

“I—don’t—know,” returned the boy, and backed away from the machine. Billy followed him, his face red and his hands clenched.

“It’s a ringer! It’s a ringer!” the younger boy declared, hotly. “He stole those plans——”

“He merely found them on the ice and picked them up,” put in Dan, quietly.

“And made use of them!” ejaculated Billy, almost choked for speech in his anger.

“Yes,” observed Dan, slowly. “He seems to have madesomeuse of the idea.”

“And if he beats us, it will be because of our plans—your invention, Dan!”

“Hold on! don’t blow up!” warned Dan. “The race isn’t run yet.”

“And if it is——”

“He’s got to show he knows how to run his boat better than we run ours; hasn’t he?” Dan demanded. “Keep your shirt on, Billy.”

Thus admonished, the younger Speedwell kept silent. Barry Spink raced hisWhite Albatrossin the early races, and he actually won two of the short ones.

“That chap thinks he’s going to sweep the whole river,” growled Biff Hardy. “He’s sent up to Appleyard’s for a broom and is going to tie it to his masthead.”

“Oh, Dan! is he really going to beat everybody—win everything?” cried Mildred Kent.

“Wait,” advised Speedwell. “These are only play races. There’s only one real trial of speed to-day; and theFollow Meis going to be in that,” and he laughed.

But Billy didn’t feel like laughing at all. He didn’t have much share of Dan’s courage.

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