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Title: The Speedwell Boys and Their Ice Racer - Lost in the Great Blizzard
Author: Rockwood, Roy
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Speedwell Boys and Their Ice Racer - Lost in the Great Blizzard" ***
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
UNDER THE PRESSURE OF BOTH WIND AND CLAW-WHEEL,
SHE HIT ONLY THE HIGH PLACES.
_Speedwell Boys and Their Ice Racer. Page_ 199
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Speedwell Boys
and Their Ice Racer
Lost in the Great Blizzard
BY
ROY ROCKWOOD
AUTHOR OF “THE SPEEDWELL BOYS ON MOTORCYCLES,” “THE
DAVE DASHAWAY SERIES,” “THE GREAT
MARVEL SERIES,” ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOOKS FOR BOYS
BY ROY ROCKWOOD
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS SERIES
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS ON MOTORCYCLES
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS AND THEIR RACING AUTO
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS AND THEIR POWER LAUNCH
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS IN A SUBMARINE
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS AND THEIR ICE RACER
DAVE DASHAWAY SERIES
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
DAVE DASHAWAY THE YOUNG AVIATOR
DAVE DASHAWAY AND HIS HYDRO-PLANE
DAVE DASHAWAY AROUND THE WORLD
DAVE DASHAWAY, AIR CHAMPION
THE GREAT MARVEL SERIES
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
THROUGH THE AIR TO THE NORTH POLE
UNDER THE OCEAN TO THE SOUTH POLE
FIVE THOUSAND MILES UNDERGROUND
THROUGH SPACE TO MARS
LOST ON THE MOON
ON A TORN-AWAY WORLD
CUPPLES & LEON. CO., PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
-------------------------------------------
Copyright, 1915, by
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
---------------------
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS AND THEIR ICE RACER
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. ON THE ROAD AND ON THE ICE 1
II. A BIG IDEA 11
III. MORE THAN ONE MYSTERY 21
IV. THE “FLY-UP-THE-CREEK” 30
V. WINGED STEEL 38
VI. GETTING INTO TRIM 46
VII. OUT ON THE ROAD 55
VIII. THE PLANS 64
IX. THE BOY WHO COULDN’T TALK 70
X. COASTING 79
XI. A HAIR’S BREADTH FROM DEATH 88
XII. THE “FOLLOW ME” 96
XIII. THE STRANGER 101
XIV. GATHERING TROUBLE 109
XV. ON ISLAND NUMBER ONE 117
XVI. THE UNEXPECTED 127
XVII. IN THE DEN 137
XVIII. AN EVENING DRIVE 144
XIX. LOST IN THE BLIZZARD 152
XX. “NEVER SAY DIE!” 161
XXI. THE CRY FOR HELP 169
XXII. THE BATTLE IN THE SNOW 174
XXIII. DUMMY “GETS IN GOOD” 181
XXIV. “IT’S A RINGER!” 190
XXV. BEATING THE “STREAK O’ LIGHT” 197
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS
AND THEIR ICE RACER
CHAPTER I
ON THE ROAD AND ON THE ICE
“Crickey! this is some snow, Dan. Never saw it come so fast in my life,”
declared Billy Speedwell earnestly, as his brother rolled the heavy cans
of milk out of the cooling room at Fifield’s.
Their new motor-truck, in which the boys picked up the milk from the
various dairies under contract to Mr. Speedwell, stood near. One at a
time the brothers lifted the heavy cans and tossed them into the wagon.
“You’ll likely see a lot more snow before _this_ winter’s over, Billy,”
grunted the older lad, as the last can was placed.
“If it gets deep in the roads we may have to go back to using Bob and
Betty and the old delivery wagons.”
“Not much!” exclaimed Dan, with confidence. “We’ve got seventy horses in
this old engine; that ought to push her through the drifts.”
“We’ll have to put the chains on her tires before we start out to-morrow
morning—unless I miss my guess. This is going to be some snow,” remarked
Billy.
“According to the almanac,” his brother responded, “we’re going to have
many big storms this winter and lots of ice. Why! there’s a regular
blizzard due before Christmas.”
“Well, I like the winter,” declared Billy. “But if the Colasha stays
frozen over we’ll not use the _Red Arrow_ again till spring.”
“No; I suppose not.”
“And with the roads deep in snow we won’t do much fast riding on either
our _Flying Feathers_, or our racing-auto.”
“Oh! there’ll be good weather for motor-car races yet.”
“That’s so,” cried Billy. “I guess we can get a bit of fun out of the
old car, eh?”
“We’ll try,” agreed Dan, who was just as much of a motor enthusiast as
his younger brother.
Billy had hopped in and taken the wheel. The motor was singing beneath
them and in a moment the electric truck lurched forward and they slid
out of the Fifield yard.
When they turned into the road, heading for home, the wind and snow
struck them with all their force.
“Some storm!” Billy muttered, with set teeth, and trying to peer ahead.
The lamps did little good in such a smother. The flakes whipped into his
face and clung to his goggles. Again and again he wiped away the
accumulated moisture with his mittened hand—thereby blurring his sight
for a moment entirely.
It was just after one of these attempts to clear his vision that the
accident happened. The truck was steaming along at a good clip, for the
Speedwells were anxious to get home to shelter and a warm supper.
Dan shouted and seized his brother’s shoulder. The latter felt the jar
as the mudguard struck the dim figure that he had only seen when the
truck was right upon it.
Down went the foot passenger, who had been plowing against the storm,
too, deaf and blind to the motor-truck. Billy shouted, but was not too
excited to stop the motor and brake the car.
He leaped into the gathering snow on one side, while Dan left the truck
on the other. Fortunately the wayfarer had been flung aside; the wheels
had not passed over him.
“He must be badly hurt, Dan!” gasped Billy, in great distress, on his
knees beside the fallen figure.
“Does he move?”
“I—I can’t tell. Try it, Dannie,” choked the younger Speedwell. “I—I’m
afraid to do so.”
Dan had the wrist of the unfortunate in his own bare fingers. “His pulse
is all right,” he said.
Just then the unknown stirred and muttered. What he said neither of the
Speedwells could understand; but they were both delighted. Certainly the
victim of the accident was far from dead!
“Who are you? Are you hurt?” asked Dan.
The other made a strange sound—it was as though he said several words,
but they were unlike any speech the boys had ever heard before.
“He can’t be intoxicated; can he?” gasped Billy.
“Why, he’s only a boy!” declared Dan, dragging the unknown into a
sitting posture in the snow.
“There’s a cut along his cheek. See! it’s bleeding.”
Billy brought out his handkerchief and wiped the blood away. The
mysterious youth—he wasn’t as old as Dan—tried to speak again. The
sounds that issued from his lips were so strange that the younger
Speedwell was startled.
“I never heard the like, Dan!” he gasped. “Is he some kind of a
foreigner?”
“It doesn’t sound human,” drawled Dan. “He must be a stranger from
Mars.”
But it was not altogether a joke, although the youth now staggered to
his feet with the aid of the brothers, one on either side. He had been
much shaken, it was evident. His cheek still bled, and he seemed
strangely weak.
“Come along home with us, old man,” Dan said, patting him on the
shoulder. “We’ll see what’s the matter with you there.”
The stranger seemed to understand. Although he could not speak
intelligibly, it was plain that he understood what the Speedwells said
to him. And he did not lack intelligence—Dan and Billy were sure of
_that_. His eyes were bright and he wasn’t at all dazed. The blow had
knocked him out for only a minute.
They helped him into the seat and again Billy started the truck. The
snow whirled down upon them faster and faster; but this time there was
no stop made until they turned in at the Speedwell gate and the outline
of the big barn and cow stables loomed before them.
Dan hurried the strange youth into the kitchen, where the odorous steam
of supper attacked them cheerfully as soon as the outer door was opened.
“What _is_ the matter?” cried Mrs. Speedwell, who was a motherly person,
as soon as she saw her older son and the strange boy. “Is he hurt? Who
is he, Daniel?”
“I don’t believe he’s badly hurt, Mother,” explained Dan. “But he
doesn’t seem able to tell——”
Again the unknown mumbled something. His eyes roved eagerly toward the
table, already laid with a bountiful repast.
“I know he’s hungry,” exclaimed Mrs. Speedwell. “Let him wash his face
and hands, Daniel, and sit down at once.”
The strange boy could do that. Carrie brought a bottle of antiseptic and
little ’Dolph stood by and watched the stranger in childish curiosity.
In a few moments Billy and their father came in, and then all sat down
to the table.
The visitor was undeniably hungry. Adolph could scarcely eat his own
supper he was so greatly interested in seeing the unknown youth “mow
away” the heaping plateful good-natured Mr. Speedwell put before him.
“Why!” declared Mrs. Speedwell, “that young fellow was pretty near
starved. And he’s only a boy, too! What can his folks be thinking of——?”
The visitor looked at her, smiled, and nodded. He tried to say
something, too, but it was such a jumble of sounds that they all looked
amazed, and even the boys’ father shook his head.
“That certainly beats _me_!” he exclaimed. “What do you think he means,
Mother?”
“I am sure I do not know. But we must find out about him. He ought not
to be wandering around alone.”
“On a night like this, too!” from Dan.
“Oh, we’ll put him up,” said Billy, quickly. “Won’t we, Mom?”
“Surely, my son,” agreed his mother.
“Maybe he is some kind of a foreigner,” said Carrie, the boys’ sister.
“Sounds more like hog-Latin,” chuckled Billy, to his brother.
“Sh! he can understand English well enough, even if he doesn’t speak it
plainly,” said the older boy.
“Guess you are right there,” agreed Billy.
The entire family was deeply interested in the youth. He had been hungry
indeed; and when supper was finished he appeared sleepy, too.
“No knowing how far he had tramped in the snow and storm before you boys
ran across him,” Mr. Speedwell observed.
“We didn’t exactly run across him,” Billy said, with a chuckle. “But we
come pretty near it, Dad. Too near for comfort.”
At any rate, Mrs. Speedwell and Carrie prepared a room for the stranger.
He had a suit of Dan’s pajamas to sleep in, and little ’Dolph had become
so friendly with him that he insisted on the visitor’s taking to bed
with him one of Adolph’s newest and most precious toys—an air-gun.
The visitor retired after saying something that must have been a
grateful response to Mrs. Speedwell’s kindliness.
“By gracious!” exclaimed Mr. Speedwell, slapping his knee, “that surely
sounds like English—only he mumbles it so. Sounds just as though he were
tongue-tied.”
“He surely isn’t dumb,” agreed Dan.
“Not at all,” Billy added. “But I never heard anybody as tongue-tied as
all _that_.”
The Speedwells were not late to bed—especially on such a night as this.
The wind howled and the snow continued until midnight; but when the
alarm clock awoke Billy and Dan in their room at two o’clock, the storm
had ceased and a faint strip of moon was struggling amidst the breaking
clouds.
The snow was not too deep for the auto-truck, although the brothers
could not get over their long route as quickly as usual. School was in
session and Dan and Billy put in full time every school day, in spite of
the milk delivery.
They were spinning out the river road towards Colonel Sudds’s place,
beyond the Darringford Machine Shops, about half past seven, with only a
few more customers to deliver to, when Billy caught sight of something
on the river that interested him immensely.
“Look at that flyer, Dan!” he cried. “Iceboat, sure as you are an inch
high!”
“I’m several feet more than an inch tall, Billy,” chuckled his brother,
“so that _must_ be an iceboat and no hallucination.”
“Don’t pull any of the ‘high brow stuff,’ as Biff Hardy calls it,”
returned slangy Billy Speedwell. “And tell me, pray, who owns an iceboat
around Riverdale?”
“I didn’t even suppose the ice was thick enough to bear a boat,”
returned Dan, who was quite as surprised at the appearance of the
swooping craft as his brother.
The river bank fell abruptly from the edge of the road. Dan had brought
the truck to a halt, for both boys were immensely interested.
Anything that flew like that craft on the ice below, was bound to hold
the attention of the brothers. They were well named, their chums at the
Riverdale Academy declared. Billy Speedwell had never yet traveled fast
enough to suit him, and Dan was just as much of a “speed maniac.”
However, Dan’s natural caution usually kept the brothers from reckless
racing of any kind; but they had won prizes and made records with their
motorcycles, racing car, and motorboat.
Now they stared hard at the craft flying down the river toward the
buildings belonging to the Colasha Boat Club. The ice was firm in
patches, but from this height the Speedwells could see that there were
open strips of water, yards in width.
The tides did not affect the river much so far from its mouth; yet there
was some brine in it and despite the severe cold of the last few days,
the ice was not entirely safe.
“Two fellows in her,” announced Billy.
“I see ’em.”
“And just as reckless as they can be. See there! Don’t they see that
channel ahead? My goodness, Dan! It’s fifty feet wide if it is a foot!”
“You’re right, Billy; they’re going to have a spill!”
“Worse than that,” cried the younger brother, and he hopped out of his
seat. “Come on, Dan! there’s going to be something doing down there in
another minute. We’re going to be needed——”
He halted in his speech, for at that very moment the skimming iceboat
shot over the edge of the firm ice, its runners cut through the
shell-like crystal beyond, and the heavy body of the boat splashed into
the open water.
Its momentum carried it far; but only the front runner hit the ice on
the other side of the open channel. The runner slipped under the firm
ice, and the careening boat stopped. With a crash heard plainly up on
the highroad, the mast went by the board, and the craft and its
passengers disappeared under the falling canvas.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II
A BIG IDEA
Dan and Billy Speedwell, now seventeen and sixteen years of age
respectively, were, as has been observed, famous in the county as speed
experts. In “The Speedwell Boys on Motorcycles” are related several of
their first speed trials at the Compton Motordrome and on the road, and
in the second volume of the series, “The Speedwell Boys and Their Racing
Auto,” is told the winning of a thousand-mile endurance test.
The brothers later obtain possession of a motorboat and adventures
connected with the great regatta of the Colasha Boat Club are narrated
in “The Speedwell Boys and Their Power Launch,” and in the fourth
volume, entitled “The Speedwell Boys in a Submarine,” the brothers are
two of an adventurous party that find a submerged wreck and the treasure
aboard it.
The boys’ father had been merely a small dairyman and farmer, and the
boys had to work hard between school sessions to help him. By certain
fortuitous circumstances they had been enabled to obtain motorcycles, a
racing auto, and a power launch; but the disposal of the recovered
treasure had made the Speedwell family quite independent.
Something like twenty thousand dollars had been wisely invested for Dan
and Billy, and in addition they were able to help their father increase
his business and give the family many luxuries which had before been
beyond their reach.
As we have seen, however, the Speedwells lived plainly and were busy and
industrious folk. The brothers went to school faithfully and helped as
they had for several years in the delivery of the milk to their father’s
customers in and about Riverdale.
The interest of the two boys in the career of the strange iceboat had
brought them to a halt on the river road. Dan and Billy were both
descending the steep bank at breakneck speed before the fall of the mast
spelled utter ruin to the ice craft.
“They’ll be drowned, Dan!” gasped Billy, hurrying on the slippery path.
“They’ll be mighty wet—that’s sure,” returned the older boy. “Hold on,
Billy! Let’s take some of these rails. We’ll need ’em.”
It was always Dan who thought the more clearly. Billy was as brave as a
young lion; but he lacked his brother’s judgment and caution. He would
have gone empty-handed to the rescue of the victims of the wreck; but
Dan saw ahead.
The boys immediately tore down a couple of lengths of rail fence which
here marked the boundary of some old pasture. With the rails on their
shoulders they hurried on.
Just then a faint cry for help came from the half-submerged iceboat.
Billy returned a shout of encouragement as he and Dan hurried to get
around the open stretch of water.
When the boys leaped down upon the ice they chose a firm spot for their
attempt. They were able to run right out toward the middle of the river
(which was here at least two miles wide) without venturing upon any thin
ice. Their principal peril was from holes hidden by the heaped-up snow
of the night before.
The weight of this snow had broken down great patches of ice, leaving
open places like this into which the iceboatmen had fallen. And there
had been a very high tide not four hours before, which had raised the
level of the Colasha River even as far up-stream as this point.
Naturally the ice—not yet very thick—had given way in many places. The
two on the wrecked boat had been very reckless indeed.
This was no time to tell them so, however. Dan and Billy went to work in
the most approved fashion to reach the half-frozen castaways clinging to
the outrigger of the ice craft.
“Keep up your pluck! We’re coming!” yelled Billy.
“So—so’s—Christmas!” stammered one of the castaways.
“Crickey!” gasped Billy. “That’s Monroe Stevens—sure’s you live, Dan!”
The Speedwells had cast the fence rails on the ice in a criss-cross
fashion and now Dan was creeping out upon the frail platform thus made,
to the very thin ice. He said:
“If he was going to be hanged the next minute, Monroe would joke. Hi,
there! Save your breath to cool your porridge, Monroe! Who’s with you?”
“B-b-barry Spink,” chattered young Stevens. “Don’t y-y-you know—know
Barrington Spink, Dan? Lem-lem-lemme present you.”
This introduction seemed a little unnecessary, for the next moment Dan
Speedwell seized Barrington Spink by the wrist and fairly “yanked” him
out of the water. Young Spink was all but helpless from cold and
exhaustion.
As Dan backed away from the hole, dragging Spink with him, Billy swarmed
over them both and seized upon Monroe Stevens.
“Hold tight, old man,” he cried. “We’ll get you out.”
“All—all right,” chattered Stevens. “But d-d-don’t be too-o-o long about
it, Billy. They certainly for—for—forgot to heat th—this bawth!”
Billy clutched him tightly by the collar and in a few moments he felt
Dan tugging at his own heels. Barry Spink was lying, panting, on the
ice—but fast freezing to it, for the thermometer was still far down the
scale.
“Come on! come on!” gasped Billy, when the four of them were on their
feet. “Let’s get where there’s a fire.”
“Y—y—you bet!” agreed Monroe Stevens. “I—I never was so shivery in—in
all—all my life!”
Spink could hardly speak. But he moaned occasionally something about the
lost iceboat, which he called the _White Albatross_.
“Goodness knows!” chattered Stevens, “we deserved to lose the silly
thing. I knew better than to try her out to-day—and I—I told you so,
Barry.”
“I didn’t know there was an iceboat on the river,” said Dan, as they all
climbed the steep hill to the road and the waiting motor car.
“It—it was the only one on the Colasha,” mumbled Spink.
“We’ve been building it on the q. t., Dannie,” exclaimed Stevens,
grinning. “And she certainly could travel some. We got one on you and
Billy that time.”
“You seem to have got one on yourselves,” returned Dan, grimly.
“Didn’t you know enough to wait till the river really froze over,
Money?” questioned Billy, with some disgust.
“Aw, that Barry!” grumbled young Stevens. “He was crazy to try her out.
And we got up this morning before sun-up. Sure, she whizzed——”
“We were watching you come down the river,” admitted Dan.
“Say! couldn’t she travel?” exclaimed Stevens.
“You bet,” agreed Billy. “How far up the Colasha did you go?”
“Went around Island Number One——”
“And we’d been all right,” snarled Barry Spink, who seemed to take an
interest in affairs for the first time, “if it hadn’t been for that
dummy. He put the jinx on us.”
“The jinx!” exclaimed Billy, laughing.
But Dan had noticed something else, and he repeated, curiously:
“‘Dummy?’ What d’ye mean—dummy?”
They had reached the motor-truck and Billy hustled the half-drowned
youths into the seat and bundled them up in the robe and blankets while
Dan started the motor.
“Back to the fire house—eh, Dan?” he asked his brother, as he slid under
the wheel.
“The boiler room at the shops is nearer. They’ll take ’em in and dry
them,” advised the older Speedwell.
“I—I don’t care where in the world you take us as—as long’s it’s _hot_,”
wailed Barrington Spink.
“But how about this ‘dummy’?” demanded Dan, of Monroe Stevens.
“Why, we had stopped at Island Number One and were repairing the rudder,
when along come this feller who couldn’t talk.”
“Couldn’t talk?” cried Billy, waking up to the coincidence, too, and
looking at Dan, amazed. “Why! there must be two of them.”
“Two what?” queried Stevens.
“You called him a dummy. Is he really dumb?”
“He mumbled something or other when we asked him to help us,” explained
Monroe; “but it wasn’t anything _human_. And Barry declared it was bad
luck to meet a dummy.”
“And so it is!” snapped young Spink. “Doesn’t _this_ prove it?”
“Funny about there being two fellows who act like dummies being at
large,” remarked Dan to Billy.
“I should say so,” agreed the younger brother. “Say, Money! where’d
_your_ dummy go to when he wouldn’t help you chaps?”
“He was comin’ across from the mainland, and he went up into the woods
on Island Number One. I bet he’s stopping there,” answered Stevens.
“Nonsense! there’s nothing on that island. No hut, nor any shelter. Bet
he was going right along across the river.”
“Well, he didn’t go on while we were up that way, for when we got the
_White Albatross_ fixed, we sailed around the island and come down on
the far side—and the snow lay all along the edge of the island there,
and there wasn’t a footprint in it. Oh! here’s the shops. My goodness!
won’t it be—be go-o-od to get next to—a fire,” chattered Stevens.
When the Speedwells had seen the shivering castaways humped upon stools
before the boilers, they hurried away to deliver the remainder of their
bottled milk. On the way to Colonel Sudds’s Dan said:
“What do you think of this ‘dummy’ they talk about, Billy?”
“Funny. Wonder if he’s the twin of the one we’ve got at our house?”
“Question is, _have_ we got him at our house?” returned Dan,
thoughtfully.
“Pshaw! the folks wouldn’t let him leave so soon. If he was at Island
Number One so early, he must have left our house soon after we did,”
declared Billy. “And that isn’t troubling me,” he added.
“What is?” asked his brother, smiling.
“Why—it’s no trouble. Not really. But there is something that is buzzing
in my head, Dan.”
“I knew there was a bee in your bonnet,” chuckled his elder.
“Oh, you did? How smart you are! But I don’t believe you can guess what
sort of a bee it is?”
“No-o. Some new idea, I reckon?”
“You bet it is, old man!” declared Billy, with enthusiasm. “And a big
idea, too.”
“Let’s have it,” urged the older Speedwell.
“Well! you know about this Barry Spink; don’t you?”
“I know he’s not long in Riverdale.”
“Yes. But where he comes from?”
“Up the Hudson somewhere.”
“Crickey! that’s just it,” cried Billy, with rising excitement. “Up
where he has lived the winters are long and hard. The rivers and lakes
freeze over usually in November, and stay frozen until February or
March. And I bet that fellow knows all about iceboating.”
“Don’t you tell him so,” advised Dan, with a grin. “He’s got a swelled
head as it is—I can see that.”
“Never mind, Spink. That isn’t exactly what I mean—not what _he_ knows.
But he and his busted iceboat have put something into my head, old man.”
“Out with it, boy.”
“It’s just this: Let’s go in for an iceboat ourselves. Let’s get the
fellows of the Outing Club interested—and maybe some of the girls,
too—Mildred, and Lettie, and some of the others. And we’ll have races,
and all that.”
“If the ice gets thick enough and ‘stays put,’” suggested Dan, slowly.
“You said yourself last night,” Billy declared, quickly, “that the
almanac man promised a real winter this time.”
“And we’re getting a piece of it right now. Jinks! maybe you’ve got a
big idea, Billy.”
“Sure I have. And if that chump, Barry Spink, can build a boat as good
as that _White Albatross_, what’s the matter with us building a better?”
“Now you’re talking,” agreed his brother, with growing enthusiasm.
“Hustle now, Billy! there goes the first bell. We’ve only just time to
get the truck under the shed and hustle into school. Got my books with
yours? Come on, then,” and the Speedwells hurried off to the academy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER III
MORE THAN ONE MYSTERY
The two reckless youths who had tried out the iceboat and lost her that
morning did not appear at the academy during the forenoon session.
Indeed, Barrington Spink was not an attendant at the Riverdale school.
He was a recent comer to the town and the boys knew very little about
him, save in a general way. He was the son of a widowed lady who seemed
to have a superabundance of cash and who was very proud and haughty.
Mrs. Spink had bought a large house on the outskirts of Riverdale, had
furnished it gaudily, hired a host of servants, repainted and
refurbished everything about the place, including the iron dog on the
lawn, and had set up a carriage and pair as well as an automobile.
The Speedwells had often seen Barrington Spink around town before the
occasion when Billy had hauled him out of the icy river, but had never
spoken to him. Monroe Stevens belonged to one of the wealthiest families
in Riverdale and naturally Spink had gravitated toward “Money,” as the
other boys called Monroe.
After school was out and Dan and Billy were walking across the square
towards Appleyard’s to get the truck (they had not gone home at noon)
they came face to face with the newcomer to Riverdale.
He was with Wiley Moyle and Fisher Greene, both of the so-called
“aristocracy” of Riverdale, but good fellows both of them and Billy’s
particular friends.
“Say, Billy,” remarked Fisher, grinning, “Barry here has just been
telling us how you pulled him out of the river this morning. The chill
hasn’t got out of him yet, you see,” he added, with a meaning glance at
young Spink, who had nodded very distantly in return for the Speedwells’
hearty greeting.
“He was just asking us about you,” drawled Wiley Moyle, “and we told him
that Riverdale would have to go without lacteal fluid in its coffee if
it wasn’t for you and Dan.”
“And our cows,” replied Billy, seriously. “They have something to do
with the milk supply, I assure you.”
“And the barn pump—I know,” chuckled Wiley, grinning saucily.
“Oh—I—say,” stammered Spink, eyeing Billy rather askance. Dan and some
of the older boys were discussing an important topic some distance away.
“I didn’t suppose you fellows really made a chum of this—er—Speedwell
boy.”
“Huh?” grunted Wiley. Wiley’s folks were rich enough, but his father
made him earn most of his own spending money, and Wiley helped around
Jim Blizzard’s newspaper office on Saturdays and after school. “I knew
you were a chump, Barry; but this——”
“Oh, I’m obliged enough to him, I’m sure,” said Spink, airily. “He
certainly helped me out of the river.”
He had been fumbling in his pocket while he spoke and now brought out a
little flat packet of folded bills. Selecting one, he approached Billy
Speedwell, who, having first flushed at the fellow’s impudent tone, was
now grinning as broadly as Wiley and Fisher.
“Re’lly,” said young Spink, “you did that very bravely, Speedwell. Here
is a little—er—something to show my appreciation.”
Billy had accepted the dollar bill and at once fished up a handful of
silver from the depths of his trousers’ pocket.
“Hold on! hold on, Mr. Spink!” he exclaimed. “If you mean to pay me with
this for saving your life, there is no need of overpaying me. Here!
there’s ninety-five cents change—count it. And I’m not sure that I’m not
charging you too much as it is.”
Fisher and Wiley Moyle burst into a roar of laughter, and Barrington
Spink turned several different colors, as he realized that Billy had
made him look like a goose.
“Why—why——That fellow’s only a _milkman_,” sputtered Spink, as Billy
drifted over to the bigger crowd of boys to hear what was afoot.
“You give me a pain in my solar plexus—you gump!” snapped Fisher Greene.
“Why, Billy and Dan have got twenty thousand dollars or more in their
own right. Didn’t you ever hear of the treasure of Rocky Cove? Well,
those are the boys who got the emeralds—they, and the old Admiral and
Mr. Asa Craig. You want to take a tumble to yourself, Barry Spink!” and
he moved away from the new boy.
Barrington Spink’s eyes fairly bulged. “He—he’s kiddin’ me; isn’t he?”
he demanded of the grinning Wiley.
“Not so’s you’d notice it,” returned Moyle.
“Not twenty thousand dollars?”
“Thereabout.”
“And they run a milk route?”
“That’s Mr. Speedwell’s business. And fellows around Riverdale have to
work the same as their dads did when _they_ were boys. There are not
many drones in this town, let me tell you,” concluded Wiley.
He started over to the other boys, too, and left Spink alone. The new
boy was “in bad,” and he began to realize that fact. Perhaps he couldn’t
help being born a snob; having his standards set by a foolish and
worldly mother had made Barrington Spink an insufferable sort of fellow.
“The peasantry of this country doesn’t know its place,” Mrs. Spink often
observed. “That is why I so much prefer living in Yurrup.” That is the
way she pronounced it. If the truth were known (but it wasn’t—Mrs. Spink
saw to that) the lady’s father was once a laborer on a railroad; but the
mantle of Mr. Spink’s family greatness had fallen upon her.
“If it wasn’t for Mr. Spink’s peculiar will,” she often sighed, “I
should not venture to contaminate Barrington with the very common people
one is forced to meet in this country. But Mr. Spink had peculiar ideas.
He left Barrington’s guardians no choice. My poor boy must be educated
in American schools, doncher know!”
And Barry was getting a fine education! He had shifted from place to
place and from school to school, learning about as little as the law
allowed, and doing about as he pleased. Now he was so far behind other
boys of his age in his studies that he was ashamed to enter the
Riverdale Academy until the tutor his mother had engaged whipped Barry’s
jaded mind into some sort of alignment with those of the boys who would
be his schoolmates.
The boys surrounding Dan Speedwell were enthusiastic and all tried to
talk at once. A flock of crows on the edge of a cornfield could have
been no more noisy.
“Greatest little old idea ever was sprung!” shouted one.
“Takes the Speedwells to hatch up this ‘new thought’ stuff,” whooped Jim
Stetson. “What d’ye say, boys? Tell it!”
“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—and _he_
considered 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 about _that_.”
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 is _one_ of 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 us _that_ boat. 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”
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 in _this_ wind,” 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 the _Buttinsky 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 just _did_ agree
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, that _I_ can’t!” cried
the red-haired one, who had always been something of a tomboy. “And I’m
not afraid to do anything that _you_ dare 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 the _White 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. _His_ will be called the
_Redbird_.”
“Say!” shouted Billy, grinning. “I got it!”
“Let’s have it, then,” advised his brother.
“What’s the matter with the _Fly-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 of _that_ for a name. She’s christened!
_Fly-up-the-Creek_ she is. But I wonder what Milly and Lettie will say
to that name?”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER V
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 the _Fly-up-the-Creek_ could 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 he _didn’t_
admire 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 this _Fly-up-the-Creek_ is when we
head her around, or the wind dies on us altogether. _Then_ the 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. He _can’t_ be 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 as _this_.”
“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.
“_Now_ where’s your smoke, Billy?”
A puff of wind swooped down upon them. Dan had to attend to the
management of the _Fly-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
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 the
_Fly-up-the-Creek_ to 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—the _White 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.”
“_If_ we 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’s _Redbird_ arrived 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 another _White 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 his _Redbird_.
The _White Albatross_ was 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 into _his_ craft.
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 I _do_
want 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 the _White Albatross_? Oh! I don’t know that we really _could_,”
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. The _Redbird_ was 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 way _they_ manage
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’s_
some sailing—believe me!”
“It _is_ Billy 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’s _Redbird_ was 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 the _Snow
Wraith_ on 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 that _his_ was 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 if _you_ are 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 the _Fly-up-the-Creek_ out 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 the _White Albatross_ under
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 of _that_.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VII
OUT ON THE ROAD
The humming runners of the _Fly-up-the-Creek_ quickly 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 the _Redbird_ and 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 the _Redbird_ as
smoothly or as neatly as did Barry Spink and his mate; therefore the
_White Albatross_ was the nearer to the Speedwells’ craft.
Once the Spink boat crossed the bows of the _Fly-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 the _Albatross_
crossed 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 the _Fly-up-the-Creek_
was 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 the _White Albatross_
and the _Redbird_ were 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 the _Fly-up-the-Creek_ to 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 registered what 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
would _that_ have 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
Dan wished. 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 caught _their_ eye, 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!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VIII
THE PLANS
“Lemme get out and find a club, Dan!” begged Billy, as the gray car
continued to approach the red one at a swift pace.
“What could you do with a club?” demanded the older lad.
“I’d bust it over that beast’s head!” declared his brother, excitedly.
“Stop the car!”
The occupants of the red car had all crouched down in the bottom, hoping
the bull would not see them. They might have been ostriches hiding their
heads from pursuit in the desert sand.
The beast charged again, and this time he smashed the windshield and got
his forehoofs into the front of the car. Barry Spink vaulted over the
back of the seat and left Lettie Parker (who had sat with him) to her
fate.
“We’re coming, Let!” roared Billy, standing up and fairly dancing in the
onrushing gray racer.
The next instant the bull backed away and got right into the path of the
Speedwells’ car. Dan had intended to run her alongside of the red
automobile and give the frightened passengers a chance to escape.
But the bull got in the way. There was a heavy thud, and Mr. Bull
flopped over on his side, bellowing in pain and surprise, while the gray
car rebounded from his carcass as though it were made of India rubber.
“Goody-good!” shrieked Lettie Parker. “Bump the mean old thing again,
Dan! Bump it!”
But Dan shut off the power quickly. He was afraid the collision had done
the racer no good, as it was.
However, he had no intention of seeing the bull do any further harm to
the crowd in Burton Poole’s car. With Billy, he ran at the beast, that
had now staggered to his feet. Dan had seized a long-handled wrench from
the tool box, and before the bull could lower his head to charge, he hit
the tender nose a hard clip.
How the creature roared! He hated to give up the fight and it was not
until Dan had struck another blow that the bull backed into the ditch
and cleared the road for the passage of the two cars.
“For pity’s sake get under the wheel yourself, Burton!” exclaimed Dan.
“Get those girls out of here.”
“I’m going to get into your car, Billy,” declared Lettie Parker.
“And I, too!” gasped Mildred.
“Why, it wasn’t my fault the old bull charged us,” whined Barrington
Spink.
“You give me a pain!” growled Burton, who was a big, rather slow-witted
fellow, but sound of heart. “You jumped over the seat and left Let to be
gored to death by that beast—as far as _you_ cared!”
“I—I thought she was coming, too,” gasped Spink.
“See if you can get any action in your engine, Burton,” advised Dan. “If
that other fellow had had any sense at all he wouldn’t have rushed right
down upon the bull in the way he did.”
“I—I didn’t suppose it would dare face the car,” continued the
explanatory Spink.
“Rats!” snapped Billy, in disgust. “The car’s red enough to give
anything the blind staggers! No wonder that old bull went for it.”
Burton tried to turn his engine; but he couldn’t get a bit of action out
of it. Fortunately the bull was whipped, and the Speedwells turned their
own machine about, hitched on to the red car, and towed it back to
Riverdale, unmolested.
Later in the week, after the boys had tried the racer out to their
complete satisfaction, Dan remained up one evening long after his
brother had gone to bed. Billy fell asleep seeing Dan bent over certain
drawings he had made, and it must have been midnight when the younger
boy was startled out of his sound sleep by a sudden sound.
There was Dan hopping about the room in a grotesque, stocking-footed
dance.
“What under the sun’s the matter with you, Dan?” gasped the younger boy.
“I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” ejaculated his brother, snapping his fingers
and continuing the dance.
“Stop it! stop it, I say!” commanded Billy. “You’ll have mother in here.
My goodness! can’t you break out with the measles—or whatever you’ve
got—at a decent hour?”
“It’s something bigger than the measles, Billy,” chuckled Dan, falling
into his chair before the table again. “Look here.”
“Those old plans——” began Billy, sleepily.
“These _new_ plans, you mean,” responded his brother, vigorously. “I
tell you I’ve struck pay dirt.”
The words stung Billy into a keener appreciation of his brother’s
excitement. Awakened from a sound sleep, he had been rather dazed at
first. Now he knew what Dan meant.
“You—got—it?” he gasped, stifling a mighty yawn. “Figured it all out?”
“I’m going to rig a motor-driven sprocket wheel arrangement that will
push a car over the ice at good speed—yes, sir!”
“Going to hitch it to the _Fly-up-the-Creek_?” demanded Billy, eagerly,
bending over the papers Dan had prepared.
“No. That’s where I was wrong. We’ll build an entirely new iceboat. See
here?” and he at once began explaining to his brother the idea that
developed—as it seemed—almost of itself since Billy had gone to sleep
three hours before.
“It sure looks good!” exclaimed the younger boy, admiringly, when Dan
had concluded. “You _have_ got it, Dan! And the boys will be crazy over
it.”
“We’ll just keep it to ourselves, you know,” warned Dan. “Mr. Robert
Darringford is going to offer a handsome prize for the fastest iceboat
at the regatta we’re going to hold. Don’t you know that?”
“Well—er—yes.”
“Then we’ll just keep still about this scheme. Some of the parts will
have to be made in the machine shops, you know. And some parts we’ll get
old Troutman, at Compton, to make. You remember him?”
“Sure! the pattern maker who worked for Mr. Asa Craig when Mr. Craig was
building his submarine.”
“The same. We won’t let anybody but father see the plans as completed.
No use in letting ’em in on the scheme.”
“Crickey, Dan!” exclaimed Billy. “If we build a racer that wipes up the
whole river, Barry Spink will turn green with envy. I heard him blowing
the other day that he was going to have some kind of a mechanical
contrivance built for his _White Albatross_ that would make her the
fastest thing on the ice.”
“That’s all right. Maybe he’s got something good up his sleeve,” laughed
Dan. “But I believe that we have something just a little better here,”
and he tapped the plans on the table.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IX
THE BOY WHO COULDN’T TALK
The Speedwells were busy boys these days. The excitable Billy had so
many irons in the fire (so he said) that he could barely keep all of
them hot.
Then, there was the secret building of the new iceboat. Dan and Billy
had said little of their scheme outside the family; but it was known in
Riverdale that the Speedwells proposed to rig a “new-fangled” racing
machine that would “just burn up the ice” when the midwinter ice races
were held.
“What’s she going to be driven by, Billy?” asked Biff Hardy, meeting the
Speedwells one afternoon at the edge of the Boat Club Cove.
“Steam—gas—or nitroglycerin? Pa says you’ve brought him some patterns
for things that he believes belong to a combination aeroplane and motor
mowing machine. How about it?”
“Never you mind,” returned Billy, grinning, for Bill Hardy, who worked
in the Darringford Machine Shops, was one of the Speedwells’ staunchest
friends. “I don’t just understand all about the plans myself. But Dan
knows.”
“You bet he does!” rejoined the admiring Biff. “But I’m not going to ask
Dan. If it’s a secret I know very well I couldn’t get at it even if I
hypnotized him!”
The _Fly-up-the-Creek_ was very popular, whether the boys built a
speedier craft, or not. If Mildred and Lettie didn’t care to accompany
Dan and Billy whenever they had time to skim the ice in the big craft,
there were plenty of their schoolmates ready to enjoy such trips as the
Speedwells were willing to give them.
And almost always when Dan and Billy were on the ice, the _White
Albatross_ made its appearance. Barrington Spink was forever trying
conclusions with the bigger iceboat, and was never willing to admit
defeat by her.
It was always “by a fluke,” or because something broke on his own craft,
when Dan and Billy chanced to leave the _White Albatross_ behind. There
was something “bull-doggy” about Barrington Spink. He never knew when he
was beaten.
There was by this time quite a fleet of iceboats on the river, besides
those of the Speedwell boys, Monroe Stevens, and Spink. Fisher Greene
and his cousin had produced the _Flying Squirrel_. Jim Stetson and Alf
Holloway had bought a boat, too, and named it the _Curlew_.
There were, besides, other iceboats appearing on the Colasha, built and
owned by some of the adult members of the boat club. There were a good
many men devoted to sports in Riverdale, and the condition of the ice
this season spurred them into joining the game.
The Oldest Inhabitant could not remember when there had been a winter so
steadily cold. And, fortunately for the ice sports, there was little
snow during these early weeks of the season.
“There are going to be great old times on this river before the winter’s
over, Dan,” declared Billy, confidently.
“Providing the frost continues—eh?”
“It’s bound to! Look at the almanac.”
“Humph!” returned Dan, “I’ve heard of such a thing as an almanac being
mistaken.”
“That’s all right,” said Billy, not at all shaken. “Everybody believes
this will be a great old winter. Robert Darringford is going in for
iceboating, too. He’s having a boat built in the shops—and he says it’s
going to be a wonder.”
“Let ’em all rave,” grunted Dan. “You’ll see, Billy. There won’t one of
’em get the speed out of their craft that we will out of ours.”
“Where’s those plans, Dannie?” asked his brother.
“Right in my pocket,” returned Dan, promptly. “I’m not running the risk
of having them picked up somewhere and so find their way into the hands
of somebody who might catch on to our idea.”
This was on a Saturday when Mildred and Lettie had expressed a desire to
take a long trip in the _Fly-up-the-Creek_.
“We’ve never gone as far as Karnac Lake yet,” Lettie pouted. “Always
something happens before we get there. If you don’t take us this time,
boys, we’ll go over to the enemy in a body!”
“What enemy?” demanded Billy.
“Barrington Spink. He’s always asking us to accompany him on the _White
Albatross_.”
“Why don’t you go with him, then?” snapped Billy. “Nobody’s holding
you.”
“Now, children!” admonished the doctor’s daughter. “Don’t quarrel.”
Dan and Mildred only laughed over the bickerings of the other couple.
Soon the Speedwells’ boat was made ready and the girls got aboard, while
Dan and Billy pushed her out from the landing.
There was no gale blowing, but a good, stiff breeze—and it was fair. The
huge sail of the _Fly-up-the-Creek_ filled almost immediately, and they
moved steadily out of the cove.
Outside, the _White Albatross_ was maneuvering, Spink evidently waiting
as usual to try a brush with the Speedwells’ craft. Barry shot the white
iceboat down toward them as they came out of the cove, and shouted:
“Better come aboard here, girls, if you want to reach the lake. I’m on
my way!”
“Who’s going to tow you?” demanded Billy.
“I don’t need any towing,” returned Spink, sharply. “There’s one thing
sure, I can beat that old milkwagon of yours. Better take up my offer,
girls!” he added, grinning impudently.
He _did_ shoot away in advance at a good pace, and Lettie cried, under
her breath: “Oh! don’t you dare to let him beat us, Dan Speedwell!”
“The race is not always to the swift,” returned Dan, smiling.
“I really wouldn’t pay any attention to that fellow,” said Mildred. “He
is not worth noticing. And I don’t see any reason why he should be so
mean to us.”
“Looks to me as though he wanted to cut Dan and me out with you girls,”
chuckled Billy.
“Well!” said Lettie Parker, in earnest for once, “that might be, too.
But the particular reason why he dislikes you boys is because you don’t
‘make much’ of him as some of the others do. You know, Barry’s mother is
rich.”
“Seems to me I’ve heard something about that before,” said Dan,
laughing.
“He got in bad with you boys at the start. Billy only charged him a
nickel for saving his life—isn’t that so, Billy?” asked Lettie, with a
giggle.
“I didn’t want to overcharge the poor chap,” returned Billy, with an
answering grin.
“Well, you can’t expect him to feel very kindly towards you, then,” said
Lettie.
“He’s going to build a wonderful boat to beat anything you boys can put
on the river,” sighed Mildred. “He’s going to win all the ice races at
the regatta Mr. Darringford is arranging. Oh! I heard him telling all
about it the other evening at Mary Greene’s.”
“Don’t let that worry you for a little minute,” Billy broke in, with
some excitement. “Dan’s got the plans of a boat right in his pocket now
that will knock the eye out of any craft that will be on the ice _this_
winter.”
“I admire your slang!” exclaimed Lettie, with scorn.
“I bet I caught it from you,” returned Billy, ready to “scrap” on the
instant.
“Be good! be good!” cried Mildred. “Oh, Dannie! you are overtaking that
white boat.”
“That’s what we’re here for,” returned the older boy, who had been
attending strictly to business since Spink had challenged them.
The _Fly-up-the-Creek_ was making good its name. They were rushing up
the river at a terrific pace. The _White Albatross_, whenever she
tacked, lost ground. And finally when they came to the lower end of
Island Number One, she had to make a long leg towards the farther side
of the river, and so get to the leeward of the island.
Billy was staring at the island all the time they were passing.
“What’s the matter, Billy?” demanded Lettie Parker. “What do you expect
to see over yonder?”
“Billy’s looking for Robinson Crusoe,” chuckled Dan. “He believes
there’s a fellow living over there.”
“Oh! you told us before,” cried Lettie. “And, do you know, I told father
and he said Sheriff Kimball ought to know about that.”
“About _what_?” queried Mildred.
“Not that poor dummy?” cried Billy. “There isn’t an ounce of harm in
that fellow, I am sure.”
“No. About there being something buried on the island. I don’t know just
what father meant. But you know, he is very friendly with the sheriff.”
“Say! we don’t want to get that poor chap into trouble,” Billy urged.
“Just like a girl—telling everything she knows!”
Before Miss Parker could “flare up” at this statement and speak her
mind, Mildred gave a little shriek.
“What’s the matter?” demanded Dan, flashing a look around, too.
“See him? There!”
“It’s Dummy!” yelled Billy, who was out on the crossbeam at his usual
station and could see behind the bellowing sail.
There, upon a high rock on the shore of the island stood the figure of
the boy Billy and Dan had knocked over in the snowstorm, weeks before.
They could not be mistaken.
He was gazing across the end of the island toward the open ice on the
far side. Suddenly he turned about and waved both arms madly at the
_Fly-up-the-Creek_ and her crew. But although he opened his mouth and
babbled something or other, neither the boys nor their guests could
understand what he said.
“He wants something of us!” cried Lettie.
“He’s warning us!” gasped Mildred.
Dan swerved the helm and in a moment the iceboat came up into the wind
and lost headway. They drifted past the end of the island, which was
heavily wooded. And at that moment the _White Albatross_ swooped around
the head of the island, aimed directly for the Speedwells’ craft.
“Look out!” yelled Billy, leaping up and waving his hand.
The girls screamed, too. There was not enough headway on the
_Fly-up-the-Creek_ for Dan to swerve her out of the track of the other
boat.
There was a crash. The bow of the _White Albatross_ struck the other
craft a glancing blow and the latter whirled in a complete circle.
Fortunately Dan had let go the halyards and the sail came down with a
rush. But it went over the side, tangled in the runners, and the iceboat
stopped dead, while Barry Spink and his companion, both grinning over
their shoulders at their rivals, shot on up the river.
“Guess you know who’ll reach Karnac first this time!” called Spink,
waving his hand.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER X
COASTING
It was a mean trick, and one that might have had serious consequences.
It was certain that Spink had seen the drifting _Fly-up-the-Creek_ and
might have averted the collision.
“If that lad over there had been able to talk plain,” declared Dan,
helping the girls out from under the smother of canvas, “we could have
gotten out of the way. He tried his best to tell us what was coming.”
Mildred was crying a little, for she was frightened; but Lettie Parker,
Billy declared, sputtered like a bottle of soda.
“What a mean, _mean_ thing to do!” she stammered. “I—I could box that
Spink boy’s ears myself! Stop crying, Milly—we’re not all dead yet.”
Billy chuckled—he had to. “We’re far from dead; but Dan looks kind of
bright-eyed. I wonder what he’d do to Barrington Spink right now?”
“Come on, Mildred,” said the older Speedwell, patting the shoulder of
the doctor’s daughter. “Don’t you mind. We’re none of us really hurt,
and neither is the boat—much.”
Billy was examining the broken cables. The canvas, too, was badly slit
where it had got under the sharp runners.
“We don’t get to Karnac Lake to-day, I reckon,” he said. “Guess you’d
better have taken up that fellow’s offer, girls.”
“I’ll never speak to Barrington Spink again!” declared Lettie.
Mildred dried her eyes, and then began scrutinizing the shore of the
island. “Where is that boy who tried to warn us?” she asked.
“Dummy? I declare! he’s skipped out,” Billy said. “Now, Dan! what do you
think? Didn’t I tell you he was living on this island?”
“And guarding a buried treasure—eh?” chuckled the older boy.
“I’m going to see him—and talk to him!” declared Billy, earnestly.
“Not that he’ll be able to talk to us—eh?” queried his brother.
“Well, he can make himself understood somehow,” said Lettie, taking up
the idea. “Come on, Billy! let’s find him.”
Mildred looked at Dan as though she thought he might forbid the search;
but he did nothing of the kind. “Let the young ones run their legs off,
if they want,” he said to Mildred, as Billy and Lettie climbed the rocky
shore of the island. “I bet they don’t catch that dummy.”
“Why?” she asked, in wonder.
“He’s too blamed elusive,” declared Dan, hard at work mending the
cordage that had been ripped loose by the collision.
Dan flung aside his coat to be less hampered. Mildred held things for
him, and helped as she could until, when Billy and Lettie came
back—disappointed—the iceboat was in some sort of shape for the start
back.
“Well! where is he?” demanded Dan, flinging his coat across the stern of
the boat.
“Ask me!” growled Billy.
“What! not found?”
“There’s something blamed funny about this island,” declared his younger
brother with emphasis.
“We didn’t find a trace of him,” announced Lettie.
“But the smell of smoke,” corrected Billy.
“That’s so,” agreed the girl, rather mildly for her. “We _did_ smell
wood smoke. But we didn’t find a mark—not a footprint——”
“I should say not,” said Billy. “And the island all rocks and frozen
ground—not a smitch of snow on it anywhere.”
“Funny thing,” grunted Dan. “I wouldn’t mind seeing that dummy myself.
Well! let’s get on. Can’t take you any farther up-river, to-day, girls.”
“Of course not!” said Lettie, tossing her head. “It seems as though we
are fated never to get any farther up-stream on this old boat than
hereabout.”
They couldn’t get back to town in the damaged iceboat. They managed to
beat their way to John Bromley’s wharf, and then Billy ran all the way
home and brought back the motor car, in which to transport the girls to
their homes.
“That mean Barrington Spink!” exclaimed Lettie. “He’s just gone past in
his boat. We saw him stop for some time up there by Island Number One.”
And later the Speedwell boys had reason to remember this statement. When
they went to bed that night Dan searched his coat pocket in vain for the
plans and specifications of the new motor-iceboat.
“Lost them—by jolly!” gasped Billy. “Where?”
Dan couldn’t be sure of that; but he had his suspicions. He remembered
clearly removing his coat where they had had the accident at Island
Number One. The envelope might have fallen from his coat pocket.
So anxious were the boys that they went up the river road the next day
after Sunday school, and walked across the ice to the island. There were
no boats on the river, but they saw the marks of their own and the
_White Albatross’s_ runners on the ice at the head of the island.
So, too, did they find the torn envelope in which the plans had been;
but Dan’s drawings and specifications were not in it.
Who had got the plans? Was it Spink, when he stopped on his way down the
river in the _White Albatross_? Or was it the mysterious occupant of the
island whom the boys had dubbed “Dummy”?
The question not alone puzzled Dan and Billy; they were both troubled
vastly by the loss of the drawings. A good mechanic could easily get the
principle of Dan’s invention and—perhaps—build a boat similar to the one
the Speedwells were constructing.
Under Billy’s earnest urging Dan agreed that they should search the
island for some trace of the boy who could not talk; but they made
absolutely nothing out of it. Not even a smell of smoke this time.
“That chap has the magic, all right, all right!” grumbled Billy. “He
disappears as though he had an invisible cap.”
“More probably he’s here only once in a while,” said Dan.
“How about yesterday?” demanded the younger boy. “He wasn’t on the ice
when Lettie and I hunted for him—that’s sure. He’s got a hide-out here,
and don’t you forget it.”
“Maybe he buries himself—along with the treasure—when he is pursued by
curious folk,” chuckled Dan.
But it was really no laughing matter. Dan was as glum as Billy when they
returned home that Sunday evening. The plans were gone—and with them,
perhaps, the chance the Speedwells had of building a faster boat than
anybody who would enter for the iceboat races.
Not that Dan was unable to redraw the plans. That was easy. But the
brothers feared that whoever found the original plans would make use of
Dan’s invention in the line of motor-propulsion for ice craft.
This was really a very novel arrangement, and might be worth some money
if once the boys made a practical test of the idea on the river, and
demonstrated its worth. Mr. Robert Darringford, the young proprietor of
the machine shops, was always on the lookout for worthy inventions; he
was the Speedwell boys’ very good friend. Dan had rather hoped to
interest Mr. Darringford in the invention.
Of course, he did not want to show the plans to the machine shop
proprietor until after the races on the ice, for Mr. Darringford was
going to enter an iceboat of special design himself. But Robert
Darringford was a trustworthy man, and the boys were greatly tempted to
tell him about the loss of the plans.
However much disturbed they were by this loss, there were other matters
which kept the boys busy and their minds alert during the next few days.
The Speedwells were more than ordinarily good scholars, and stood well
in their classes. Even “Doc Bugs,” as one of their chief instructors was
called by the more irreverent youth of Riverdale, seldom had to set down
black marks against Dan or Billy.
Billy’s superabundance of energy and love of fun was well exercised out
of school hours; he stuck pretty well to his books in the classroom.
There was another snowfall which rather spoiled the skating for a few
days; but did not halt the trials of the several iceboats on the river.
The snow brought to the fore another sport that had always been popular
in Riverdale—and is worthy of being popular in every section of our
country where winter holds sway for any length of time.
“Coasting to-night on Shooter’s Hill!” yelled Money Stevens, seeing the
Speedwell boys making for their electric truck, which they had left
behind Appleyard’s store, as usual. “Bring down the ‘bob,’ boys. We’ll
have a jim-hickey of a time.”
“Whatever _that_ may, be—eh?” chuckled Dan.
“Girls allowed?” asked Billy.
“Sure!” said Money. “Wouldn’t be any fun bobsledding if it wasn’t for
the girls. They usually supply three things: The lunch, unnecessary
conversation, and plenty of squeals,” and he went his way to stir up
other of the young folk of Riverdale.
That he—and others—were successful in gathering a throng at the top of
Shooter’s Hill by eight o’clock that evening, was a self-evident fact.
Dan and Billy hitched old Bob and Betty to the pung and drove into town
for Mildred and Lettie.
But for once the Speedwell boys were disappointed in their plans. They
had not thought to call up either the doctor’s daughter, or the town
clerk’s lively daughter. Dan and Billy took too much for granted.
When they reached the doctor’s house, they were told Mildred had gone to
spend the evening with Lettie; and when they pulled up with a flourish
at the latter’s domicile their hail brought nobody but a maid to the
door.
“The girls ban gone off to Chooter’s for sledding,” explained the
Swedish serving maid, grinning broadly at the disappointed boys.
“Goodness, Dan!” exclaimed Billy. “We’re stung. What do you know about
this?”
Dan was a bit grumpy himself. Yet he couldn’t blame Mildred. She, of
course, had no idea the Speedwells, who lived so far out of town, knew
anything about the plans for the evening.
“Hey, Selma!” yelled Billy, before the door closed. “Who’d they go
with?”
“Das gone mit Mr. Greene and Mr. Spink,” replied the girl.
“Stung twice!” grunted Billy. “That blamed Barrington Spink is getting
under my skin, Dan. He’s forever putting his oar in where it isn’t
wanted. Just as sure as you live, boy, he and I are going to lock horns
yet.”
“You keep out of scraps, Billy,” advised his brother, as he turned the
horses.
“Take care of the bob!” cried Billy, suddenly.
Their bobsled was tailing on behind the pung and Billy didn’t want to
see it smashed. “Shall we keep on to the hill?” asked Dan.
“Bet you! We’ll show Let Parker that she’s made a mistake by going with
the Spink kid. No matter what he’s got to slide on—even if it goes by
steam—I bet we can beat him.”
“That’s putting it pretty strong, Billy,” laughed Dan. “Do you think you
can fulfill the contract?”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XI
A HAIR’S BREADTH FROM DEATH
The horses faced the wind as they struck into the Long Bridge road, and
shook their heads impatiently till the bells on the harness rang again.
Billy crouched a little behind Dan’s bulkier shoulder, for Dan was
driving.
“Whew! some breeze this,” said the younger boy, who could not keep
silent for long.
“At our backs, if we coast down Shooter’s,” said Dan.
“That’s so. But we’ll have to face it going up—and dragging the girls,
too.”
“Good thing we haven’t any girls to-night, then, Billy,” said his
brother.
“Huh!” grunted Billy, who was not yet in a forgiving spirit. “I hope
that Barry Spink makes Lettie walk up hill every time. He looks like
that sort of a fellow to me.”
“If they have iced the course,” Dan was saying, reflectively, “and with
the wind blowing right down the hill, there will be some great sledding
this night. Why! if we lay down a couple of lengths of the roadside
fence at the bottom of the hill, we ought to be able to cross the flat
and slide right out on the river!”
“Some slide!” exclaimed Billy, with enthusiasm.
“The river’s two and a half miles broad there,” said Dan, still speaking
thoughtfully.
“And Shooter’s Hill is another two miles from foot to summit—that’s
sure,” added Billy. “Some slide!” he added, repeating his exclamatory
comment with gusto. “But do you think there’d be momentum enough to
carry a sled across the river to this side?”
“No; I don’t,” admitted Dan. “But——”
“But what, old boy? What’s working on you?” demanded Billy, eagerly,
beginning to see that Dan’s remarks pointed to some tangible idea.
“Let’s drive around by the house first,” said Dan, quickly, turning Bob
and Betty into a side road.
The horses accelerated their pace at once, for they thought their stalls
were just ahead of them.
Dan tossed the reins to Billy when they drove into the yard, and bolted
into the house at once without saying another word. He was gone some few
minutes, and Billy saw a lamp shining through a garret window before his
brother appeared again.
When Dan did come out he bore an object that filled Billy first with
amazement and then with delight.
“For goodness’ sake! what’s that for?” the younger boy demanded. “That
old kite? Sure! you can put it up all right in a wind like this. But who
wants to fly a kite on a moonlight night, when there’s bobsledding in
prospect——”
“Great Peter, Dan! I get you! I see! Say, boy! you’ve got the greatest
head ever,” declared the slangy and enthusiastic Billy. “Lay it down in
back there so the wind won’t get it. And plenty of cord?”
“Here’s line that would hold a whale,” chuckled Dan, climbing back to
the seat. “What do you think? Will we show those fellows something?”
“We’ll show Let Parker that she made a mistake,” growled Billy, going
suddenly back to his bone of contention with the town clerk’s lively
daughter.
The horses were off again in a moment, and it was not long before they
came in sight of the Long Bridge and the glistening, snow-covered slope
rising from the far bank of the river, and just beyond the bridge.
Dan and Billy could see their school friends and companions scattered
over the coasting course on their bobsleds. There were smaller sleds,
too; but several big “double-runners” carried parties of shouting young
folk down the two-mile slope and almost to the entrance to the bridge.
They did not mind the sharp wind—excepting while dragging the sleds to
the top of the hill. But even that task was accomplished amid laughter
and merriment.
The Speedwell boys drove across the bridge and put their horses under
the shed of a farmer who lived on the bank of the river. They lifted out
the huge kite carefully and with it, and their bob, hurried to join the
crowd just then starting up the hill for another trip.
“What under the sun you got there, Dan?” demanded Money Stevens. He
couldn’t approach to examine the kite, for he was dragging one of the
sleds himself and there were already three girls upon it.
“Oh! we’re going to show you fellows a new trick,” said Billy, proudly.
“You wait and see.”
Billy was looking for Lettie Parker, and he saw her now on a brand-new
bobsled which was being drawn by Barry Spink and the biggest Greene boy.
Mildred was with her.
“Hullo, Billy Speedwell!” shouted Miss Parker. “I didn’t know you boys
were coming over here.”
“Well, I hope you see us, Let,” said Billy, with an air of carelessness.
“We’re right here—and we’ll come pretty near leaving that bob you’re on
’way behind.”
“Just about the way your old _Fly-up-the-Creek_ leaves my iceboat
behind,” scoffed Barry Spink. “I believe you milkmen are a couple of
blow-hards!”
But Billy only laughed and he and Dan hastened their steps along the
snowy road. Where the hill dipped to the level of the flats the
Speedwells stopped and threw down two lengths of the fence. This opened
a course to, and down, the easily sloping bank of the river.
“Aw, say!” cried Biff Hardy, who was with another bob; “that won’t make
you anything. We can’t get momentum enough to clear that little rise
between here and the river.”
“Hold your horses, Biff!” advised Dan. “Let’s see what we can do.”
“And with a kite!” scoffed one of the other fellows. “What do you think
you’re going to do?”
But Dan would not be led into any discussion, while Billy was not just
sure what his brother was intending. Once on the top of the hill Dan
showed Billy what to do, in a hurry. They waited for the other sleds to
go, so as to have a clear field. Then Billy raised the kite, Dan holding
the stout line attached to it.
The stiff wind blowing from behind them, seized the big kite almost at
once. She rose with a bound, Dan letting the line whistle through his
gloved hands. She made one swoop when a flaw struck her, and then
mounted again and the wind caught her full and square.
There she soared, steady and true, and the Speedwells hastily boarded
their heavy sled. Dan fastened the line to a ring in front of the tiller
with which he steered the sled. Billy, hanging on behind, started the
sled over the brow of the hill by striking his heel sharply into the
hard-packed snow.
The runners squeaked a little, and then the sled plunged downward. Had
the wind been lighter, the momentum the sled gathered on the first
half-mile of the hill would have forced the coasting Speedwells ahead of
the kite.
But the gale was strong and steady. Away the great kite flew, with the
line taut most of the way to the bottom of the hill.
“She ain’t helping us a bit,” objected Billy, shouting into Dan’s ear.
“Those other sleds went just as fast.”
“Wait,” commanded Dan, untroubled as yet.
The sled whizzed down to the bottom of the hill and then Dan steered out
of the beaten track. The crowd watched the Speedwells in wonder. The
sled went slower and slower, passing through the break in the roadside
fence and over the drifts toward the river.
But the great kite was tugging now. It drew the sled on, over the short
rise, and then they pitched down the bank and out upon the river! They
gained speed again and quickly left the cheering crowd behind, never
stopping until they reached the other bank of the river.
“What do you know about this?” yelled the delighted Billy. “We got ’em
going this time, I guess.”
The kite fluttered over the trees on the bank and the boys were able to
bring it to earth quickly, and without damaging the kite. It was covered
with strong, oiled paper, and was not easily torn.
But it was a job to drag the sled all the way back again, and the kite,
too. The other young folk had made a couple of trips on the shorter
route before the Speedwells returned to the top of Shooter’s Hill.
Nevertheless, Lettie Parker and Mildred Kent were waiting for them.
Lettie had insisted upon leaving Messrs. Spink and Greene in the lurch.
She was determined to “go sailing” with the Speedwell boys.
“Do you think it is dangerous, Dan?” asked Mildred.
“Of course it isn’t,” declared Lettie, before Dan could answer. “I’m not
afraid to do anything that Billy Speedwell does.”
“If you really want to try it, Milly,” Dan said, “we’ll take you girls
for one trip.”
“You’ll break all your necks fooling with that kite,” growled Barry
Spink.
He and his partner took some other girls on their bob and started at
once for the bottom of the hill. They switched out of the beaten track
and went through the break in the fence; but the momentum gathered by
the bob would not take it over the little hill.
The Speedwells did not notice that Barry left the rest of the party
there and went over the hill himself. He was back in a moment, and just
then Billy got the kite into the air, and it began to tug at the
Speedwells’ bobsled.
“All aboard!” yelled Billy, and ran to take his place behind the girls.
Down the track they rushed and out across the flat. The kite tugged
bravely and carried them over the rise. And just as they went over this
little hill Dan uttered a cry of alarm. Right across their track, on the
steep bank of the river, lay a great tree-branch that had not been there
when the boys made their first trip behind the kite!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XII
THE “FOLLOW ME”
The danger of a smash and overturn was imminent. The heavy bobsled was
plunging toward the obstruction, and there was neither time nor space to
steer clear of the branch.
The girls, breathless from the swift ride, could scarcely scream; and
Billy was himself speechless. But Dan did not lose his head.
In a trice he whipped out his claspknife, sprung open the blade, and
just before the collision occurred he cut the kite-string.
The huge kite turned a somersault in the air, and then plunged to the
ice. But the boys and girls on the bobsled did not notice that.
The sled smashed into the tree-branch—and stuck. Dan went over on his
head, but arose unhurt. The others had managed to cling to the sled.
“I know who did this!” yelled Billy, when he got his breath. “It was
that Spink fellow.”
“Oh! he wouldn’t do such a thing,” said Mildred, timidly. “It—it must
have fallen here.”
“Not much,” declared Billy.
When they dragged the bobsled back to the rest of the crowd, Spink had
already gone home. As Dan said, smiling, there was no chance for a row
then; and before Billy met Barry Spink again, he had got quieted down
and, on Dan’s advice, did not accuse the fellow of the mean trick.
The kite was smashed all to pieces. Dan decided that that method of
coasting was perilous, after all.
Besides, there was other work and other plans to take up the Speedwell
boys’ attention; already Dan and Billy were giving their minds to the
new iceboat, which they believed would prove a very swift craft indeed.
The regatta committee, headed by Mr. Darringford and made up of
influential sportsmen of Riverdale and vicinity, had set the date for
the iceboat races in that week between Christmas and New Year’s, when
business is slack. It was holiday week at the academy, too, and the
Darringford Machine Shop hands had a few days off.
Seldom had any public sports “taken hold” on the people of Riverdale
like this iceboat sailing.
“It’s the greatest stunt ever,” Biff Hardy declared, “and if the cold
weather keeps up all the grandfathers and grandmothers in town—as well
as the rest of us—will be out cavorting on the ice.”
There were some spills and a few minor accidents. But with the ice in
the condition it was, there was little peril of accidents on the Colasha
save through absolute carelessness.
Dan and Billy were busy these days racing in the _Fly-up-the-Creek_.
Nobody but the family knew it; but most of the parts of the wonderful
new boat Dan had invented, were finished. The engine had been set up and
tried on the barn floor. Then the boys went over to Compton and got the
parts Mr. Troutman had made for them, and with the parts Mr. Speedwell
had helped them build, and certain others from the Darringford shops,
the brothers secretly removed them all to John Bromley’s dock, and
assembled them in an old fish-cleaning shed.
The boys were very secret about it. Ever since the first plans Dan had
drawn disappeared so mysteriously at Island Number One, the brothers had
been worried for fear somebody had found and would make use of them.
The principle upon which the motor-auxiliary worked was novel and Dan
was confident that by the aid of the rapidly-driven wheel that would
grip the ice under the boat amidships, and her spread of canvas, the new
craft would beat anything in the line of an iceboat ever seen on the
Colasha.
Mr. Darringford joked with the boys a good deal about the invention. He
had examined the parts they had had built at the shops with much
curiosity, and threatened to steal their ideas. But Dan and Billy knew
they could trust him to the limit. It had been through Mr. Darringford
that the Speedwell boys had obtained their real start in the racing game
with their _Flying Feathers_—the motorcycles which were the particular
output of the machine shops.
Nobody, Dan was sure, would guess the combination he had invented
without seeing all the parts assembled. Only their father was in their
confidence in the building of the boat.
Therefore, if any craft appeared like theirs at the regatta they could
be sure that the lost plans had been made use of.
“And if anybody’s guilty,” declared Billy Speedwell, “it’s Barry Spink.
He is crowing to the other fellows that he’s got us beaten already, and
he won’t let anybody look into that shed behind his mother’s barn where
the boat is being built.”
“If he’s doing it all himself, I’m not afraid,” chuckled Dan. “Not if he
had our plans fifty times over.”
“But he isn’t. There is a foreigner working there—I’ve seen him. He is a
mechanic Mrs. Spink hired in the city, Wiley Moyle says, and they’re
paying him eight dollars a day.”
“Ow! that hurts!”
“I believe it’s true, just the same,” said Billy. “Spink has got his
heart set on beating us.”
“If that’s the price he’s paying for it, he really ought to win,”
returned the older lad. “Eight dollars a day—gee!”
The Speedwell family—down to little Adolph—were vastly interested in the
new boat. Finally, when it came time to put it together, the question of
naming the craft came to the fore.
Naming the _Fly-up-the-Creek_ had been something of an inspiration; but
now they all wanted a hand in the christening of Dan’s new invention.
The matter was so hotly discussed that Mrs. Speedwell suggested finally
drawing lots for the name.
One evening as they sat around the reading lamp each member of the
family wrote his or her choice on a slip of paper (’Dolph printed his in
big, up-and-down letters) and then the papers were shaken up in a bowl.
’Dolph was blindfolded and with great gravity drew a slip. It was
Carrie’s choice, and the paper read “_Follow Me_”—and thus the
motor-iceboat was christened.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XIII
THE STRANGER
It was both a cold and windy day on which Dan and Billy finally got the
motor-iceboat down upon the ice. It was in Christmas week.
“I reckon that old blizzard you were telling about is pretty near due,
Dannie,” quoth the younger boy, blowing his fingers to get some
semblance of warmth into them, for the boys and old Bromley had to work
without gloves part of the time.
“There’s a storm brewin’,” declared the old boatman, cocking his eye
toward the streaky looking clouds that had been gathering ever since
daybreak. “You can lay to that! And it wouldn’t surprise me if it
brought a big snow, boys. Ye know we ain’t re’lly had our share of snow
this winter so fur. We’ve had ice enough, the goodness knows!”
“You bet,” agreed Billy, with a chuckle. “And ice gathers some fast,
too—if you take it from Money Stevens.”
“What’s happened to him now?” asked Dan.
“Why, Money went fishing up Karnac Lake way last Saturday—didn’t you
hear? Says he would have had great luck, if only he could have kept the
hole open through which he was fishing. He swears he hooked a pickerel
so big that he couldn’t get it through the hole he’d cut in the ice!”
“That sure must have been some pickerel,” chuckled Dan. “Now, John, what
do you think of this craft?”
“By gravy! I don’t know what _to_ think of it, boy,” grunted the old
boatman. “It ain’t like nothin’ in the heavens, or on the airth, nor
ag’in in the waters under the airth! If you say that dinky little ingine
is goin’ to make her go, why I reckon go she will! But seein’s
believin’.”
“Right-O!” agreed Dan, smiling. “And we will proceed to put the matter
to the test right now before we step the mast. Get aboard.”
But Old John wouldn’t do that. He preferred to watch the proceedings
from the dock—and he said so.
“I ain’t got so many more years ter live no way ye kin fix it,” he said,
grinning. “Lemme live ’em whole. I wouldn’t venter on one o’ them
sailin’ iceboats, let erlone this contraption.”
Dan and Billy pushed out from the shore and started the engine. Dan
could easily manipulate the power as well as steer the _Follow Me_.
Billy was passenger only on this trial trip.
There was a stiff breeze blowing and they headed directly into it. The
moment the wheel under the boat gripped the ice she began to drive
ahead. As Dan gradually increased its revolutions they moved faster and
faster, while the whine of the engine and the sharp strokes of the
wheel-points joined in an ever-increasing roar.
Behind them the ice showed a plain trail of punctures from the
wheel-points. The _Follow Me_ left a trail that might easily be followed
anywhere on the ice.
But its speed was not great at first. Dan increased it slowly and, when
she rounded to and headed back toward the landing, Billy was flatly
disappointed.
“Crickey! this isn’t going to do much, Dan. Why, the old boat can beat
her.”
“What did you expect?” asked his brother, smiling.
“But, old man! we’re going to race with this thing!”
“Of course.”
“And the _Fly-up-the-Creek_ can beat her out—easy.”
“Sure of that; are you?”
“What you got up your sleeve, Dannie?” the other demanded. “Did you get
all the speed out of her you could?”
“You saw that she was wide open,” chuckled Dan. “But you forget that we
had no sail set. Let’s get the mast up and the sail bent on. _Then_
we’ll give her a fair trial.”
Billy shook his head, however. He had believed that his brother’s
invention was going to prove as fast as a power-launch, without any
canvas.
The mast and sail were both ready. They had the new boat rigged in an
hour. There was still a full hour before sunset and again Dan took his
place in the stern while Billy raised the sail.
The canvas of the _Follow Me_ was not as heavy as that of the
Speedwells’ first iceboat. They had made some short runs in the
_Fly-up-the-Creek_ that had equalled fifty miles an hour—and more.
Billy’s heart had fallen pretty nearly to his boots. He did not believe
the _Follow Me_ could do anything like that.
But Dan only grinned at him. The wind filled the sail almost immediately
and the motor-iceboat staggered away from Bromley’s dock. The old
boatman stood there and watched them with a grim face, for the new craft
started very slowly. She seemed really to hobble at first.
“Them boys air going to be disappointed—by jings!” muttered Bromley.
“And that’s too bad. But these yere new-fangled notions——”
“By gravey! what’s happened?”
Suddenly the “put, put, put!” of the engine reached his ears. And at the
same time the sail filled and bellied full. The motor-iceboat leaped
ahead, the exhaust became a rumble, and the _Follow Me_ shot up the
river faster—it seemed to Bromley—than he had ever seen any craft move
before.
She crossed the frozen stream diagonally and in two minutes was out of
sight behind the humpback of Island Number One! Her disappearance left
the old man breathless.
“Some boat—that,” said a voice behind him.
“Heh?” exclaimed John Bromley, turning to see a strange man standing
coolly on his private wharf.
“That’s a fine sailer,” said the stranger.
“Mebbe ’tis,” returned John, eyeing the man fixedly.
The latter was a keen-looking chap, lean and wiry, and dressed in a
long, loose, gray ulster, buckled about his waist with a belt. He
returned the old boatman’s look, after a moment, with interest.
“You know those chaps who are running that boat?” asked the stranger.
“I reckon I know the Speedwells pretty well,” grunted John.
“Speedwell—eh? Is that their name?”
“Yes, it is.”
“What business have they got over on that island?”
“What business have you got asking me?” returned the old man,
freezingly.
“I want to know.”
“Keep wanting. Everything comes ter them that waits, they tell me.”
“You are of a sour temper, I see,” observed the stranger, eyeing Bromley
quite calmly.
“Mebbe. But my temper is none of your business. Something else is.”
“What’s that, old timer?” asked the thin man, grinning slightly.
“You’re on a piece of the earth I own. Get off it,” said John Bromley,
advancing truculently. “This dock is mine—and I own to the road. You git
back to the road and stay there.”
The man eyed him for a few seconds, as though to see whether he really
meant the command, or not. It was quite plain that Bromley meant it. He
was beginning to roll up his sleeves, and old as he was he looked to be
a bad man to tackle.
“Oh! very well,” said the stranger, backing off. “No offense meant.”
“And that’s lucky, too,” growled John. “For if you was meanin’ offense I
might come out into the road to you, at that!”
The stranger said no more, but gradually “oozed off the scenery,” as
Bromley told the boys afterward. “But that feller’s got some reason for
nosin’ around here,” the old boatman added, as he helped fasten the
motor iceboat to the spiles of the dock. “I didn’t like his looks—not a
little bit.”
“Do you suppose it is somebody trying to see what kind of an invention
you have here, Dannie?” asked the awed Billy.
For the second trip of the motor iceboat had convinced the younger
Speedwell lad that his brother was a marvel. He wasn’t talking much
about that trip, but if John Bromley had considered the speed of the
_Follow Me_ quite surprising, how much more impressed was Billy—and even
Dan himself.
It was true they had had a favoring breeze—and a stiff breeze, too. The
wind would have driven the boat at high speed, alone. But with the
auxiliary motor at work the _Follow Me_ had traveled at a breath-taking
pace. She had gone the length of Island Number One, and the island
beyond it, rounded the farther end of that second island, and come
rushing back down the river to John Bromley’s dock in an almost
unbelievably short time.
“It doesn’t matter who the fellow was,” said Dan, finally; “you know we
don’t want anybody examining this boat. John understands that; don’t
you, John?”
“I’ll keep me eye on her,” growled the boatman. “They’ve got to be wide
awake to beat old John. You leave it to me.”
But both boys felt some worriment of mind as they scurried around that
evening in the motor truck, picking up the cans of milk from the
dairies.
If it had begun to snow they might have felt better about it. With a
storm under way it would not be likely that anybody would seek out the
_Follow Me_ at John Bromley’s lonely dock, for any purpose.
The Speedwell boys got back to the house, however, finished the chores
for that night, and went in to supper before a single flake of the
promised storm had fallen.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XIV
GATHERING TROUBLE
The telephone tinkled in the kitchen just after Dan had pulled off his
boots. He and Billy were the last to go to bed on this evening, for it
was so cold that they had gone out to the milk room to blanket all the
bottled milk for fear the bottles would freeze and burst their caps.
Billy, still having his boots on, went down the back stairway and Dan
heard him speaking into the instrument. It was several moments before
the older boy realized that Billy was growing excited.
And no wonder! Billy was listening to something over the ’phone that
quite amazed him. In the first place he was surprised to hear old John
Bromley’s voice.
Bromley seldom if ever called them up, although the boys had paid for
having him put on the party wire. It was handy for them to be in
communication with Old John, summer and winter.
“You and Dan had better come down here,” said the boatman, his voice
very low. “There’s something——”
It died out there and Billy asked him to repeat it. Old John seemed to
keep right on whispering:
“I’ve chased ’em off, but they come back.”
“_Who_ has come back? What d’ye mean?” gasped Billy.
“And so you better come. Don’t want ’em ... hear me talkin’——”
“What under the sun are you getting at, John?” exclaimed Billy. “Let’s
have the details.”
Bromley’s voice on the wire was strong for a moment. “Now, you wait——”
And that was all—every last word Billy heard! He rattled the hook, and
shouted into the mouthpiece, and tried to call Central. He got her after
a while and demanded that Bromley be called again.
“Doesn’t answer!” snapped the girl, after a fruitless minute.
Dan, hearing Billy’s voice rising to crescendo, pulled on his boots
again and ran down to the kitchen. “You’ll wake the whole house up,” he
exclaimed, admonishingly.
“Well, what do you know about this?” Billy demanded.
“About what?”
“Something has happened down to Old John’s——”
He turned and made frantic efforts to get Central again. She said
finally: “Don’t answer. I think he’s got the receiver off the hook.”
Billy, at this, repeated as near as he could remember the broken
sentences he had heard over the wire.
“Sure it was Bromley?” asked Dan.
“I hope I know his voice, even when he whispers,” replied Billy, with
scorn.
“We’d better go down there,” said Dan, slowly. “John is old; something
_might_ have happened.”
“I reckon something has happened, all right, all right!” growled Billy,
beginning to struggle into his coat.
“Wait till I speak to father. We mustn’t go without telling him. Get out
the motorcycles, Billy.”
“Betcher!” responded his brother, unlocking the kitchen door.
Five minutes later they were astride their machines and were wheeling
for the crossroad that led down to Bromley’s dock. The wind cut like a
knife and it was pitch dark. Without their headlights they would not
have dared venture along the black road. Now and then—it seemed to Dan—a
flake of snow stung his cheek. The long-gathering storm was about due.
They shut off the noisy engines as they slid down the hill to the
river’s brink. The _Flying Feathers_ rattled a little over the ruts; but
they approached the dock rather quietly, after all.
There wasn’t a light anywhere about the premises—not even in Old John’s
little green painted shack where he had lived alone so many years.
“Let’s go easy, Billy,” advised Dan.
They hopped off their wheels and stood them carefully under the trees by
the roadside. They quenched the light of their lamps, too; but Dan
removed his lamp and carried it in his hand against emergencies.
“Don’t see a soul around,” breathed Billy. “Shall we hail the old man?”
“Not yet,” returned Dan, quite as disturbed now as was his brother.
They were almost at the door of the cabin when Billy suddenly clutched
Dan’s arm. He pointed toward the outer end of the dock.
“Where—where’s that other mast?” he demanded.
“What—you can’t see it in this black night, Billy,” Dan declared.
He, too, recognized the lofty mast of the _Fly-up-the-Creek_. The mast
of the motor iceboat should have stood beyond it; but——
“It’s gone!” gasped Billy, and started on the run down the dock.
“Wait!” called Dan, softly.
He raised his hand to knock upon the door of Bromley’s hut, but halted
in a panic. Out on the ice—seemingly from a great distance—sounded the
explosions of a motor exhaust!
“They’ve robbed us!” shrieked Billy, from the end of the dock. “Look,
the _Follow Me_ is gone!”
Dan did not wait to rap on Old John’s door. He lifted the latch and
found it unbolted. As he stumbled into the place he fell over a body
lying on the floor. Opening his lamp, he turned the ray upon the
obstruction. It was Bromley, bound hand and foot, and gagged, lying
helpless on the floor, but very much awake!
The old man’s eyes glared like a mad cat’s in the dark; and when Dan
jerked away the bandage that had smothered his speech, the old boatman
“let go” some deep-sea language that—at another time—would have quite
startled the Speedwells.
“Those sculpins jumped on me—three of ’em. I knowed they was sneakin’
erbout, an’ I was tryin’ ter warn ye over the ’phone. But while I was
talkin’ ter Master Billy they rushed me—broke right inter the house here
an’ grabbed me.
“Ye kin see I did some fightin’,” said Bromley, who was now sitting down
and holding his head, on one side of which a big lump had come into
sudden being. “There’s my butter crock smashed—I heaved it at one of the
villings—I did so!
“But three ter one is big odds for an old feller like me. Ye see what
they done to me? And they went off with your new boat, Master Dan.
_That’s_ what they was after.”
“What did they look like?” queried Dan, sharply.
“They was masked—every one o’ them,” replied Bromley.
“They went up the river, Dan,” said Billy, eagerly. “Didn’t you hear the
exhaust of their engine?”
“I couldn’t place it.”
“_I_ could,” declared Billy, earnestly. “I was out on the end of the
dock, and I marked it well. ’Twas up-stream——”
“Ye’d better telephone to the constable,” said Old John.
“To Josiah Somes?” laughed Billy. “A fat lot of good _that_ would do
us.”
“You ’phone to the sheriff, John,” commanded Dan, suddenly deciding the
matter. “And tell father about it, if he asks. But Billy and I will
follow the robbers.”
“Say! them three villings was powerful mean to me,” objected the
boatman. “What they’d do to a couple of boys——”
“We needn’t get into a tussle with them,” said Dan, quickly. “We’ll just
get on their trail—if we can.”
“We can,” cried Billy, confidently, and ran out of the cabin at once.
His brother was soon after him. They unleashed the bigger iceboat and
pushed her off from the dock. There was a strong gale blowing, but they
had been out in some pretty keen blows with the _Fly-up-the-Creek_, and
knew well how to manage her.
“Sure they went up stream?” asked Dan, as he helped Billy raise the big
sail.
“Pos-i-tive!”
“Then——We’re off! Look out for yourself, Billy, when the boom swings
over.”
Dan barely caught the stern of the craft and scrambled in. The wind had
filled the canvas suddenly, and she shot out from the dock. He had her
in hand in a minute, however, and sent the boom creaking over and they
got upon the right tack.
Almost at once the iceboat set a pace that made the boys cower and cling
as they could to the rocking, wrenching timbers of the craft. The gale
did not show its fury until they were well out of the lee of the land.
Then the boys discovered that it was snowing, too. The few flakes that
had whistled past them while they were riding down to the dock had
gathered in infinite numbers now. The gale whipped them along so
speedily that they did not seem to touch the ice at all; yet the air was
soon filled with hurrying, stinging ice particles which blinded them.
Somewhere ahead they believed three robbers were flying up the river in
the stolen motor iceboat. Of course, they would carry no lamps, and it
would be difficult to see the runaway until they were right upon it.
But if they continued to use the motor Dan and Billy knew they would
soon be able to place the _Follow Me_. They strained their ears to
distinguish the put-put-put of the exhaust.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XV
ON ISLAND NUMBER ONE
Dan Speedwell, naturally more thoughtful than his brother, realized
immediately that they were up against a difficult proposition.
The storm was gathering rapidly and through the curtain of snow it was
impossible to see far. It was true the falling flakes lightened the
scene greatly; yet they interposed a white wall that was impenetrable a
few yards beyond the bow of the iceboat.
In which ever direction the thieves had gone with the _Follow Me_, the
pursuers’ only chance of overtaking them was to follow by sound—not
sight. Therefore the thickly falling snow did not balk the Speedwell
boys much. It only would serve to deaden the sound of the motor
iceboat’s engine.
Although the bulk of the falling snow was swept on upon the breast of
the gale, and little stuck to the ice, the big iceboat made less noise
than usual. Her shoes did not clog; But the scale of new snow upon the
river smothered the shriek of the steel. Billy, standing on the
crossbeam, strained his ears to catch the faintest sound from the motor
of the boat they were pursuing.
If the robbers continued to use the motor only, both boys knew that the
_Fly-up-the-Creek_ would soon overhaul the stolen craft.
For they were now tearing up the river at a furious pace. On, on, on—the
boat rocking and bounding—often shooting into the air completely when
the runners struck a “hubbly” piece of ice—peeling the miles off under
the runner-shoes with nerve-racking speed.
Directly they saw the gaunt outline of tree-tops on the right hand. They
were passing some island; but which one, neither boy could have told at
the moment. The usual landmarks were wiped out.
For what point along the upper reaches of the Colasha were the robbers
headed? That was a disturbing query in Dan’s mind. Had the fellows
prepared some hide-out for the motor iceboat, even before they had
stolen her?
And the puzzle was: What did they want of the _Follow Me_? Was the
robbery merely for the sake of keeping the Speedwell boys out of the
regatta—which was now but a week away? Or, was the crime committed for
an entirely different reason?
Unless the scoundrels removed the boat from the river it would be rather
difficult to hide her for long.
“But they can make us a whole lot of trouble—that’s a dead certainty,”
muttered Dan, striving to clear his goggles of the wet and clinging
snowflakes.
“D’ye hear anything, Dan?” yelled Billy at that moment.
“Not a thing.”
“Crickey!” cried the younger boy. “Mebbe those fellers have run her
under the ice.”
Dan caught most of what his brother said, but only shook his head.
Billy, as he stood clinging to the leather hand-hold, was outlined by
the snow, which made his figure bulk hugely in the uncertain light.
Standing there, Billy should be able by now to hear the motor’s
exhaust—if ever! Unless, of course, the thieves had put canvas on the
_Follow Me_, too.
Dan was trying to puzzle the thing out. If the robbery was solely for
the purpose of putting him and his brother out of the regatta, why this
long run up the river? Suppose the three men had merely motored over to
one of the islands, or to the far shore of the river? There they could
have hidden, or destroyed, her before this. A few strokes of an ax would
have put an end to the usefulness of the motor and machinery on the
stolen boat—and _that_ might have been done at Bromley’s dock.
No; it looked very much to Dan as though, had the intention merely been
to keep her out of the race, the thieves never would have taken the
_Follow Me_ out on the river on such a blustering night as this.
There was something else behind it. Because he believed that somebody
had gotten hold of the plans he had drawn for the boat Dan, like Billy,
had jumped to the conclusion that this incident was along the same
line—that somebody who was afraid of their prowess wished to keep them
out of the ice races.
His mind had suddenly shunted back to the repeated conversation between
the strange man that afternoon on Bromley’s wharf, and Old John himself.
The man had connected him and Billy with Island Number One. There was a
mystery about that island—and the unfortunate lad who spent at least a
portion of his time in that locality.
The connection between this present affair and the stranger’s
conversation was suddenly clinched in Dan’s mind. The mist of
uncertainty which had bothered him was dissipated on the instant.
“Those fellows aren’t trying to do us out of the races,” he thought.
“It’s something about Island Number One and the dummy. They never came
up the river as far as this—and that’s good reason why we don’t hear the
motor.”
His decision brought about instant action. He yelled to Billy and the
latter heard:
“Look out, boy! I’m going to swing her over!”
Dan took up the sheet and for a few moments the boat lost headway. Then
the stiffened canvas filled again and they shot away on the other tack.
Billy shouted some objections; but Dan gave him little attention until
he had swung her clear across the river and they were headed down
stream, and on the other side of the chain of islands.
“Don’t give it up! don’t give it up, Dan!” begged the younger lad.
“I’m not. But I’ve got a hunch, Billy,” returned Dan. “See where we are.
What light is that?”
“Must be the light at Benzinger’s Inn,” sang out Billy, after a moment.
“But it’s hard to tell. Landmarks seem different when the river’s
frozen——”
“You’re right! you’re right!” cried Dan. “It’s the Inn. I see the big
oak beside it.”
“That white staff——?”
“Yes. It’s the snow makes it look so ghostly. Now we’ll slip across
nearer the islands.”
“What for?”
“Because we’re going to try to make Island Number One,” declared Dan,
emphatically.
There seemed to fall a lull in the gale. The iceboat creaked over the
gathering drift of snow that had sifted down here and lay in a thick
sheet upon the ice in the lee of the islands.
And how deep it was! How fast it had gathered! It actually amazed Dan
and Billy that so much snow had banked up here in so short a time; for
on the other side of the islands—between them and the river bank—there
were but small, thin patches.
“There’s Island Number One!” shouted Billy, pointing ahead.
Dan shook his head at his brother and put a finger for a moment on his
own lips in warning.
The _Fly-up-the-Creek_, at greatly reduced speed, crossed the open space
between the two islands. They saw nothing of the missing _Follow Me_;
but in a very few minutes their own craft staggered into a tiny cove and
the runners plowed into a two-foot drift.
Dan dropped the canvas, and it came down stiffly and creakingly. Billy
trampled it into some sort of a bundle on the main beam of the craft. He
grumbled meantime:
“What are you doin’, Dan? We’ll never catch those fellows—never!”
“How about if they’re _here_?” queried Dan.
“Where’s the _Follow Me_?”
“We’ll look,” grunted Dan, stamping his feet and trying to slap some
life into his numbed hands.
“This is some storm, Dan.”
“It sure is.”
“Regular old blizzard—just as you said.”
Dan seized his brother’s arm suddenly, and held it tight. “What d’ye
know about _that_, Billy?” he asked, pointing with his free hand into
the tops of the snow-masked trees above them.
There was a faint, rosy glow just above the tree-tops on the high
hogback of the island. This dim, ghostly light was twenty feet above the
ground, at least, and all of forty feet above the ice where the two boys
stood.
“That—that beats me!” chattered Billy.
“What does it look like?”
“A fire in the air.”
“Isn’t that just about where you thought you saw the smoke that other
day?”
“I bet you!” gasped Billy. “A fire in the air,” he repeated.
“No. The reflection in the air of a fire, I grant you,” Dan chuckled.
“But—but——Say, just what d’ye mean, Dan?”
“It means that there is somebody on this island,” Dan said, gravely.
“Whether it is that poor dumb chap, or these robbers—or both!—we’ve got
to find ’em.”
“But the _Follow Me_ isn’t here,” objected Billy, weakly.
“How do you know?” returned his brother. “Mean to tell me you can see
all over this island—into every cove and inlet—from where we stand?”
“No-o——”
“Then don’t be foolish, Bill! Maybe the boat isn’t here. But I’m going
to find out what that light means——”
“It’s gone!” exclaimed Billy.
“Yep. The fire was so fierce for a minute that its rosy hue reflected on
the smoke. We can’t see the smoke now—the snow drives altogether too
hard.”
“Crickey, old man!” ejaculated Billy. “We’ll be buried here if we stand
much longer.”
“Then let’s keep moving. Come on!”
Dan started for the higher part of the island at once. It was a rocky,
steep ascent, and the snow covering everything made the way more
arduous. As they panted along Billy whispered:
“D’ye suppose that dummy and the three men that stole the boat are in
cahoots, Dan?”
“Give it up,” returned Dan. “But we’ll find out.”
“Maybe they’ll treat us as badly as they did Old John—if they’re here,”
suggested Billy, showing more caution than usual.
“We’ll be careful,” said Dan, in the same low tone. “They won’t be
expecting us, I bet!”
“That’s right. They’d never look for pursuit in this storm.”
“B-r-r-r! I guess not,” grumbled Dan. “It’s not fit for a dog to be out
in.”
“Well—if there’s a fire——”
“And there must be some shelter,” added the older lad. “If it’s only the
dummy we’ll get under cover all right.”
“And let the _Follow Me_ go?” groaned Billy.
“My goodness, Billy!” muttered Dan. “It’s snowing so hard now that we
could not see our hands before our faces. Lucky we beached the
_Fly-up-the-Creek_ as we did.”
Just then Billy fell over something. It was a section of tree trunk.
Beside it was quite a heap of split wood, too.
“What do you know about this?” asked Dan, helping his brother to his
feet.
“Cord wood, by crickey!” exclaimed Billy.
“Sh!”
“But who’s been cutting wood over here on this island——? Why! the
dummy—if he’s the one that’s got the fire,” muttered Billy, asking and
answering his own question.
“Correct!” agreed Dan.
By this time they were among the trees that covered the backbone of the
island. There was quite a thick grove at this point.
“Step softly,” begged Dan.
“The snow will come pretty near deadening our footsteps,” whispered
Billy. “Hullo! here’s a hollow stump.”
“What’s that?” exclaimed Dan, under his breath. “A hollow tree?”
“Stump, I said. About twenty feet high. It was a big tree once, you
bet,” whispered Billy. “When Lettie and I were ashore here the other day
we found it. I know it’s only a shell, for I pounded on it.”
He lifted his fist, but Dan stopped him. “Don’t pound on it now, you
chump!” ordered the older boy.
He put out a tentative hand himself and touched the black tree trunk. He
had already noticed that no snow clung to it. The bark was still on the
wood and there was no mark to show that the big stump was hollow.
But when Dan placed his bare hand upon the bark it seemed to him as
though the hollow stump was warm!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XVI
THE UNEXPECTED
This was both a startling and unexpected discovery. Dan gripped Billy’s
arm again, enjoining silence, and the two boys crept away from the
vicinity of the hollow stump.
The rosy glow above its summit—the smoke rising above the tree-tops—the
warmth of the dead tree, so that the snow did not stick to it while the
rough bark of the live trees was now crusted with the fast falling
flakes—these facts were all to be pieced together. And the dovetailing
did not take long when Dan put his mind to it!
“It’s a smokepipe—a chimney,” he whispered.
“What is?” muttered Billy, puzzled.
“That hollow stump.”
“Crickey! where’s the fire?” demanded Billy, in amazement.
“Under the ground—somewhere. There’s a cave—a den in the rocks. Somehow
a smoke flue has been dug to the hollow tree——”
“If it was hot enough to reflect upon the snow above the top,” objected
Billy, “the old tree would be afire.”
“Not if they had lined it with clay, and baked the clay first,”
responded Dan.
“Gee, Dan! you’ve got a head!”
“I hope so,” returned Dan, laughing.
“But could the dummy have done all that——?”
“How do we know who is in the cavern?” snapped Dan. “And take it from
me—it was somebody beside that dumb fellow who contrived this hide-out.
These people must be outlaws of some kind, Billy—surest thing you know!”
“Of course they are—if they stole our boat,” agreed Billy.
“We don’t know who they are,” said Dan, thoughtfully. “And we don’t know
how to get into their camp, anyway. Goodness, Billy! maybe we’ll wish we
_did_ know, even if they are pretty tough citizens. Where are we going
to find shelter in this blizzard?”
The storm was increasing mightily. The snow drove down through the
branches with a startled “sh-sh-sh.” This drowned even the whining of
the wind through the taller tree-tops.
The boys made little sound as they moved about, for the snow deadened
every other noise. They stood together for some moments without
speaking.
To be out in such a time as this was neither pleasant nor safe. The cold
was stinging, and one might easily freeze to death on such a night. Even
the idea of being covered up in the snow was no comfortable thought,
although they might remain thus sheltered till morning without any
serious injury. Many times Dan and Billy had uncovered their sheep after
a serious snowstorm, and the lads knew that a snowdrift was porous and
the heat of the body thus mantled would keep them from freezing.
“Besides,” whispered Dan, at last, “we can find our way down to the boat
again, and cover ourselves with a part of the sail.”
“But how about this dummy?” muttered Billy. “Suppose he’s alone? I
believe he’d give us shelter.”
“We’ll look,” agreed Dan. “But for goodness sake be careful.”
“How are we going about it, Dan?”
“Round and round. Take that hollow stump for the center. We’ll circle
around until we find the entrance to his den.”
“But Lettie and I were all over this island,” objected Billy.
“You didn’t know what you were looking for; did you?”
“Humph! I suppose not.”
“Now we know,” chuckled Dan. “We’re looking for a hole in the ground
where there is a fire. Goodness! won’t it be fine to be warm again?”
For the boys were badly chilled by now. Billy could scarcely keep his
teeth from chattering.
From where they stood the boys could dimly see the black trunk of the
hollow tree which Dan believed was the chimney of the mysterious den in
the rocks.
“You go one way; I’ll go the other. Don’t lose sight of the tree,”
advised the older Speedwell.
They separated. The snow sifted down so thickly that it was not long
before they lost sight of each other. It was no easy matter to get about
among the boulders and roughage of the hillside. Big rocks cropped out
in places; and there were many stumps, and masses of vines and bushes to
trip them. That all these obstructions were pretty well masked in the
fallen snow made the going all the harder.
Billy had every confidence in his brother’s judgment; and it did seem as
though Dan must be right about the cave and the strange chimney
connected with it. Somewhere underneath where they trod was a warm
hollow, sheltering, perhaps, only the boy whom they called “Dummy.” If
he was alone, Billy was sure he would give Dan and himself shelter.
But they wanted to be sure of that. Billy wasn’t desirous of “mixing in”
with those three masked robbers who had treated old John Bromley so
roughly.
And so thinking, as he crept on over the higher part of the island above
the hollow stump, Billy suddenly stepped right out into space. At least,
so it seemed. He put his foot upon a bank of snow, and “slumped right
in”!
The snow had treacherously filled a narrow cut between two boulders.
Billy dropped to his chin in the soft, cold mass, and then found that he
was wedged so tightly that he couldn’t get out.
He dared not shout to Dan. _That_ might be their undoing indeed. If
there were men about whom they must perforce consider enemies, Billy was
determined not to bring them out here.
So he struggled, and panted, and wrenched himself from side to side, and
tried his very best to seize upon the edge of the rock above him and
draw his body up. All to no purpose!
He was just as much a prisoner as though he were bound with cords. The
snow was fast drifting over him, too. Billy was already badly chilled,
and the thought of being covered completely by the snow made him shake
all the more.
Indeed, he was in a bad way. He was too courageous to yell for his
brother and thus run the risk of attracting others in the neighborhood;
but it did seem to Billy as though he were doomed to be smothered,
standing erect between the two rocks.
Above the imperilled boy the snow whirled in ghostly forms. Like
shrouded figures of lost spirits the snow drifted through the open
grove, passing the frightened lad in a dreary procession. The “sh-sh-sh”
of the falling flakes seemed now like an actual voice.
There came a white figure more certain in its outlines than the others.
Billy struggled to raise himself again, his lips parted, tempted to
shriek. The figure came nearer.
“Goodness gracious! what’s the matter with you?” gasped Dan’s anxious
voice. “I’ve been hunting for you everywhere.”
“Crickey! is that you, Dannie?” returned Billy. “I thought I was done
for.”
“Why didn’t you yell?” demanded Dan, laying hold of his brother’s
wrists.
“And start something, maybe?”
“Well! you plucky young duffer,” exclaimed Dan, in some pride. “Now! out
you come!”
Billy lay panting at his feet for some moments. Dan examined the hole
into which his brother had fallen.
“Don’t suppose that’s a way into the den, do you?”
“So—solid under my feet, Dan,” gasped Billy. “That’s no entrance, I
bet.”
“Come on, then. We’ll keep together this time. Haven’t found a sign of
the way in yet.”
They took a wider circle about the hollow stump. Stumbling on, arm in
arm (for Billy was getting exhausted, although he would not own up to
it), the Speedwells made another complete round without discovering
anything.
The way was so rough that it was impossible to recall just where the
hollow stump stood. The boys had reached the bottom of the hill and the
shore of the island was near at hand. But in that direction they could
see but a short distance. The snow was like a thick curtain before their
eyes.
“Crickey, Dan!” groaned Billy. “We’ve lost it.”
“Oh, I guess the old stump hasn’t moved,” said Dan, cheerfully. “It’s up
yonder—somewhere!”
At that moment they again caught sight of the rosy glow in the
tree-tops. “See!” exclaimed Dan. “More heat. Jingo! that must be a great
draft.”
“They must have some way of shutting off the draft, and then opening it
again,” said Billy, in a puzzled tone. “There! it’s gone.”
“I’ve got it” exclaimed Dan, suddenly. “I bet that’s a forge.”
“A forge?” repeated Billy, in wonder.
“They’d want a tall chimney for a forge on account of needing a strong
draft,” declared Dan. “That’s what it is.”
“But a forge in a cave?” queried his brother, doubtfully. “What for?”
“Ah! that’s another question,” returned Dan. “I don’t see that far,
yet.”
But in secret Dan believed he had guessed the business of the men who
had once, at least, occupied the cave, whether they were there now, or
not. He said nothing to Billy about this, however.
The younger boy had stumbled into a heap of split wood. Dummy—or
somebody else—had spent some time in preparing a great heap of fuel
against just such a storm as this that now raged over the valley of the
Colasha.
“And Dan,” whispered Billy, eagerly, “wouldn’t he have his woodpile
pretty near to the door of the cave? What do you think?”
“I think you’ve got a good head on you,” returned Dan, promptly. “Let’s
go careful here.”
Right at hand was a thick, low clump of bushes. The snow was heaped upon
and into this brush, until it was waist high, only the tops of the
bushes sticking out.
And, strangely enough, there seemed to be a narrow path, crooked as a
ram’s horn, but quite plain—through the midst of this brush-clump.
“Look, there!” exclaimed the watchful Dan. “Leads right to the steep
side of that rock. Come on.”
“But there’s no way of getting through that big boulder!” gasped Billy.
“Under it, perhaps,” ventured Dan.
He stooped as he spoke and tossed the snow aside. He got below the
interlocked branches of the bushes, and knelt upon the stony ground.
There _was_ a sort of a tunnel under the brush. The ground was packed
hard.
“By the paws of some wild animal that must have used this runway once,”
whispered Dan. “It leads to his den.”
“I hope it isn’t at home,” chattered Billy.
“But there will be somebody else at home—sure! Come on—softly.”
In half a minute the two boys, Dan ahead, and both on hands and knees,
had crept to the foot of the huge rock that seemed so impassable from a
little distance.
Underneath the foot of the boulder, however, was a narrow passage
entering the hillside. Without doubt it had once been the lair of a wild
animal.
But Dan and Billy did not apprehend the appearance of any such tenant of
the hollow in the hillside. It was long since any dangerous animal had
been seen in the woods about Riverdale.
And it was man that had built the fire. The two boys crept a little way
into the passage and listened. In a moment they heard a high pitched
voice—a voice shrieking, it seemed, in pain and fright. But the words—if
words the person uttered—were quite unintelligible.
“What d’ye know about that?” whispered Billy, forgetting at once his own
misfortunes. “There’s trouble up there——”
Again and again the shrieks echoed down the passage. Then followed the
rough tones of a deeper voice. The man spoke in anger—there was no doubt
of that—and instantly the shriller voice cried out again.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XVII
IN THE DEN
“It’s the dummy!” Dan exclaimed, in an awed voice.
“He’s in trouble,” agreed the trembling Billy. “Whatever will we do?
There! hear him?”
“I wish we had a gun,” muttered his brother.
“What for?”
“We’re going to get into a fight in about half a minute,” Dan declared.
“That is—if we stay here.”
“Let’s get out then,” said Billy. “Whatever it is——”
Again the piercing cries of the unfortunate dummy broke out.
“My goodness! I can’t stand that,” gasped Dan.
“Can we help him—do you think we can?” demanded Billy. “But let’s not
get into trouble ourselves——”
Again the shrieks. Dan scrambled forward up the passage, with Billy
right after him. The boys could not remain quiet when a helpless human
being was being tortured.
In a few moments they came out into a roomy cavity. The roof was high
and dome-shaped. At the far side was a huge fireplace of rock and
mortar, with a forge set into one side of it. There was a fire of
charcoal in the forge as well as a heap of burning cordwood on the wide
hearth.
At a glance the boys saw the whole picture. There were three rough
looking men. Both Dan and Billy believed they were those who had robbed
them of the _Follow Me_ and had so ill-treated old John Bromley. But
they were not masked now.
Two were holding the wildly shrieking lad the Speedwells knew as Dummy.
The noise the unfortunate boy made drowned that made by the Speedwells
in getting into the cave.
The back of the third man was toward the entrance. He was in command.
“Give him another taste of it!” he ordered, just as Dan and Billy
scrambled to their feet.
At once the other two swung the screaming boy up, and held the calves of
his legs over the glowing coal on the forge.
The sight was too much for Dan Speedwell. He let out a yell, picked up a
heavy stick of wood and charged the men. One he brought down at his
first blow.
They dropped the dummy, who fell partly in the fire, screaming and
struggling. He overturned the forge as he fell. The two other men sprang
at Dan.
Billy had found a shovel. He used this with good effect upon one of the
men; but the other got Dan down and was choking him on the floor of the
smoke-filled cavern.
“Come on, Dummy! Help us!” shouted Billy, whanging away with his shovel.
But either the scorched boy was too hurt, or too frightened, to assist
those who had come to his rescue. Dan and Billy had all the fighting to
do themselves.
And they had a very poor chance when the three men recovered from their
surprise. The one first knocked down rose, kicked the weeping dummy out
of the way, and dived for Billy with a roar of rage.
He tore the shovel out of the boy’s hands and hit poor Billy just once
across the shoulders. It nearly knocked the wind out of the lad and he
staggered across the cave and fell against the wall.
Dan was by this time overpowered. The fight was over almost as soon as
it had begun.
“What d’ye know about these kids buttin’ in this way?” demanded one of
the roughs. “Ought to give ’em both a taste of the fire, too.”
“No! go easy!” advised the man who seemed to be the leader, in a
cautious tone. “There must be somebody else near.”
“Why so?”
“These kids wouldn’t have been ’way out here alone. Maybe we’re in bad,
boys——”
But a cry from the third man stopped the other’s mouth. The excited
individual was hauling away the broken forge.
“Here we were trying to find out from Dummy where the box was hid, an’
here she be! Look a’ here, boys! What d’ye know about this?”
The others left Dan and Billy where they lay and rushed to the
fireplace. Under the legs of the forge had been a loose stone in the
hearth. One of the fellows pried it up. A cavity was revealed.
“We’ve got it! we’ve got it!” yelled one of the men.
“Shut up, I tell you!” exclaimed the leader of the three. “I tell you
there must be somebody on this island besides these kids.”
“Aw, don’t be so scared, Tom. The kids just butted in. Friends of Dummy,
proberly. Didn’t know no better.”
“They’ll know better now,” grumbled the cautious one. “We gotter beat
it.”
“You bet,” agreed one of his fellows.
Meanwhile two of the men were lifting out what the hollow under the
hearthstone contained. This was a heavy box, some two feet square, bound
with iron bands, and padlocked.
“Knock off the lock and let’s see ’em!” exclaimed the more excitable
fellow.
“No, we won’t,” declared the leader. “We gotter beat it.”
“How’ll we get away in this storm?”
“The wind’s all right. We can get away just the way we come—sure.”
“And these kids?” growled the other, eyeing the panting and bruised
Speedwell boys with much disfavor.
“Leave ’em here with Dummy.”
“They’ll set the officers after us in short order.”
“Not if these two lads were foolish enough to come here to the island
alone,” growled the first speaker.
“Huh! Going to tie ’em up—eh?”
“You bet. And Dummy, too. They can stop here a while and be company for
each other,” and the fellow laughed in anything but a comforting way.
Dan and Billy were badly frightened, whether the dummy was, or not. The
latter nursed his scorched legs in one corner. The Speedwell boys lay
side by side in another. There wasn’t the first chance for them to
escape, and the brothers knew it.
“We butted in where we had no call to, this time,” muttered Billy, in
despair.
They had not long to wait. The three robbers had come to the island for
just one thing, and they had found it. Whatever was in the padlocked
box, they seemed delighted to have it.
Dan had joked about there being treasure buried on the island; but that
is exactly what there was—so Billy thought. Dummy had been left to guard
it, and was to show the hidden box to somebody. But these three ruffians
were not the people who had any right to it.
This was easy to understand. And Dummy, although he had screamed and
would not put up a fight, was brave in his way. He had suffered torture
rather than show these men where the box had lain.
Now two of the fellows seized him once more, and the poor chap screamed
again. They only bound him, however—but they bound him so tightly that
he had good reason to cry out.
It was so with Dan and Billy, in turn, as well. At wrists and ankles the
three boys were lashed with strong fishline, that cut into the flesh. It
was impossible to stretch their bonds at all without lacerating their
wrists and ankles.
Dan and Billy were thankful the scoundrels did not gag them as they had
John Bromley earlier in the evening. Yet, who would hear them shout down
here in the bowels of the island?
They saw the three men leave the cave, dragging the heavy box with them.
One of them came back after a moment, made sure for the last time that
the bonds of the trio of captives were all right, and then he, too,
disappeared.
The boys were alone in the cavern.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XVIII
AN EVENING DRIVE
Although the weather had been threatening all day, Mildred Kent went
over to Lettie Parker’s house after supper, as she had promised. There
had been no school for several days, but the girls were just as busy as
Dan and Billy Speedwell. They were hard at work finishing certain
Christmas presents.
To tell the truth, Lettie’s present was for Billy Speedwell, and was a
handsome silk scarf—thick and warm—that the bronze-haired girl had been
at work on for several days. Now her nimble fingers flew as she sat and
gossiped with the doctor’s daughter. Meanwhile the latter was completing
the initials “D. S.” she was embroidering in the corners of six very
handsome handkerchiefs.
“And there’s another thing, Milly,” Lettie was saying, “that I want to
see Billy about. There’s something going on up at Island Number One, and
they say Dan and Billy know about it.”
“What do you mean?” asked Mildred, calmly.
“Something queer. You know what the boys said about that fellow they
call ‘Dummy’?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Well, Sheriff Kimball told my father that the Speedwells are at the
island a good deal, and that the dumb boy is a member of a gang of
outlaws. Now, what do you think of _that_?”
“What nonsense!” exclaimed Mildred, her eyes very big and round.
“It’s not nonsense at all. I’m telling you the truth,” said the
bronze-haired young lady, sharply.
“Of course. I don’t mean that you are not telling the truth. But this
sheriff must be crazy to believe that Dan and Billy would know any
outlaws. What kind of outlaws?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. But Sheriff Kimball has been twice to see father
about it. Dan and Billy are bound to get into trouble if they don’t look
out.”
“How ridiculous. I don’t believe there is anybody on the island.”
“We saw that dummy ourselves,” declared Lettie, her lips pursed.
“But you went all over the island with Billy afterward. You didn’t find
any hiding place.”
“The sheriff says it’s there. He has reason to know, he states. There
was some man—so he says—who broke with the outlaws and ‘turned State’s
evidence,’ he calls it. Sheriff Kimball says he has been waiting for two
months for this boy who can’t talk very well to come and see him. The
man who confessed said he would send all the evidence by this dummy. And
you know he was at Billy’s house and the boys never told the sheriff——”
“Why should they?” demanded Mildred, startled.
“Well, you know what the boys said about finding a slip of paper after
the dummy went away, and what was written on the paper? It said: ‘Buried
on the island. Dummy will show you the spot.’ Sheriff Kimball says that
doubtless referred to the evidence Harry Biggin meant him to have.”
“Harry Biggin?”
“That’s the name of the man who broke with the outlaws and is helping
the officers get the crowd.”
“He’s an informer,” asserted Mildred, with scorn.
“But that doesn’t help the matter any. If Dan and Billy have foolishly
got themselves mixed up in it——”
“Mixed up in _what_?” demanded Mildred, with some heat. To Mildred
Kent’s mind it was impossible that Dan Speedwell could ever be in any
real trouble—that is, trouble that came about through his not being
“perfectly straight.” Billy, perhaps, might be foolish; but never Dan!
Just as she spoke there was a jingling of sleigh bells at the door of
the Parker house. There had been little sleighing this winter, save on
the river; but a couple of days before, a trifle of snow had
fallen—enough to crust the Riverdale streets and the drives in and out
of the town.
“Here’s Mr. Kimball now—I do believe!” cried Lettie, jumping up and
running to a front window. “Yes! he said he was going up the river to
the Biggin place, and he’d stop for father——”
“This Harry Biggin,” said Mildred, suddenly. “Is he one of those farmers
on the other side of the river?”
“Yes. They own that big place near Meadville, only on the other bank.”
“And he says Dan and Billy are connected with robbers—or outlaws—or
something——”
“I never said so!”
“I’m going to ask Mr. Kimball what he means, then,” said Mildred,
firmly, and putting aside her work she arose and went quickly to the
hall door.
Mr. Parker was welcoming the sheriff at the door. The latter was a tall,
thin and wiry man, dressed in a long gray ulster belted at the waist. If
old John Bromley could have seen him he would have immediately
recognized the man he had driven away from his dock while the Speedwells
were trying out their new motor-iceboat.
“Hullo!” said the jolly county clerk. “It’s only my girl and her chum.
How are you, Milly?” and he pinched the cheek of the doctor’s daughter.
But Mildred was too anxious to be anything but direct. “Oh! I beg your
pardon, sir,” she said, to the man in the ulster. “But are you the
sheriff?”
“Of course he is!” chuckled Mr. Parker. “Have you some mysterious
evidence you want to put before him——”
“That’s just what she’s got, Dad!” cried Lettie, giggling.
“I’ll be glad to take up any case Miss Mildred has to offer,” said the
county official, his eyes twinkling.
“It isn’t that. I want to know about Dan and Billy Speedwell. They
_can’t_ have done anything wrong——”
“There it is again, Kimball,” exclaimed the county clerk, slapping the
sheriff on the shoulder. “You start anything about Dan and Billy in this
neighborhood, and even the girls will be after you.”
“But what’s their game up there at the island?”
“They have no game there,” said Mildred, with a very determined look.
“And at that old fellow’s wharf up the river. I’m not known much around
that section. I’m from the other end of the county, and having only been
in office six months, everybody doesn’t know I’m sheriff,” and Mr.
Kimball laughed.
“To-day I was watching Island Number One for—well, for a reason. I saw
those two boys racing over there in a most marvelous iceboat run by a
motor——”
“Oh, jolly!” exclaimed Lettie, breaking in. “They’ve built the new boat,
then.”
“Wait, Kimball,” interposed Mr. Parker. “Tell the girls something more.
I can see Mildred is interested.”
“She is if you are going to arrest Billy and Dan Speedwell,” laughed
Lettie, who was just as full of fun as her father, and was not above
teasing her chum on occasion.
“Well, I tell you!” exclaimed the sheriff, smiling. “I’m in a hurry. The
Biggins, like all farmer folk, go to bed early, and I hear that Harry
has dared creep home again and may be there to-night. I’m in a hurry, as
I say; but I’ve got a two-seated sleigh here, and plenty of robes, and
about the fastest pair of horses in this county—raised ’em myself. What
say if we all—you, too, Parker—drive up the river, and on the way I’ll
explain how the Speedwells seem to be mixed up with the Steinforth
counterfeiting gang.”
“The Steinforth counterfeiters?” gasped Mr. Parker. “That’s more than
you’ve told me before, Kimball.”
“Yes. But it seems we have about got things to a head now. Something is
going to break soon, and I’ll risk talking a little. Want to go,
Parker?”
“We’ll go,” said Mr. Parker, looking at the girls. “Just ’phone your
mother, Milly, that you are going sleighing with me.”
“That’s all right,” said the sheriff, with a boyish laugh, and he ran
out to spread the robes for the girls in the rear seat. Not a flake of
snow had fallen yet, but the night was starless, and the wind cut
sharply.
They got under way in ten minutes. The black horses were young and they
had been standing in the stable behind Appleyard’s all day, and were
very restive. The girls squealed a little as they clipped the corners
going down to the open ice.
From River Street a path had been made down to the shore. It was an easy
slant and the runners of the sleigh fairly pushed the horses on their
haunches.
“Easy, boys! _now_ we have it!” cried the sheriff, coaxingly. He handled
the colts as though he loved them, and they tossed their heads, and
pricked their ears forward, and seemed to know that he would let them
out in a minute and give them a chance to show their mettle.
Their shoes had just been sharpened, and when they clattered out upon
the clear ice they left little marks every time their dancing hoofs
landed.
That did not seem to be often, at the pace they took when first Mr.
Kimball let them out. They whipped the sleigh behind them as though it
was of a feather’s weight. The two little lamps—one set at each side of
the dash—sent twinkling, narrow rays of yellow light along the ice,
glistening on each little imperfection. It seemed as though where the
light fell a trail of stardust had been laid.
But there were no other lights upon the ice. With the keen wind blowing
stronger, none of the boats were out from the Boat Club cove where all
but the Speedwells’ craft were kept. And there were few skaters out on
the river to-night.
For several miles—until they had swung past the lower end of Island
Number One, indeed—Mr. Kimball had no chance for much talk. The girls
were delighted with the drive now.
“It’s almost as good as being on the boys’ ice yacht,” declared Lettie.
“And now, what about the Speedwells and this Steinforth counterfeiting
gang, Kimball?” demanded Mr. Parker, laying a hand upon the sheriff’s
arm.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XIX
LOST IN THE BLIZZARD
“I’ve got nothing against the lads,” explained the sheriff, sitting
sideways on the front seat after bringing the horses down to a more
quiet pace, and speaking so the girls on the back seat could hear him.
“But some things I have heard make me suspicious.”
“They seem to have had something to do with a boy called ‘the
Dummy’—he’s been to their house, you know. You told me so yourself,
Parker.”
Mildred flashed Lettie a sharp glance and the red-haired girl had the
grace to blush. So it had been _her_ chattering to her father of what
the Speedwell boys had told them about the island, and Dummy, that had
set the sheriff to looking up Dan and Billy.
“This dummy seems to be the important link in our case against
Steinforth and his co-operators. Most of the gang were arrested months
ago by the Federal officers. But the engraving plates they worked from
and a lot of finished notes, as well as a coiner’s outfit, were cached
by the outlaws before their arrest.”
“Now, this Biggin, and the dummy, who is his nephew——”
“Oh! is he _really_ dumb?” cried Lettie, curiously.
“No. Dreadfully tongue-tied, I believe. A good person to trust a secret
to, for he couldn’t tell it easily,” and the sheriff laughed.
“But is the poor boy really a criminal?” asked Mildred, faintly.
“Why—as to that——No! I fancy he is attached to Biggin. And Biggin was
never really a member of Steinforth’s gang. Biggin drinks—that’s his
failing. He used to go off into the woods on lonesome sprees. That’s how
he fell in with the counterfeiting gang, he told me.
“Well, when the Federal officers got close on the trail of the outlaws
they hid the plates and other things I mentioned, and sort of left
Biggin in charge of the camp. But at once all the sheriffs in the State
got busy. There’s a good, big reward offered for the discovery of the
evidence the authorities need to convict the gang.
“After Biggin talked with me, he got scared. He wrote me he’d send the
dummy to lead me to the place where the plates, and so forth, were
cached. But he never came to me—the dummy didn’t, I mean.
“Now, what you tell me, Parker, about the Speedwells meeting and being
friendly with Biggin’s nephew, has made me suspicious——”
“I’m sorry if it made you suspicious of Dan and Billy,” said the county
clerk. “No need.”
“That may be. But they go out to that island—and I believe the dummy is
on the island part of the time. It may be, from what you tell me about
the paper the Speedwells say he dropped, that the engraving plates and
the other stuff is hidden on that Island Number One.”
“You haven’t any reason to suspect Dan and Billy, just the same,”
declared Mildred, promptly.
Both the sheriff and Mr. Parker laughed. “Now, don’t you put me in your
bad books, Miss Milly,” begged Sheriff Kimball. “I don’t mean to cause
the boys any trouble. I am hoping to-night to catch Harry Biggin and
make him talk plainly. That’s the object of this trip—although it is a
pleasure to take you young ladies for a drive,” and he laughed again.
He spoke to the horses then, and the blacks switched their tails and
“let out a notch” in their speed. They seemed as eagerly desirous of
covering the distance to the Biggin farm in a short time as their
master.
The girls cowered down behind the high back of the front seat, and so
had the wind broken for them. But it was awfully cold. Now and then a
flake of snow slanted down upon them, and the girls’ shoulders were
nicely powdered before the sheriff turned the horses’ heads toward the
far side of the river, and they found an easily sloping bit of bank up
which they could drive.
This was beyond the last of the string of islands, and the lights of
Meadville—on the other bank—were in sight. Just ahead, as the horses
struggled into a well traveled highway, where the runners gritted on the
half-bare ground, was a lamp in a window.
“Biggin’s place,” said the sheriff. “And the folks are up yet.”
The snow was gathering by this time, for it had taken them more than two
hours to drive from Riverdale, spry as the horses had been. And, without
doubt, the blacks were glad of the breathing spell promised them when
the sheriff drove directly under the wind-shelter beside the farmhouse.
This shed offered a warm spot even to the guests the sheriff had
brought.
“Don’t want to take you to the house till I find out how the land lies,”
he whispered, handing the reins to Mr. Parker, and slipping out from
under the robe.
“O-o-o! doesn’t it make you feel de-lic-ious-ly shivery?” whispered
Lettie to the doctor’s daughter. “Just like being on a regular man-hunt
with the sheriff? We’re his posse.”
“Goosey!” returned Mildred. “I’m on the point of shivering, all right.
But only from cold.”
“Are you well wrapped up, girls?” asked the county clerk.
“Oh, yes, sir,” answered Mildred. “And the bricks are still warm at our
feet. But I’m afraid it’s going to snow dreadfully hard.”
“What’s a little snow?” demanded the careless Lettie. “Who’s afraid?”
“I wouldn’t want to be caught out on the river in a heavy storm—would
you, sir?” asked Mildred of Mr. Parker.
“It’s a straight road home,” said the gentleman, quite as careless as
his daughter. “The river ought to be better than the road, as far as
_that_ goes.”
“But just suppose we got turned around in this snow?” Mildred objected,
turning her head to watch the flakes falling thicker every moment.
“_Did_ you ever see it snow so hard, Lettie?”
“Lots of times—sure. Don’t be a ’fraid cat, Milly.”
The doctor’s daughter kept her fears to herself thereafter. Mr. Parker
produced a vacuum bottle filled with hot milk. He had been thoughtful
enough to supply himself with that before leaving the house for this
long ride. The hot drink helped the girls immensely.
“Now I can stand anything,” declared Lettie, happily. “When are we going
to be called into action by the sheriff, Pa?”
“He _does_ seem a long time; doesn’t he?” returned her father, as the
horses stamped, and shook their heads, and tinkled the bells on the
harness.
Finally they heard a door shut, and in a moment Sheriff Kimball
appeared. He looked pretty serious in the light of the sleigh lamps.
“What do you know about that?” he said, crossly. “They swear Harry
hasn’t been here, and invited me to search the house for him. And I did
it, too. I’ve got it in for that boy, when I _do_ catch him. He’s only
scared; but he knows more hide-outs in the wild country between here and
Barnegat than anybody else. He’s run wild in the woods most of his life.
“He left a message for me, though. Tells me to go to Island Number One
and see the dummy. Now, I’ve been there—twice. I couldn’t find hide nor
hair of that boy either time.”
“We might stop going back?” suggested Mr. Parker.
“I mean to. But, I declare! it’s come on to snow hard.”
“Oh, a little snow won’t hurt us. We’re neither sugar nor salt,” cried
Lettie. “And chasing outlaws is awfully interesting,” and she giggled
again, seeing her chum’s serious face.
“I guess we won’t wait long at that island to-night,” observed Sheriff
Kimball, when he had backed the sleigh out of the shed and got the
impatient horses headed around again.
“Will you go back by the river, or the road?” asked Mr. Parker.
“Oh, the river. This road is half bare yet, you see,” as the runners
scraped over a “sand-bar.” “We’ll slip along on the ice twice as fast,
you know. Come up, Dandy! Steady, Poke!”
The blacks got into step and they spun away along the short stretch of
road and then down upon the river. At first they did not realize how
hard the wind was blowing, being sheltered to a degree by the high bank.
But when Mr. Kimball headed out into the middle of the stream, intending
to cross to the Riverdale side of the river, the travelers quickly
discovered that they were in the heart of a severe storm.
“Some blow—eh?” shouted Mr. Parker, into the sheriff’s ear.
“This is a bad storm, Parker. I—had—no—idea——”
He was having trouble with his spirited team. The gusts of wind which
drove the snow down upon them, fired the blacks with a desire to run.
They ran in the right direction for a while; but soon they were winded,
for the sleigh pulled heavily through the gathering drifts.
There were flaws in the gale. Suddenly the wind shifted from point to
point of the compass. The two men could not see a light upon either bank
of the river. Indeed, before long it was difficult to know whether the
horses were dragging them down the stream, or up.
The snow fell faster and faster. The girls, locked in each other’s arms
on the rear seat, were covered with a fresh blanket. They did not know
that the men in front robbed themselves to do this.
The cold was penetrating—horribly so! Now and then a swirling, whirling
eddy of wind and snow fell upon the sleigh, the horses, and all, and
well nigh turned them around. The men were choked by the storm; the
horses snorted and plunged, and were able to move on but slowly.
“Dickens of a mess we’ve got into, Kimball!” shouted Parker in the
sheriff’s ear.
“I’m sorry I ever suggested taking these children with us. It’s awful,
Parker,” said the worried sheriff.
At that instant there came a sudden lull in the storm. The wind fell,
and the soft “sh-sh-sh” of the snow seemed rather soothing. But there
was a sharper sound discernible, now that the tempest was lulled.
“Put! put! put-a-put!”
“What d’ye know about that?” cried the county clerk, seizing the
sheriff’s arm. “It’s a motor—what?”
“It is. It’s that motor-iceboat. I heard it to-day when the Speedwells
were trying it out.”
“Then it’s Dan and Billy,” declared Mr. Parker. “Well, now! what do you
think of that? Out on the river in such a storm. Shall we shout to
them?”
“My goodness, do!” cried Lettie, poking her head over the back of the
seat. “If Billy Speedwell is out there, he’ll know the way home—sure.
Let’s _all_ shout, Pa!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 do _you_
think? 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 to _him_ for 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 were _he_ who 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 very _best_ one!—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 the _Follow Me_ if 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 something _big_ depends upon that box.”
“Money in it!” exclaimed Billy, his eyes sparkling.
“Never mind _what_. 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 the _Follow Me_ where 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 our _Fly-up-the-Creek_ is 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 the _Follow 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 the
_Follow 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
the _Follow 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 the _Follow Me_;
but they _did_ hear 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. This _is_ luck——”
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 the _Follow Me_ away 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 that _this_ ill 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 a _nice_ mess!”
“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 our _Follow Me_ lie 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?”
It _was_ the 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 as
_he_ has had.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXIV
“IT’S A RINGER!”
It was proved that the nephew of the wild Harry Biggin _had_ a 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 the _Fly-up-the-Creek_ over there at Island
Number One. We know where _she_ is,” 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 the _Streak 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, and _then_ she 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 the _Follow Me_ out 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 the
_Fly-up-the-Creek_ on 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 than _this_, Dannie?” panted Lettie Parker. “Why! I can’t
believe it.”
“To-morrow will tell the story,” returned Dan, grimly.
“The boys say that _Streak o’ Light_ Barry 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 our _Follow 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 the _Streak o’ Light_ with 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 have _you_ got
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 the _Streak 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 made _some_ use 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
his _White Albatross_ in 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 the _Follow Me_ is 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.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXV
BEATING THE “STREAK O’ LIGHT”
The race Dan referred to was the actual trial of the big craft, and
those rigged with motors. The course was to Karnac Lake and return. If
the wind held light and fair it was anybody’s race; if it fell calm,
undoubtedly the motor iceboats would have an advantage. If the wind
increased to a gale there was no knowing who would be the successful
one.
Since the big snow nobody knew the course well. The river’s surface was
like a rolling plain—a prairie. There was known to be no open water; but
otherwise the course was uncertain.
There were five starters. Monroe Stevens would not race his _Redbird_,
nor did the _Curlew_ start. The Speedwells’, Barry Spink’s, Mr.
Darringford’s _Betty B._, an entry from Meadville, and one from
Barrington, made up the “card.”
It was a long course, and it called for very good handling to go
straight up the river, turn, and make the downward course in any sort of
time. The five boats drifted out of the cove under sail and got in some
sort of a line so that the referee could start them.
At once Spink’s mechanic started his engine; but the motors on the
_Betty B._ and on the Speedwell craft remained silent. The signal was
given and they all got off in some sort of time.
The Speedwells paid strict attention to their own work, and did not
watch their rivals. If one is going to race, the way to do so is to
attend strictly to one’s own business.
Dan and Billy knew that there was one bad obstacle—the Long Bridge.
Although the masts all cleared the under-timbers of the high structure,
the canvas was almost sure to lose the wind while going under.
Spink had gone at it just as he went at everything—with marvelous
confidence. With motor sputtering and his big sail, bellied full, he
shot ahead of the other four boats in the race and was quickly at the
Long Bridge.
Here he had to drop the sail, for it interfered with the _Streak o’
Light_ getting through. His motor coughed and the iceboat went ahead
jerkily enough.
Dan and Billy had taken a rather long shoot to windward; now the _Follow
Me_ came up to the bridge on the other tack, and Dan started the motor
just before his sail began to shake.
The momentum they had gathered carried the boat under the structure. At
once the sail filled on the upper side, and the _Follow Me_ proved her
name to be good. She led the five iceboats, and the crowd of spectators
that crowded the bridge cheered the Speedwell boys as their craft darted
up the river.
It was not until then that she began to really move.
The boys had sailed pretty fast in her before. But now the whole stretch
of the river lay before her. There was nothing in the way, and the wind
was fair. Under the pressure of both wind and claw-wheel under the main
beam, she hit only the high places, as Billy declared.
Dan tried to steer clear of the higher drifts; but sometimes she would
run up the long slope of a hummock and shoot right out into the air.
Those on shore could see the daylight between the runners of the _Follow
Me_ and the crust of ice.
At such times Dan was glad he had rigged his sprocket wheel so that he
could raise her. The motor raced, but the moment the runners connected
with the ice again, Dan drove the wheel down and the added impetus of
the whirling claws aided in the speed of the boat.
Billy hung to the end of the crossbeam and laughed back at the other
boats. He could afford to. Even Barry Spink’s wonderful craft was being
left behind. Before they passed the end of Island Number One, the
_Follow Me_ was a mile and more in the lead.
And the boys kept this lead for the entire distance to Karnac Lake. When
they turned the stake and started to beat back, the pace was more
moderate. But here was where Dan’s invention “made good.”
The wind was against them. To tack from side to side of the river as the
sailboats did was to lose precious time. They furled the sail, unstepped
the mast, and speeded up the engines of the _Follow Me_.
The machinery worked splendidly. Sometimes, when there was a catspaw of
good wind, one or another of the other contestants would get somewhere
near Dan and Billy; but the moment the wind shifted, or died down, the
motor iceboat scurried ahead.
They never saw Spink’s boat after passing her at Karnac Lake. Mr.
Darringford’s _Betty B._ clung to the _Follow Me_ for a long while; but
finally she fell back. The boys were far, far ahead when they came down
to the Long Bridge again.
In spite of the extreme cold, there was a goodly crowd to greet them.
The Academy boys and girls “rooted” loudly for the brothers and their
craft. The _Follow Me_ slid under the bridge and so down to the starting
point amid the plaudits of half of Riverdale and, as Billy said, “a good
sprinkling of the rest of the county.”
Mr. Darringford, when he came in, a poor second, wanted to make a
thorough examination of Dan’s invention, and the boys were glad to have
him do so. He at once advised Dan to cover his ingenious work with a
patent, and helped the boy do this at once.
“For people are bound to see and steal your idea,” said the gentleman,
convinced that young Speedwell was quite a genius in mechanics.
“Huh! they’ve done that already—but it didn’t help ’em much,” scoffed
Billy.
“You mean that Spink and his foreigner?” asked Mr. Darringford, with a
queer little smile.
“Yes. He stole those plans from Dan.”
Mr. Darringford looked at the older Speedwell and smiled again. “I guess
you saw what he did?” he said. “_I_ can see that he tried to steal your
idea; but he seems to have got it hind-end foremost—eh?”
“That’s what I noticed,” laughed Dan. “So I wasn’t much afraid of his
beating us out.”
The story of what Barry Spink had done, and how he had overreached
himself, leaked out, and the boys and girls of Riverdale fairly laughed
the fellow out of town. Barry never entered the Riverdale Academy; but
Bert Biggin did.
And Bert proved himself to be a pretty smart fellow, despite the
nickname of “Dummy” that had clung to him for so many years.
That winter on the Colasha may never be repeated; but while the ice
lasted, Dan and Billy, with their friends, managed to enjoy every hour
they could get upon the frozen surface of the stream.
And none of those who bore a part in the incident will forget how they
were lost in the great blizzard.
THE END
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE SADDLE BOYS SERIES
By CAPTAIN JAMES CARSON
12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, 50 cents, postpaid.
-------
All lads who love life in the open air and a good steed, will want to
peruse these books. Captain Carson knows his subject thoroughly, and his
stories are as pleasing as they are healthful and instructive.
[Illustration]
THE SADDLE BOYS OF THE ROCKIES
_or Lost on Thunder Mountain_
Telling how the lads started out to solve the mystery of a great noise
in the mountains—how they got lost—and of the things they discovered.
THE SADDLE BOYS IN THE GRAND CANYON
_or The Hermit of the Cave_
A weird and wonderful story of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, told in
a most absorbing manner. The Saddle Boys are to the front in a manner to
please all young readers.
THE SADDLE BOYS ON THE PLAINS
_or After a Treasure of Gold_
In this story the scene is shifted to the great plains of the southwest
and then to the Mexican border. There is a stirring struggle for gold,
told as only Captain Carson can tell it.
THE SADDLE BOYS AT CIRCLE RANCH
_or In at the Grand Round-up_
Here we have lively times at the ranch, and likewise the particulars of
a grand round-up of cattle and encounters with wild animals and also
cattle thieves. A story that breathes the very air of the plains.
THE SADDLE BOYS ON MEXICAN TRAILS
_or In the Hands of the Enemy_
The scene is shifted in this volume to Mexico. The boys go on an
important errand, and are caught between the lines of the Mexican
soldiers. They are captured and for a while things look black for them;
but all ends happily.
---------------------------------------------------------
CUPPLES & LEON CO., Publishers, NEW YORK
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE WEBSTER SERIES
By FRANK V. WEBSTER
---------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration]
Mr. WEBSTER’S style is very much like
that of the boys’ favorite author, the late
lamented Horatio Alger, Jr., but his tales
are thoroughly up-to-date.
Cloth. 12mo. Over 200 pages each. Illustrated.
Stamped in various colors.
Price per volume, 50 cents, postpaid.
Only A Farm Boy
_or The Hardy’s Rise in Life_
The Boy From The Ranch
_or Roy Bradner’s City Experiences_
The Young Treasure Hunter
_or Fred Stanley’s Trip to Alaska_
The Boy Pilot of the Lakes
_or Nat Morton’s Perils_
Tom The Telephone Boy
_or The Mystery of a Message_
Bob The Castaway
_or The Wreck of the Eagle_
The Newsboy Partners
_or Who Was Dick Box?_
Two Boy Gold Miners
_or Lost in the Mountains_
The Young Firemen of Lakeville
_or Herbert Dare’s Pluck_
The Boys of Bellwood School
_or Frank Jordan’s Triumph_
Jack the Runaway
_or On the Road with a Circus_
Bob Chester’s Grit
_or From Ranch to Riches_
Airship Andy
_or The Luck of a Brave Boy_
High School Rivals
_or Fred Markham’s Struggles_
Derry The Life Saver
_or The Heroes of the Coast_
Dick The Bank Boy
_or A Missing Fortune_
Ben Hardy’s Flying Machine
_or Making a Record for Himself_
Harry Watson’s High School Days
_or The Rivals of Rivertown_
Comrades of the Saddle
_or The Young Rough Riders of the Plains_
Tom Taylor at West Point
_or The Old Army Officer’s Secret_
The Boy Scouts of Lennox
_or Hiking Over Big Bear Mountain_
The Boys of the Wireless
_or a Stirring Rescue from the Deep_
Cowboy Dave
_or The Round-up at Rolling River_
Jack of the Pony Express
_or The Young Rider of the Mountain Trail_
The Boys of the Battleship
_or For the Honor of Uncle Sam_
---------------------------------------------------------
CUPPLES & LEON CO., Publishers, NEW YORK
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE KHAKI BOYS SERIES
BY CAPT. GORDON BATES
_12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in full color._
_Price per volume, 50 cents, postpaid._
_All who love the experiences and adventures
of our American boys, fighting for the
freedom of democracy in the world, will be
delighted with these vivid and true-to-life
stories of the camp and field in the great
war._
[Illustration]
THE KHAKI BOYS AT CAMP STERLING
_or Training for the Big Fight in France_
Two zealous young patriots volunteer and begin their military training.
On the train going to camp they meet two rookies with whom they become
chums. Together they get into a baffling camp mystery that develops into
an extraordinary spy-plot. They defeat the enemies of their country and
incidentally help one another to promotion both in friendship and
service.
THE KHAKI BOYS ON THE WAY
_or Doing Their Bit on Sea and Land_
Our soldier boys having completed their training at Camp Sterling are
transferred to a Southern cantonment from which they are finally sent
aboard a troop-ship for France. On the trip their ship is sunk by a
U-boat and their adventures are realistic descriptions of the tragedies
of the sea.
THE KHAKI BOYS AT THE FRONT
_or Shoulder to Shoulder in the Trenches_
The Khaki Boys reach France, and, after some intensive training in sound
of the battle front, are sent into the trenches. In the raids across
No-Man’s land, they have numerous tragic adventures that show what great
work is being performed by our soldiers. It shows what makes heroes.
_Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue._
---------------------------------------------------------
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers, New York
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS
SERIES
BY ROY ROCKWOOD
Author of “The Dave Dashaway Series,” “Great Marvel Series,” etc.
12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, 50 cents, postpaid.
--------------
All boys who love to be on the go will welcome the Speedwell boys. They
are clean cut and loyal lads.
[Illustration]
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS ON MOTOR CYCLES
_or The Mystery of a Great Conflagration_
The lads were poor, but they did a rich man a great service and he
presented them with their motor cycles. What a great fire led to is
exceedingly well told.
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS AND THEIR RACING AUTO
_or A Run for the Golden Cup_
A tale of automobiling and of intense rivalry on the road. There was an
endurance run and the boys entered the contest. On the run they rounded
up some men who were wanted by the law.
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS AND THEIR POWER LAUNCH
_or To the Rescue of the Castaways_
Here is an unusual story. There was a wreck, and the lads, in their
power launch, set out to the rescue. A vivid picture of a great storm
adds to the interest of the tale.
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS IN A SUBMARINE
_or The Lost Treasure of Rocky Cave_
An old sailor knows of a treasure lost under water because of a cliff
falling into the sea. The boys get a chance to go out in a submarine and
they make a hunt for the treasure.
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS AND THEIR ICE RACER
_or The Perils of a Great Blizzard_
The boys had an idea for a new sort of iceboat, to be run by combined
wind and motor power. How they built the craft, and what fine times they
had on board of it, is well related.
---------------------------------------------------------
CUPPLES & LEON CO., Publishers, NEW YORK
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE RUTH FIELDING SERIES
BY ALICE B. EMERSON
_12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, 50 cents, postpaid._
[Illustration]
Ruth Fielding was an orphan and
came to live with her miserly uncle. Her
adventures and travels make stories that
will hold the interest of every reader.
RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL
_or Jasper Parloe’s Secret_
RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL
_or Solving the Campus Mystery_
RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP
_or Lost in the Backwoods_
RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT
_or Nita, the Girl Castaway_
RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH
_or Schoolgirls Among the Cowboys_
RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND
_or The Old Hunter’s Treasure Box_
RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM
_or What Became of the Raby Orphans_
RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES
_or The Missing Pearl Necklace_
RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES
_or Helping the Dormitory Fund_
RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE
_or Great Days in the Land of Cotton_
RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE
_or The Missing Examination Papers_
RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE
_or College Girls in the Land of Gold_
RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS (_New_)
_or Doing Her Bit for Uncle Sam_
RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT (_New_)
_or The Hunt for a Lost Soldier_
_Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue._
---------------------------------------------------------
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers, New York
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE MOTOR BOYS SERIES
BY CLARENCE YOUNG
_12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, 75c, postpaid._
[Illustration]
The Motor Boys
_or Chums Through Thick and Thin_
The Motor Boys Overland
_or A Long Trip for Fun and Fortune_
The Motor Boys In Mexico
_or The Secret of The Buried City_
The Motor Boys Across the Plains
_or The Hermit of Lost Lake_
The Motor Boys Afloat
_or The Cruise of the Dartaway_
The Motor Boys on the Atlantic
_or The Mystery of the Lighthouse_
The Motor Boys In Strange Waters
_or Lost in a Floating Forest_
The Motor Boys on the Pacific
_or The Young Derelict Hunters_
The Motor Boys In the Clouds
_or A Trip for Fame and Fortune_
The Motor Boys Over the Rockies
_or A Mystery of the Air_
The Motor Boys Over the Ocean
_or A Marvelous Rescue in Mid-Air_
The Motor Boys on the Wing
_or Seeking the Airship Treasure_
The Motor Boys After a Fortune
_or The Hut on Snake Island_
The Motor Boys on the Border
_or Sixty Nuggets of Gold_
The Motor Boys Under the Sea
_or From Airship to Submarine_
The Motor Boys on Road and River
_or Racing to Save a Life_
THE MOTOR BOYS SECOND SERIES
BY CLARENCE YOUNG
Ned, Bob and Jerry at Boxwood Hall
_or The Motor Boys as Freshmen_
Ned, Bob and Jerry on a Ranch
_or The Motor Boys Among the Cowboys_
Ned, Bob and Jerry at College (_New_)
_or The Motor Boys and Their Rivals_
---------------------------------------------------------
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers, New York
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE BASEBALL JOE SERIES
BY LESTER CHADWICK
_12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, 75 cents, postpaid._
[Illustration]
BASEBALL JOE OF THE SILVER STARS
_or The Rivals of Riverside_
Joe is an everyday country boy who loves to play baseball and
particularly to pitch.
BASEBALL JOE ON THE SCHOOL NINE
_or Pitching for the Blue Banner_
Joe’s great ambition was to go to boarding school and play on the school
team.
BASEBALL JOE AT YALE
_or Pitching for the College Championship_
Joe goes to Yale University. In his second year he becomes a varsity
pitcher and pitches in several big games.
BASEBALL JOE IN THE CENTRAL LEAGUE
_or Making Good as a Professional Pitcher_
In this volume the scene of action is shifted from Yale college to a
baseball league of our central states.
BASEBALL JOE IN THE BIG LEAGUE
_or A Young Pitcher’s Hardest Struggles_
From the Central League Joe is drafted into the St. Louis Nationals. A
corking baseball story all fans will enjoy.
BASEBALL JOE ON THE GIANTS
_or Making Good as a Twirler in the Metropolis_
How Joe was traded to the Giants and became their mainstay in the box
makes an interesting baseball story.
BASEBALL JOE IN THE WORLD SERIES
_or Pitching for the Championship_
The rivalry was of course of the keenest, and what Joe did to win the
series is told in a manner to thrill the most jaded reader.
BASEBALL JOE AROUND THE WORLD (_New_)
_or Pitching on a Grand Tour_
The Giants and the All-Americans tour the world, playing in many foreign
countries.
_Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue._
---------------------------------------------------------
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers, New York
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE CURLYTOPS SERIES
BY HOWARD R. GARIS
Author of the famous “Bedtime Animal Stories”
_12mo. Cloth. Beautifully Illustrated. Jacket in full color._
_Price per volume, 50 cents, net_
Splendid stories for the little girls and boys, told by one who is a
past master in the art of entertaining young people.
[Illustration]
THE CURLYTOPS AT CHERRY FARM
_or Vacation Days in the Country_
A tale of happy vacation days on a farm. The Curlytops have many
exciting adventures.
THE CURLYTOPS ON STAR ISLAND
_or Camping out with Grandpa_
The Curlytops were delighted when grandpa took them to camp on Star
Island. There they had great fun and also helped to solve a real
mystery.
THE CURLYTOPS SNOWED IN
_or Grand Fun with Skates and Sleds_
Winter was a jolly time for the Curlytops, with their skates and sleds,
but when later they were snowed in they found many new ways to enjoy
themselves.
THE CURLYTOPS AT UNCLE FRANK’S RANCH
_or Little Folks on Pony Back_
Out West on their uncle’s ranch they have a wonderful time among the
cowboys and on pony back.
_Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue._
---------------------------------------------------------
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers, New York
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE PATSY CARROLL SERIES
BY GRACE GORDON
_12mo. Illustrated. Beautiful cloth binding, stamped in gold with_
_cover inlay and jacket in colors._
_Price Per Volume $1.25 Net._
_This fascinating series is permeated with the vibrant atmosphere of the
great outdoors. The vacations spent by Patsy Carroll and her chums, the
girl Wayfarers, in the north, east, south and west of the wonderland of
our country, comprise a succession of tales unsurpassed in plot and
action._
[Illustration]
PATSY CARROLL AT WILDERNESS LODGE
Patsy Carroll succeeds in coaxing her father to lease one of the
luxurious camps at Lake Placid, in the Adirondack Mountains, for the
summer. Once established at Wilderness Lodge, the Wayfarers, as they
have decided to call themselves, find they are the center of a mystery
which revolves about a missing will. How the girls solve the mystery
makes a splendid story.
PATSY CARROLL UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES (_New_)
Patsy Carroll and her three chums spend their Easter vacation in an old
mansion in Florida, where an exciting mystery develops, which is solved
by a very curious acrostic found by Patsy, and which leads to very
exciting and satisfactory results, making a capital story.
_Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue._
---------------------------------------------------------
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers, New York
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE JANE ALLEN COLLEGE
SERIES
BY EDITH BANCROFT
_12mo. Illustrated. Beautiful cloth binding, stamped in gold with
cover inlay and jacket in colors._
_Price Per Volume $1.25 Net._
_This series is a decided departure from the stories usually written of
life in the modern college for young women. They contain a deep and
fascinating theme, which has to do with the inner struggle for growth.
An authoritative account of the life of the college girl as it is lived
to-day._
[Illustration]
JANE ALLEN OF THE SUB TEAM
When Jane Allen left her beautiful Western home in Montana, sorely
against her will, to go East, there to become a freshman at Wellington
College, she was sure that she could never learn to endure the
restrictions of college life. But she did and the account of Jane’s
first year at Wellington is well worth reading.
JANE ALLEN: RIGHT GUARD (_New_)
Jane Allen becomes a sophomore at Wellington College, but she has to
face a severe trial that requires all her courage and character. The
meaning of true soul-nobility is brought out in the development of the
trying experience. The result is a triumph for being faithful to an
ideal.
_Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue._
---------------------------------------------------------
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers, New York
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s Notes:
Italicized phrases are presented by surrounding the text with
_underscores_. Boldface phrases are presented by surrounding the
text with equal signs. Small capitals have been rendered in full
capitals.
Minor spelling, punctuation and typographic errors were corrected
silently, except as noted below.
On page 36, changed "Bromely" to "Bromley" to be consistent with
other instances of that name in the book.
On page 44, removed sentence break hyphenation from "star-lit",
based on usage frequency of "star-lit" and "starlit" during
1900-1920 period.
On page 102, "to" was inserted into the sentence, "“What’s happened
him now?” asked Dan."
In the ad pages, the publishers line at the bottom of each page has
been normalized with respect to the comma after the word
"Publishers".
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Speedwell Boys and Their Ice Racer - Lost in the Great Blizzard" ***
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