LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

      "Why not? There's the moon to give us light when the sun fails. H the breeze doesn't die out completely we can get back by hook or crook. I say stay," declared the owner of the ice-boat, vehemently; for Lanky dearly loved a stubborn contest, and the idea of wresting the title of hockey champions from the boys of Clifford High School appealed strongly to his nature.

      "All right. Will you come up to our rooms then? I'll get the committee together here on the ice, and we can go in a bunch. A few formalities have to be gone through with, you know," said Hastings.

      ​"You go, Frank; I'll stay with the boat," suggested Lanky.

      Although Hastings volunteered to get some fellow to guard the craft against any vandalism on the part of inquisitive youngsters of the town. Lanky was too fond of his recent triumph in the line of ice craft to desert it.

      "I'll be chatting with some of the fellows. Go along, Frank, and settle matters. I'm not needed, anyhow. So-long, Hastings, and ditto Gentle, Coots and McQuirk," saying which Lanky dismissed them with a wave of the hand, and proceeded to bandy words with the remainder of the bunch.

      Of course the boys of Clifford knew the tall Columbia student. They had seen him in action many a time, playing on the rival baseball team, holding down his place in the eight-oared shell that carried Frank's crowd to victory, and filling a difficult position on the victorious football eleven.

      So they were glad to chat with him, and jolly him on the nerve his crowd had in sending a challenge to the undisputed champions of hockey along the Harrapin River.

      Half an hour went by, and still no Frank.

      "It's moonlight for us, I plainly see," remarked Lanky, as he cast a look up at the sky, where a pretty fair-sized queen of the night rode in all her splendor.

      ​Most of the skaters had left the ice, in bunches of twos and threes. With the coming of night, a warm supper lured them home. Doubtless many would return again, for these Clifford young folks were almost as devoted to the sports of winter as the people of Holland, and pursued them with astonishing zeal.

      Finally a hurrying figure came down the bank from the town where a myriad of lights now shone merrily.

      "Hello! Lanky, still on deck, and not frozen? Sorry to keep you waiting so long, but they had a lot of formalities to go through with. And then the acceptance had to be written out, and a copy kept. Everything O. K. here?" asked Frank, as he joined his chum.

      "Couldn't be better. Then you've got it along, Frank?" asked Lanky, who had immediately set to work hoisting the sail of the ice-boat, preparatory to starting on the return run down-river.

      "Safe in my pocket; so that job's done," laughed the other.

      "The worst is yet to come, mister!" remarked an urchin standing by, eager to see how the strange craft was manipulated.

      "Well, now, you never spoke truer words, my boy, and we ought to know it. But nothing venture, nothing have; and we're bound to give Clifford a run ​for their money, wind and weather permitting. Ready here, Lanky!"

      "All right. Good-night, fellows. When you see us again it will be with blood in our eyes. Be kind' to yourselves, and don't do too much shouting until after you've sent us home, like dogs with their tails between their legs," and Lanky gave a quick turn to the framework on steel runners that threw the sail into the breeze.

      So they started on the return trip to Columbia, with the precious acceptance of their challenge safe and sound in Frank's inner pocket.

      "Mighty little air stirring," remarked Frank, even while they began to slowly glide along over the smooth surface of the river, heading south.

      "Yes. I'm some dubious myself whether we can make it; or if we'll have to kick our way over the last half. Still, it takes only a faint puff of air to keep an ice-boat moving, you know," remarked Lanky.

      "Of course, because there's no resistance, as in the case of a boat in the water. This is good enough, if it only keeps up; we'll be home in short order," and as he spoke Frank gazed admiringly at the moonlit shores of the romantic stream, for the Harrapin was bordered in many places with the primeval woods, though in others farms ran down to the edge of the water.

      ​After leaving Clifford they saw not a single skater. It seemed as though they owned the whole river, up and down. The musical murmur of the steel runners on the ice was the only sound to be heard.

      "Say, a fellow could easily imagine that he was away off in some wilderness, if it wasn't for the lights along the shore in places," suggested the skipper of the little Humming Bird, as they moved majestically along.

      "Or the rumble of that freight train pulling uphill over yonder," said Frank.

      "Oh! that could be called the roar of distant surf on the beach. It sounds like it, all right," remarked his chum.

      "That's a fact, it does. Makes me think of the last time I was spending a summer on the beach. Careful now, Lanky; there's Rattail Island ahead of us. Which channel are you going to take now?"

      "Same as before. You wouldn't find a ripple of a zephyr on the east side, and we'd have to paddle past with our feet," answered the skipper, heading his gliding craft toward the point in question.

      "I can see a light on the shore of the island. Yes, it's a fire, all right. That must be Bill cooking his iish supper," remarked Frank, as they swung around the point of the island, and began to move between it and the main shore.

      ​"Bill—Bill what? Hang the luck if I ever had a thing worry me like that seems to do," grumbled Lanky.

      "Hello! at it again, are you? I believe that nonsense is going to keep you from enjoying a decent sleep to-night. Better try and curb that weakness, old chap. It will get you into no end of trouble, mentally," warned his comrade; at the same time secretly chuckling, for he knew Lanky could not change his nature any more than the leopard might his spots.

      "Yes, there he is, cooking over the blazing fire. Bill may have been a tramp, but it strikes me I could give him a few pointers how best to make a fire when there's any cooking to be done. Give me the red embers, and the steady fierce heat. Are you going to hail him, Frank?"

      "He's shading his hand to look out this way, already. I reckon he hears the click of our steel on the ice, for you know how sound carries when the river is frozen," and then raising his voice, Frank called: "Hello! there, Bill; getting grub ready?"

      The tramp laughed as he answered back:

      "She's done to a turn, boys. Hey, Lanky, if you want me to give evidence, you'll find me right here for some days!"

      "All right, Bill. Say, those fellows didn't tackle you for what you said, did they?" asked the ice-boat ​skipper, as they passed the tramp's camp and shack.

      "Well, I guess not! They'd have had a sweet time of it if they tried to climb me, I tell you, Lanky," came the answer floating after them.

      Then a wooded spur of land shut out the fire from view.

      "Say, did you notice how glib he called my name? Just like Lanky was natural to him all his life. But Bill—that's such a common name, how can I ever pound my head enough to tell where I saw him before. Bill—Billy—I don't seem to make connections at all. It's a case of being stumped, sure," muttered the disconsolate one, as he continued to pay attention to the movements of the gliding boat.

      The night breeze was not only faint but fickle. Sometimes it came directly out of the west, and then suddenly the sail would flap as though it had veered into the southwest, necessitating a change of course, diagonally across the river, in order to make progress.

      "Slow work," grunted Lanky, presently.

      "Yes, but sure. We're not much more than a mile out of town now. If the wind died altogether we could push her along easily to your boathouse," observed his companion, always optimistic in his outlook.

      "Yes, but I'd give

Скачать книгу