The air was keen, although there was no wind; and the hoarfrost hung from the bushes and dried grass-blades, while there was a rime of it the length of the balustrade to the beach. Nan ran down this flight to see if the ice would bear yet. Skating was in the offing, and she and Bess loved to skate.
Professor Krenner had reported the day before that the strait between the lake shore where his cabin stood, and the Isle of Hope, half a mile out in the lake, was skimmed over with ice. Here, at the foot of the flight of stairs and along by the haunted boathouse, the edge of the water was fringed with a crust of thin ice.
“Not much more fun for me at dear old Lakeview Hall,” Nan was thinking as she skipped lightly along the edge of this uncertain ice. “But I’ll get my skates sharpened, as Bess begged me. That will not be a great extravagance. We’ll have some good fun before the term closes and we go home for the holidays. Oh, dear!”
The sigh was not because of the home-going. It was for the reason that Nan felt very sure that she would never see the Hall again.
Just as she was thinking this and watching idly the broken water far out in the strait toward the Isle of Hope, she put her foot upon a strip of ice and, to her amazement, it broke through and she plunged knee deep in the icy water.
“Oh! Oh! OH!” she gasped, in graduated surprise.
For as she strove to pull out the first foot, her other one went—slump—right through the ice, too. And it was cold!
Nan was not frightened at first. She was an athletic girl, and very strong and agile. But she was amazed to find that both feet were fast in the half-frozen slime at the bottom of this hole into which she had stepped. She strove to pull her feet free, and actually could not do it!
Then, as she lifted her head to look about for help, she saw a figure in black running hard toward her. It came from the rear of the big boathouse. It was a slight figure, and Nan immediately thought of “the black dog” that had chased Mrs. Cupp the night of the boathouse party.
“I’ll get you! I’ll get you!” exclaimed the boy, for such in reality he was, and he threw forward a tough branch for Nan to cling to.