“Get busy!” roared Dick, who had been holding himself in readiness for just such an emergency from the moment he had heard the reckless skater announce his intention of skimming across the pond from shore to shore.
Dick had his little plan of campaign all mapped out in his mind. He had a happy faculty for this sort of thing. In a flash he could grasp details that would have taken some other fellows a minute or two to figure out.
“Fetch the boards along in a hurry!” he shouted over his shoulder, for by that time he was fully under way.
Straight to the nearest point of the shore line he rushed and dropped his plank. It extended out on the ice in a bee-line for the spot where poor Fred was splashing and scrambling like mad, trying in his excitement to climb up on the ice, only to have it break away, and precipitate him again into the cold water.
Dick took the second board from Leslie, who was the first of the others to arrive.
“Go back and get another!” he told his chum sharply, taking it upon himself to act as the leader. His chums were so accustomed to seeing Dick in the van that no one ever dreamed of questioning his right to act in that capacity. “We’ll need a heap of ’em, I’m afraid,” he added.
So Leslie obediently whirled on his heel and hurried back to the pile. Dick took the plank Elmer offered him, and stepping out to the end of the second one dropped it also in a direct line.
Then came Peg, almost forgetting his usual limp in his anxiety to be of service to the imperiled comrade battling for his life out there in the middle of the deep pond. A fourth board was thrown over the smooth ice so that Dick could reach it without stepping off his safe harbor; for as his weight was now distributed over ten or twelve feet of surface, instead of being concentrated in one spot, there was no danger of his breaking through.
The boys worked like beavers, Dick handling the planks as they came along in a master-workman manner. Gradually but surely the line was being extended out toward the scene of all the commotion, where Fred continued to struggle.
While he worked so heroically, Dick did not forget to keep calling out encouragement to the imperiled boy.