CHAPTER VII
ON LAKE WHITNEY.
The change in the weather had brought a change in the character of “Merriwell’s Entertainments.” Down by the famous fence on many a recent evening the “senior committee of three,” fresh from the gymnasium or athletic field, had discussed and laid plans for the merrymaking. The “committee of three” consisted of Merriwell, Browning, and Hodge, into whose hands everything had been committed. Their first plans had contemplated field-contests, burlesque football-games, and similar sports, but the freezing weather suggested something new and different, and they promptly accepted the hint of the weather-clerk, and made the change.
When, on Wednesday morning, it was reported that Lake Whitney would bear skaters, the “committee of three” decided instantly that races on ice-skates would be the proper thing for the half-holiday entertainment of the students that afternoon.
Except in spots, the ice was found sufficiently thick and firm, and the new attraction drew an immense crowd to the shore of the lake that afternoon. Huge bonfires were built, for the air was sharp and the ground still covered with snow, and a prettier picture can scarcely be imagined than that of the rosy-faced girls and young women clad in winter garments gathered round these bonfires, while they watched the skaters cutting figures and writing the names of themselves and their sweethearts in the glassy ice with their skates.
Inza and Rosalind were there, Inza having come out with Merriwell, and Rosalind with Dade Morgan.
There was no prettier skater on the lake that afternoon than Dade Morgan. His movements were as graceful as those of a bird, and Rosalind watched him with pleasure, now and then casting a sly glance at big Dick Starbright, as if for the purpose of reading his face. She wondered in the depths of her heart if Dick were very jealous of Dade, and told herself that surely he must be.
As Jack Ready had boasted that he could beat Morgan in a mile race, and Dade had accepted the challenge, that was the first thing on the program.
“Oh, you can beat him!” Rosalind urged in the ear of her escort.
“Of course I can beat him!”
Dade made good his boast. Jack Ready had chirped of himself as a “winged wonder,” but Morgan beat him in at the finish more than twenty yards.