“Heigh, ho! I’ll give it up,” yawned Tommy and, with a sigh of unalloyed satisfaction, the plump youth rolled over luxuriously and buried his face in the pillow.
Dick was only seconds behind Tommy in his plunge into the depths of sleep; but long after his companions were sunk in blissful oblivion, Ned lay racking his brain in what proved to be a futile effort to find some reasonable solution of the puzzle. Weariness at last closed his eyes, but through his troubled dreams there persisted these tantalizing, half-formed questions, always on the point of being answered but ever eluding his grasp.
The sharp rattle of icy particles on the window awakened Dick Somers next morning. Springing out of bed, he roused his companions and they stared out at a world rapidly whitening under a driving storm of snow.
“This will never do!” cried Ned. “We’ve got to get a move on or we’ll be snowed in down here!”
After a quick breakfast of bacon, eggs, rolls and coffee, the boys hastened down to the lake. The snow was, as yet, only about two inches deep, but it was whipping out of the north with a power that warned of much more to come. Sails were quickly hoisted and the Frost King shot away, homeward bound.
Holding close enough to the shore so that its dim outline served as a guide, Ned kept his bearings; and although slowed somewhat by the fast gathering snow, the ice-boat made fair speed. Constant wind pressure had closed the shoreward end of the big crack and a cautious crossing was made without difficulty. Through a six-inch depth of snow, the Frost King plowed to a stop beside the dock at Truesdell, where the crews of other boats were busily engaged in removing the canvas from their craft.
“That’s what we’ve got to do right now,” declared Ned. “This storm feels like a genuine blizzard that will probably put an end to ice-boating for the rest of the winter.”
As rapidly as possible the sails were removed, the stiffened canvas folded up and stored in a safe place and the boat itself hauled as far up on shore as possible, pending the time when the boys would return her to her former place of storage.
“Well, we’ve had a bully time and a swell feed and have fifteen simoleons to divvy up among the crew of the Frost King,” chortled Tommy Beals as they trudged homeward. “I’ll say that’s good enough for anybody.”
“Yes, it’s O.K.,” agreed Ned, “but I’m going to keep my eye out for that fellow in the fur coat, and the next time I get a look at him, I’ll try to find out who he is or whom he reminds me of.”