“Then you’ll come with me?” demanded Paul, eagerly.
“Sure I will, and mighty glad of the chance,” Harry replied, as he started to look for his cap, and his warm sweater to go under his coat; for he knew that a long ride on an iceboat, going a mile a minute more than likely, meant chilled bodies, unless care was taken to supply warm clothing.
Once he had decided on his course, Harry seemed somewhat like his old self. Mrs. Watson, as they passed through the outer room, smiled, and nodded to Paul.
“I’m glad to see you managed to coax him to go, Paul,” she remarked; and both lads waved her good-bye as they left the door, walking briskly down the street of Rivertown.
Paul’s father had a boat-house on the bank of the river just outside the town limits, where in Summer the boys often gathered in order to enjoy the sports of the season. There was a new shed attached to this, in which Paul kept the iceboat he had had built recently, but which had as yet hardly been tried out.
In a short time the two lads were busily engaged getting the frail craft out of its quarters, and down on the ice. The mast had to be stepped every time Paul wished to make use of the flier; since the shed was too low to admit of its being stored as it stood. But this proved a job of small moment.
“I guess you know a heap about these kind of boats, Harry?” remarked the owner of the Lightning, as he watched the deft manner in which his new chum handled the various ropes connected with the up-to-date craft built for ice use.
At that Harry laughed, the first little burst of merriment that had escaped his lips for days; and which made his friend feel that he had done well to coax the grieving lad outdoors, where he could get the invigorating influence of the ozone to be found in the crisp wintry air.
“Oh! yes, I suppose I might say I have, without seeming to boast,” he answered, as he bent down to make sure that everything was adjusted, and the wire stay that held the mast in place as taut as the turnbuckle could make it. “We used to have a boat down at Lawrenceburgh, and somehow they got to making me the skipper; last winter we won every race we entered for. But Paul, that boat wasn’t in the same class as this new one you’ve got, I tell you that.”
“Then you think the Lightning is apt to go some?” inquired the owner, eagerly.