“That pleases me a whole lot, Harry,” laughed the owner of the craft. “And say, I’ve been watching the way you handle that tiller. Elmer Craven boasts of being the best iceboat sailor on the river; but I’m ready to put you up against him any old day. Why, you manage things so that she seems to be next door to human. No matter what sort of wind strikes us, you’ve got a way of setting her with it, that just suits every time. If this boat’s a wonder, Harry, you’re the fellow that can get every ounce of speed out of her.”
“Here, that will do for you, Paul,” answered Harry; though naturally the words of genuine praise made him feel happy, as he had been up against so many hard knocks lately, at the hands of those who bore him so much ill will. “I’d just like to try her against some other boat of the same class. That’s the only way to get a pointer on her speed and cleverness, you know.”
“Perhaps we may, and this very morning,” remarked Paul, mysteriously, but with a grin accompanying the words.
“What makes you say that?” demanded his companion, who had to keep his eyes on the alert pretty much all the time, since a flaw of wind might swoop down on them at any second, and if he failed to be quick with the rudder, in order to ease up on the sudden strain, an upset was likely to follow.
“Didn’t you hear what Misery Jones shouted after us?” Paul went on, answering one question, Yankee fashion, by asking another.
“Was it Misery who called out for you to listen; and then said something about you ‘getting yours’ if you kept on up the river?” Harry continued.
“Sure, that was Misery. He’s never so happy as when acting as a prophet, and predicting all sorts of trouble ahead for other people. That’s why the boys call him Misery; he sees all kinds of accidents looming up, even if they hardly ever come along. But Harry, I don’t think the fellow had any accident in store for us that time, when he said I would get mine up here to-day.”
“Then what did he have in mind?” asked Harry, his curiosity aroused.
“I’ve been thinking it over,” Paul went on, “and decided that Misery must know Elmer is out this morning with his Glider; and somewhere up-river way. What he meant was that if we happened to run across his hawser, I would find my new iceboat as badly left in the lurch as my old one was last year.”
“Perhaps,” laughed the one who handled the tiller so dexterously; “all things are possible, you know, Paul; but I wouldn’t worry over that, if I were you. Just let Elmer show up, and we’ll see what the Lightning was built for.”