“Oh! would he dare do that, when we’re spinning along at this mad clip?” demanded the owner of the new boat.
“You know him better than I do, Paul,” replied Harry. “I don’t like the look on his face. He keeps turning his head, then grinning in a nasty way; after which he looks ahead, just as if he was sizing up some desperate chance. I think he means to foul us up if he can; and anyhow it’s going to be a hard thing to pass him up here, where nobody can see any dirty play.”
Paul seemed to consider. No doubt discretion urged him to call the race off; but on the other hand he disliked very much to quit just when he had his rival where he had wanted to see him so long.
A fisherman never calls a trout his own until he has the prize in his hands; even though he may humanely throw the speckled beauty back into the water again. And in a race it does not really count, unless you actually pass your adversary.
So Paul, with boyish recklessness, determined to take the chances for trouble, and pass the Glider, come what might. He knew Elmer to be somewhat reckless; but found it hard to believe that the other would risk having his own bones broken, just to smash the successful boat of his rival.
But Paul counted wrongly. Elmer, when he became enraged, was not the same cool, calculating schemer that he had the name of being under normal conditions. And, urged on by the sarcastic sneers of the ugly Pud, as well as his own keen disappointment at seeing his pet iceboat fairly beaten, he might even take chances which at another time would have appalled him.
“That’s too bad!” Paul heard Harry exclaim.
“Oh, what’s happened?” Paul cried, in sudden alarm. “Are we going to lose out, after all that magnificent gain? But Harry, see, we’re still creeping up! Only twenty feet more, and we’ll be on even terms! What do you mean?”
“Look far ahead!” answered Harry.
“I see that the river narrows again,” the other boy replied instantly. “Is that what you mean?”