Quickly Dawson drew a coin from his pocket, balancing it on his thumb and forefinger.
“I’ll toss. Springtown, you call!” he exclaimed.
High in the air he spun the coin, and as it whirled over and over, the leader of the Springtownians, shouted: “Tails!”
With a sharp click the bit of money struck the ice, and then as though driven by perverseness, it rolled some twenty feet, finally striking a depression, into which it fell.
The instant the coin had struck the ice and started on it’s runaway career, the boys who had been watching the tossing, set after it; but fleet as they were, it managed to elude them and had settled in the ice crevice before they had overtaken it.
“Which is it?” called the others, as two of the Rivertown boys reached the spot.
“Heads,” they replied.
“That means you lose, Springtown!” chorused the rest of the Rivertown scholars.
But the challengers from up the river refused to accept the fall of the coin as an omen.
“Which distance are you going to take?” demanded the leader of the visitors.