"Couldn't be better. Then you've got it along, Frank?" asked Lanky, who had immediately set to work hoisting the sail of the ice-boat, preparatory to starting on the return run down-river.
"Safe in my pocket; so that job's done," laughed the other.
"The worst is yet to come, mister!" remarked an urchin standing by, eager to see how the strange craft was manipulated.
"Well, now, you never spoke truer words, my boy, and we ought to know it. But nothing venture, nothing have; and we're bound to give Clifford a run for their money, wind and weather permitting. Ready here, Lanky!"
"All right. Good-night, fellows. When you see us again it will be with blood in our eyes. Be kind to yourselves, and don't do too much shouting until after you've sent us home, like dogs with their tails between their legs," and Lanky gave a quick turn to the framework on steel runners that threw the sail into the breeze.
So they started on the return trip to Columbia, with the precious acceptance of their challenge safe and sound in Frank's inner pocket.
"Mighty little air stirring," remarked Frank, even while they began to slowly glide along over the smooth surface of the river, heading south.
"Yes. I'm some dubious myself whether we can make it; or if we'll have to kick our way over the last half. Still, it takes only a faint puff of air to keep an ice-boat moving, you know," remarked Lanky.
"Of course, because there's no resistance, as in the case of a boat in the water. This is good enough, if it only keeps up; we'll be home in short order," and as he spoke Frank gazed admiringly at the moonlit shores of the romantic stream, for the Harrapin was bordered in many places with the primeval woods, though in others farms ran down to the edge of the water.
After leaving Clifford they saw not a single skater. It seemed as though they owned the whole river, up and down. The musical murmur of the steel runners on the ice was the only sound to be heard.