"Not at all," came the quick reply.
"Why, whatever do you mean?" gasped the disappointed builder, reproachfully.
"There isn't any comparison," laughed Frank, "she's in a class by herself, Lanky! Given some breeze, and I reckon she'd just hit the high places of the ice. She's like a thistledown floating along. You've sure gone and done it with this dandy craft."
"Bully for you, old fellow! You make me feel good all over. Say, what's that?" and Lanky stretched his neck in the effort to see ahead.
"Looks like a sail behind that point. As sure as you live it's moving! There's another ice-boat coming out at a whooping pace!" exclaimed Frank, his voice filled with both satisfaction and wonder.
"Wow! now, what do you think of that for luck? Why, of course it's Lef Seller and his blessed tub the Harrapin Flier! He beat me every time last year, and he's just been laying for me in that cove, meaning to show me a clean pair of heels to-day. It's going to be a race, Frank! There he comes out, and he's got Bill Klemm along with him, as usual!"
"He's heading up the river, Lanky. That's a challenge for you. Are you going to stand for it?" demanded Frank, who, like the vast majority of boys, never liked to let a plain dare pass by without accepting it.
"Watch me haul up on him hand over fist! Before we're past Rattail Island this little darling is going to make the Harrapin Flier look like thirty cents. She's a has-been, and belongs to a slow age!" said the skipper, jauntily.
He shifted his weight and asked Frank to do the same. In so doing the result was immediately shown in an accelerated pace on the part of the ice-boat; either that, or else a slant of fresh wind caught her sail, coming from out behind that same cove where the rival craft had been hidden.
Up the river they flew like a pair of frightened gulls; only such salt water birds were never seen around the neighborhood of Columbia.