"Then how do you know the coming owner's intentions, if you don't know who is going to win the race?" Miss Bentley insisted.
"Well, you see, it's this way?" Dick admitted, "I've made up my mind to win that race."
"So you regard the race as being as good as won by yourself?" smiled the physician's daughter.
"It's one of the rules of Dick & Co.," Prescott answered, as they turned and skated slowly back toward the center of the cove, "when we go into anything we consider it as good as won from the outset."
"Well, I like that spirit," Laura admitted. "Faint heart never yet won anything but a spill."
Laura had her card out by this time, and was studying it leisurely, trusting to her companion to guide her.
"I see Fred Ripley is entered for the grand event in fancy skating," she observed.
"Yes; are you interested in him?"
Something in the directness of the question caused the girl to bite her lips.
"Now, that's hardly fair, Dick," she cried, flushing with vexation.
"No; the fact is, I'm hoping he'll lose."