There was no doubt of it. The main rope had been partly severed, and the strain of the hard blow had done the rest.
"That fellow we saw near the ice-boat!" began Harry. "It must have been him! Who was he?"
"Danny Rugg—if anybody," answered Bert. "I thought it looked like him.
Probably he heard that we were going to use the boat to go to Snow
Lodge, and he wanted to make trouble for us. He's going to camp up there
near us, I hear."
"Gracious!" cried Dorothy. "I hope he doesn't play any tricks like that up there."
"If he does I guess Harry and I can attend to him," cried Bert. "But, in a way, it's a good thing the rope did break or we might have upset. Only Danny, if he did it, had no idea of doing us a good turn. He just wanted to make trouble."
"Can you fix it?" asked Nan of her brother.
"Oh, yes, it can be spliced and will be stronger than ever. But I won't do it now. We can walk the rest of the way to the dock. The wind is blowing harder than ever, and we don't want any accidents."
Indeed, the wind was blowing a gale now, and even with the sail down the ice-boat went along at such a speed that it was all Harry and Bert could do to hold it.
But finally it was gotten to the dock, and made fast, and while the girls went on to the Bobbsey home to finish with their packing, Bert and Harry mended the broken rope.
"I'll have to teach Danny Rugg a good lesson," said Bert to his cousin.