"All right, Fatty," said Jimmy. "If you play half as well as you talk we will have the real thing in a hockey team."
Frank's prediction came true about the freeze, and what it would do. Before the thermometer got through on its shivering downward course it touched ten below, some time during the night, and then travelled upward again; but by the middle of the next forenoon it was back to ten degrees above. It was still pretty nippy, but just the right brace was in the air for violent exercise. The boys could hardly wait for the middle of the afternoon to come around. Some of them had already been on the glittering surface of the river, and reported it like glass, and four inches thick.
Frank had selected a place about a hundred yards up the river for the site of his rink. It was a spot in a small cove, pretty well sheltered by trees and protected from the sharp winds which blew across the more exposed parts of the river. For the first day the Lollipops and a dozen others of the class, any one in fact who came along, contented themselves with tearing up and down the ice and shooting a puck between piles of coats which did duty for a cage. Wearying of this unorganized exercise after a while, Jimmy, Lewis and Frank picked up their coats and started up the river in the direction of Warwick, five miles away.
They swung along easily, enjoying the freshness and crispness of the air, and the really wonderful ice under foot. Half way up to the rival school they met several of the skaters from that school, among them big Channing of the football team, who nodded pleasantly to Jimmy and came to a halt.
"Are you going to have a hockey team down there this year?" Channing asked, nodding his head in the direction of Queen's. "If you are, we want to get a game or two."
"Yes, there will be a school team I guess, particularly if the ice holds out, but we are only Freshmen and will probably not get a chance at it," said Jimmy. "They had a team last year, didn't they?"
"Yes, but we beat it 15 to 4, and we want to get a chance to do it again. It might help Queen's to put a few lively young Freshmen on it. I'd advise you to try."
"We have, or are going to have a team of our own, and we will masquerade under the splendid name of the Lollipops. We'll give you a game when we learn how to stand on our skates," said Frank, laughingly.
"All right, Lollipops, that's a go, in case Dixon can't get a classy seven together."