“Here’s a fine collection! The cow-puncher has found some company to suit his taste.”
This produced a laugh, which appeared greatly to irritate Lander, who shouted:
“Go on, you bunch of dubs! Nobody wants anything to do with you, anyhow.”
Spotty Davis broke into a series of derisive cat-calls and taunting jeers, to which the torch bearers gave no heed. Some of the party turned back at that point, but two or three continued on round the northern end of Bass Island.
“They make me sick!” snarled Lander. “I’m going to get at that feller Barker some day, and when I do he’ll know something has happened to him.”
In spite of himself, Grant could not wholly smother a feeling of regret over having been seen with those two chaps. Barker’s sneer had left a sting, a fact which he would not have acknowledged had any one intimated as much. Wishing to get away by himself, he improved an early opportunity to skate off, leaving Bunk and Spotty still telling each other what they thought of certain fellows in Oakdale; and he paid little heed to his course until, of a sudden, he discovered the shore of Bass Island not far away at his right.
“Jingoes!” he muttered, attempting to check his progress suddenly. “This must be the dangerous place they told me about. Those ‘breathing holes’ in the ice——”
In spite of his efforts, his momentum had carried him onward, and suddenly both skate-irons cut through beneath him. There was a terrifying, cracking sound, and in a twinkling he felt himself plunged into the icy water. A cry was cut short on his lips as he went under.
Although he rose almost immediately to the surface and clutched at the thin edge of the ice, he could feel the current which swept round the island pulling at his legs. The ice gave way, and he clutched again and again, struggling to keep himself from being sucked beneath it.
“Help!” he cried.