“You promised me, Dick! Don’t forget!”
“I’m going, ain’t I, Dick? Just for a minute, eh?”
“Don’t bother him! He can’t take every one, can you, Dick? He’s going to take me this time and then the rest of you fellows will have your chance.”
“I’m not going to take any one this time,” answered Dick. “I’m going to get the hang of her and maybe I’ll turn her over. And I don’t want any fellow to get hurt. I’ll give every one a ride when I get around to it. Shove her bow off a bit, will you, Chub?”
Chub, who had disembarked not altogether unwillingly, obeyed and the Boreas darted away from the shore with Dick lying low in the steering-box. For the next half-hour he put the boat through her paces, while the group on shore watched. He had read everything he could find on the subject of ice-yachting and there were many things he wanted to settle to his own satisfaction. One of them was the fact that an ice-boat will go faster across the wind than with it. Dick was no sailor and at first the proposition had struck him as a bit startling. “Many persons,” said his authority, “fancy that a yacht goes faster before the wind than in any other direction, but this is not necessarily so. If the wind is blowing at a velocity of ten miles an hour, the yacht cannot possibly make more than that amount of speed. In other words, the boat can travel no faster than the wind itself. If it did the sails would be aback instead of drawing. It is on what yachtsmen call a ‘reach’—that is, with the wind on the quarter or the beam—that a yacht may sail faster than the wind is blowing.”
Dick proved this very speedily, for the Boreas, while she slid along very well with the wind behind, instantly increased her speed when she was sent on a tack. He also discovered among other things that it was extremely unwise to move the tiller abruptly when the boat was going fast. He tried it once and only saved himself from taking a flying leap across the ice by the veriest miracle. But it was vastly exhilarating, even in the little eight-mile breeze which was blowing up the river, and when the boat was on a leeward reach with the windward runner high off the ice and the runner-plank slanting up at a good angle, the sensation he received was as near like that of flying as anything could be, he thought.
He made up his mind that the next time he ventured out he would be more warmly dressed, for the wind drove right through his sweater, and his hands under his woolen gloves felt like pieces of ice. When, at last, he headed back down the river on a broad tack for the landing he was quite ready to exchange the steering-box of the Boreas for a place in front of the fireplace in the study-room. Willing hands helped him pull the boat up on the bank and furl the sails. Then, with Harry and Roy and Chub as immediate body-guard, he set off up the hill toward the dormitory and dinner. To the latter he brought a most appreciative appetite.
In the afternoon Roy had his first trip, and later, when he had been safely returned to the rink for the hockey game, Chub took his place. The Boreas spun up the river for some fifteen miles and by the time the cruise was over Chub had got over his nervousness and was as enthusiastic an ice-yachtsman as ever wept in the teeth of a gale.