“Wait, wait please!” begged Sid. “I can’t get the buckle in the right hole. My fingers are frozen stiff. You might help a chap, Chub.”
“All right, I will if you’ll tell the truth. Are you a gentleman, Sid?”
“No,” answered Sid diplomatically. “It’s that fourth hole, Chub. That’s it. Thanks.” He got up, hobbled to the edge of the ice and skated away. “Neither are you, Chub!” he shouted tauntingly. Chub instantly gave chase, leaving the other three to follow more leisurely. Across the frozen river and a little further down-stream the ice-boat was skimming up and down near shore, luffing, filling and turning in the brisk wind as though trying her sails.
“That’s just about what she’s doing, I guess,” said Roy as they skated, three abreast, a hundred yards or so behind the flying forms of Sid and Chub. “Those sails are brand-new, I think. She’s coming around again. If we were nearer now you could get a good view of her, Dick.”
“I’m going to try, anyhow,” answered Dick, as he dug his blades in the black ice and sped away from them.
“Shall we try it, too?” asked Roy. Harry nodded her head.
“I’ll race you,” she cried, and, suiting action to word, darted off after Dick. She had obtained a good lead before Roy had gathered his wits together, and he realized that to attempt to overtake that flying form was quite useless for him. He was a good skater, but Harry had held the school supremacy for several years and had, as she had stated to Dick, even beaten Hammond’s best talent the winter before. But Harry had found more than her match at last, for, try as she could and did, she could not gain an inch on Dick, who was putting in his best licks in an endeavor to head off the ice-boat as it passed up-stream close to the farther shore. In a trice Roy was left to himself. He saw that he could not hope to intercept the boat even if the others did, and so kept on diagonally across the river toward the ice-houses below Coleville. Sid and Chub were still busy with their own affairs, the former leading the latter a difficult chase, turning and doubling and thus far avoiding capture. The wind swept across the ice with stinging buffets against legs and face, and Roy rubbed his ears vigorously to keep them from freezing. Presently he drew near where they had been cutting ice and found that to continue on toward the shore and the path of the returning boat he would either have to cross the cuttings or skate for some distance up or down the river to get around them. New ice had formed in the lanes and it looked fairly thick. Roy slowed down and examined it. Then he struck at it with the heel of one skate, found that it didn’t break, and skated quickly across. It was a narrow lane down which the cakes of ice had been floated to the house and he was soon over it. Then came thick ice again. He looked up the river. The boat was still before the wind and had passed Dick while that youth was some distance away. Now he had paused, apparently undecided whether to remain there or to join the others down-stream. Harry had already given up the chase and headed toward the ice-houses. Sid and Chub were still chasing madly about in mid-stream. Roy shouted and the wind carried his voice so well that both Harry and Dick heard and waved to him. Then a wide expanse of new ice confronted him and as he skated unhesitatingly on to it he noted the different sound which it gave forth under his blades. And then, without the least warning, the surface gave beneath him like paper and he was fighting for breath with the green water ringing in his ears and clutching at his heart with icy fingers.