They did not at once hear the exhaust of the engine on the Follow Me; but they did hear something else. Voices were shouting—seemingly far out on the frozen river.
Again and again they heard the sounds. “Ahoy! Ahoy!” came plainly to their ears. Then—and much to the Speedwells’ amazement—the boys heard their own names called—and in accents whose note of peril was not to be doubted:
“Dan! Billy! Help us Dan and Billy Spe-e-e-dwell! He-e-e-lp!”
CHAPTER XXII
THE BATTLE IN THE SNOW
Both Mildred Kent and Lettie Parker believed with the latter’s father that the explosions of the engine near them in the storm meant that Dan and Billy Speedwell were near at hand.
The girls, tossing aside the sheltering robe and the accumulation of snow, stood up, too, and clinging to each other shrieked their boy friends’ names into the sounding gale.
Their own cries might not have carried very far, save in the lulls of the tempest; but with the voices of Mr. Parker and the sheriff, they raised a cry that was certainly heard by whoever was working the motor iceboat through the blizzard.
The “put-put-put” came nearer. A hoarse hail reached the ears of the quartette in the sleigh.