XIX
B.J. decided to take the chances of a battered skull rather than let both the windward runner and the tiller-runner have a slash at him.
He gathered himself for a dive into the air.
But, just as he was about to leap, a sudden gust of wind lifted the windward runner off the ice at least two feet.
Like lightning B.J. dropped face down on the ice, and the boat passed harmlessly over him, the runner just grazing his coat-sleeve.
Having inflicted what seemed to it to be punishment enough, the Greased Lightning sailed coquettishly on down the lake, and finally banged into a dock at home, and stopped. B.J. and Reddy made off after it as fast as they could on the slippery ice with the help of the wind at their backs; but they never overtook it, and the run served them only the good turn of warming them somewhat, and thus saving them from all the dire consequences they deserved for their foolhardiness.
When Reddy reached home, he found that Heady had preceded him. Both were put to bed and dosed with such bitter medicine that they almost forgot the miseries they had had upon the lake. But it was many a day before they would consent to speak to B.J.
When they saw him coming they crossed the street with great dignity, and if he spoke to them they seemed stricken with a sudden deafness.
B.J.'s troubles did not end with his return home; for, somehow or other, the escapade with the ice-boat reached his father's ears. And it is reported that B.J.'s father forgot for a few minutes the fact that his son was now a dignified academician. At any rate, B.J. took his meals standing for a day or two, and he could not explain this strange whim to the satisfaction of his friends.
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