Before them stretched the gray-white expanse of the lake, and on either side the glistening white shores, now receding as they passed a deep bay, again creeping out in a long point. There was no sound save the sharp ring of the skates and the soft grate of the smoothly slipping toboggan. Past two big summer hotels with blank staring windows, past shuttered and deserted summer camps they sped until all sign of man's handiwork disappeared. The keen air was like wine in their veins and it was hard to believe that the thermometer had registered eighteen below zero that morning, for the air was dry and did not penetrate as would the moisture laden air at home at a temperature many degrees above the zero mark.
"I just can't believe that thermometer was on its job," protested Hal, as they stopped for a breathing spell half-way down the lake. "Why, I'm so warm I wish I was rid of this mackinaw."
"Me too," added Walter.
Pat suddenly whirled Hal around and looked keenly at his left ear. The rim was a dead white. "If you can't believe the thermometer perhaps you can believe this," said he drily as he touched the ear. "What did I tell you about keeping your cap down over your ears? Shure, 'tis a tenderfoot and not a first class Scout at all, at all, thot ye be."
"What do you mean?" demanded Hal as he slipped a glove off to feel of the ear. At the look of blank astonishment that swept across his face as he discovered that the edge of his ear was stiff and wholly without feeling the others roared with laughter.
"I mean that you're frost-bitten already," replied Pat, "and I hope that this will be a lesson to the whole bunch of you. You may not feel him, but old Jack Frost is right on the job just the same, and it don't do up here to needlessly expose yourself. It is because the air is so dry that you don't feel the frost, but you freeze just the same. We'll run over to that point and thaw you out, and then I guess you'll keep your cap down where it belongs."
At the point Pat rubbed the frosted ear vigorously with a handful of snow until the frost was out and for a few minutes Hal danced with the ache of it, while the others grinned. "That's one on me, all right, and you're welcome to laugh, but little Hal Harrison has learned his lesson. No more frost-bites for me, thank you," he growled. "I don't wish you fellows any hard luck, but I hope you'll get a taste of it yourselves just to know what it feels like."
Walter and Sparrer took warning from Hal's experience and saw to it that their ears were well covered before they started on. As they drew near the end of the lake Old Baldy and Mount Seward loomed up with a grandeur and forbidding austerity that was almost menacing, and which was yet grandly heroic. The long pier of Woodcraft Camp jutting out into the lake was now clearly visible and on the end of it were two figures waving greetings.
"It's the Big Chief and Mother Merriam! Let's give them the old yell!" cried Upton.
They stopped and with Upton to lead sent the old Woodcraft yell ringing down the lake—"Whoop-yi-yi-yi! Whoop-yi-yi-yi! Whoop-yi-yi-yi! Woodcraft!" And even as the echoes flung it back from Old Baldy it was returned to them in the mingled voices of a man and a woman. The doctor and Mrs. Merriam were sending them welcome.