The Speedwell Boys and Their Ice Racer: or, Lost in the Great Blizzard

CHAPTER VIII
THE PLANS

“Lemme get out and find a club, Dan!” begged Billy, as the gray car continued to approach the red one at a swift pace.

“What could you do with a club?” demanded the older lad.

“I’d bust it over that beast’s head!” declared his brother, excitedly. “Stop the car!”

The occupants of the red car had all crouched down in the bottom, hoping the bull would not see them. They might have been ostriches hiding their heads from pursuit in the desert sand.

The beast charged again, and this time he smashed the windshield and got his forehoofs into the front of the car. Barry Spink vaulted over the back of the seat and left Lettie Parker (who had sat with him) to her fate.

“We’re coming, Let!” roared Billy, standing up and fairly dancing in the onrushing gray racer.

The next instant the bull backed away and got right into the path of the Speedwells’ car. Dan had intended to run her alongside of the red automobile and give the frightened passengers a chance to escape.

But the bull got in the way. There was a heavy thud, and Mr. Bull flopped over on his side, bellowing in pain and surprise, while the gray car rebounded from his carcass as though it were made of India rubber.

“Goody-good!” shrieked Lettie Parker. “Bump the mean old thing again, Dan! Bump it!”

But Dan shut off the power quickly. He was afraid the collision had done the racer no good, as it was.

However, he had no intention of seeing the bull do any further harm to the crowd in Burton Poole’s car. With Billy, he ran at the beast, that had now staggered to his feet. Dan had seized a long-handled wrench from the tool box, and before the bull could lower his head to charge, he hit the tender nose a hard clip.

How the creature roared! He hated to give up the fight and it was not until Dan had struck another blow that the bull backed into the ditch and cleared the road for the passage of the two cars.

“For pity’s sake get under the wheel yourself, Burton!” exclaimed Dan. “Get those girls out of here.”

“I’m going to get into your car, Billy,” declared Lettie Parker.

“And I, too!” gasped Mildred.

“Why, it wasn’t my fault the old bull charged us,” whined Barrington Spink.

“You give me a pain!” growled Burton, who was a big, rather slow-witted fellow, but sound of heart. “You jumped over the seat and left Let to be gored to death by that beast – as far as you cared!”

“I – I thought she was coming, too,” gasped Spink.

“See if you can get any action in your engine, Burton,” advised Dan. “If that other fellow had had any sense at all he wouldn’t have rushed right down upon the bull in the way he did.”

“I – I didn’t suppose it would dare face the car,” continued the explanatory Spink.

“Rats!” snapped Billy, in disgust. “The car’s red enough to give anything the blind staggers! No wonder that old bull went for it.”

Burton tried to turn his engine; but he couldn’t get a bit of action out of it. Fortunately the bull was whipped, and the Speedwells turned their own machine about, hitched on to the red car, and towed it back to Riverdale, unmolested.

Later in the week, after the boys had tried the racer out to their complete satisfaction, Dan remained up one evening long after his brother had gone to bed. Billy fell asleep seeing Dan bent over certain drawings he had made, and it must have been midnight when the younger boy was startled out of his sound sleep by a sudden sound.

There was Dan hopping about the room in a grotesque, stocking-footed dance.

“What under the sun’s the matter with you, Dan?” gasped the younger boy.

“I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” ejaculated his brother, snapping his fingers and continuing the dance.

“Stop it! stop it, I say!” commanded Billy. “You’ll have mother in here. My goodness! can’t you break out with the measles – or whatever you’ve got – at a decent hour?”

“It’s something bigger than the measles, Billy,” chuckled Dan, falling into his chair before the table again. “Look here.”

“Those old plans – ” began Billy, sleepily.

“These new plans, you mean,” responded his brother, vigorously. “I tell you I’ve struck pay dirt.”

The words stung Billy into a keener appreciation of his brother’s excitement. Awakened from a sound sleep, he had been rather dazed at first. Now he knew what Dan meant.

“You – got – it?” he gasped, stifling a mighty yawn. “Figured it all out?”

“I’m going to rig a motor-driven sprocket wheel arrangement that will push a car over the ice at good speed – yes, sir!”

“Going to hitch it to the Fly-up-the-Creek?” demanded Billy, eagerly, bending over the papers Dan had prepared.

“No. That’s where I was wrong. We’ll build an entirely new iceboat. See here?” and he at once began explaining to his brother the idea that developed – as it seemed – almost of itself since Billy had gone to sleep three hours before.

“It sure looks good!” exclaimed the younger boy, admiringly, when Dan had concluded. “You have got it, Dan! And the boys will be crazy over it.”

“We’ll just keep it to ourselves, you know,” warned Dan. “Mr. Robert Darringford is going to offer a handsome prize for the fastest iceboat at the regatta we’re going to hold. Don’t you know that?”

“Well – er – yes.”

“Then we’ll just keep still about this scheme. Some of the parts will have to be made in the machine shops, you know. And some parts we’ll get old Troutman, at Compton, to make. You remember him?”

“Sure! the pattern maker who worked for Mr. Asa Craig when Mr. Craig was building his submarine.”

“The same. We won’t let anybody but father see the plans as completed. No use in letting ’em in on the scheme.”

“Crickey, Dan!” exclaimed Billy. “If we build a racer that wipes up the whole river, Barry Spink will turn green with envy. I heard him blowing the other day that he was going to have some kind of a mechanical contrivance built for his White Albatross that would make her the fastest thing on the ice.”

“That’s all right. Maybe he’s got something good up his sleeve,” laughed Dan. “But I believe that we have something just a little better here,” and he tapped the plans on the table.

CHAPTER IX
THE BOY WHO COULDN’T TALK

The Speedwells were busy boys these days. The excitable Billy had so many irons in the fire (so he said) that he could barely keep all of them hot.

Then, there was the secret building of the new iceboat. Dan and Billy had said little of their scheme outside the family; but it was known in Riverdale that the Speedwells proposed to rig a “new-fangled” racing machine that would “just burn up the ice” when the midwinter ice races were held.

“What’s she going to be driven by, Billy?” asked Biff Hardy, meeting the Speedwells one afternoon at the edge of the Boat Club Cove. “Steam – gas – or nitroglycerin? Pa says you’ve brought him some patterns for things that he believes belong to a combination aeroplane and motor mowing machine. How about it?”

“Never you mind,” returned Billy, grinning, for Bill Hardy, who worked in the Darringford Machine Shops, was one of the Speedwells’ staunchest friends. “I don’t just understand all about the plans myself. But Dan knows.”

“You bet he does!” rejoined the admiring Biff. “But I’m not going to ask Dan. If it’s a secret I know very well I couldn’t get at it even if I hypnotized him!”

The Fly-up-the-Creek was very popular, whether the boys built a speedier craft, or not. If Mildred and Lettie didn’t care to accompany Dan and Billy whenever they had time to skim the ice in the big craft, there were plenty of their schoolmates ready to enjoy such trips as the Speedwells were willing to give them.

And almost always when Dan and Billy were on the ice, the White Albatross made its appearance. Barrington Spink was forever trying conclusions with the bigger iceboat, and was never willing to admit defeat by her.

It was always “by a fluke,” or because something broke on his own craft, when Dan and Billy chanced to leave the White Albatross behind. There was something “bull-doggy” about Barrington Spink. He never knew when he was beaten.

There was by this time quite a fleet of iceboats on the river, besides those of the Speedwell boys, Monroe Stevens, and Spink. Fisher Greene and his cousin had produced the Flying Squirrel. Jim Stetson and Alf Holloway had bought a boat, too, and named it the Curlew.

There were, besides, other iceboats appearing on the Colasha, built and owned by some of the adult members of the boat club. There were a good many men devoted to sports in Riverdale, and the condition of the ice this season spurred them into joining the game.

The Oldest Inhabitant could not remember when there had been a winter so steadily cold. And, fortunately for the ice sports, there was little snow during these early weeks of the season.

“There are going to be great old times on this river before the winter’s over, Dan,” declared Billy, confidently.

“Providing the frost continues – eh?”

“It’s bound to! Look at the almanac.”

“Humph!” returned Dan, “I’ve heard of such a thing as an almanac being mistaken.”

“That’s all right,” said Billy, not at all shaken. “Everybody believes this will be a great old winter. Robert Darringford is going in for iceboating, too. He’s having a boat built in the shops – and he says it’s going to be a wonder.”

“Let ’em all rave,” grunted Dan. “You’ll see, Billy. There won’t one of ’em get the speed out of their craft that we will out of ours.”

“Where’s those plans, Dannie?” asked his brother.

“Right in my pocket,” returned Dan, promptly. “I’m not running the risk of having them picked up somewhere and so find their way into the hands of somebody who might catch on to our idea.”

This was on a Saturday when Mildred and Lettie had expressed a desire to take a long trip in the Fly-up-the-Creek.

“We’ve never gone as far as Karnac Lake yet,” Lettie pouted. “Always something happens before we get there. If you don’t take us this time, boys, we’ll go over to the enemy in a body!”

“What enemy?” demanded Billy.

“Barrington Spink. He’s always asking us to accompany him on the White Albatross.”

“Why don’t you go with him, then?” snapped Billy. “Nobody’s holding you.”

“Now, children!” admonished the doctor’s daughter. “Don’t quarrel.”

Dan and Mildred only laughed over the bickerings of the other couple. Soon the Speedwells’ boat was made ready and the girls got aboard, while Dan and Billy pushed her out from the landing.

There was no gale blowing, but a good, stiff breeze – and it was fair. The huge sail of the Fly-up-the-Creek filled almost immediately, and they moved steadily out of the cove.

Outside, the White Albatross was maneuvering, Spink evidently waiting as usual to try a brush with the Speedwells’ craft. Barry shot the white iceboat down toward them as they came out of the cove, and shouted:

“Better come aboard here, girls, if you want to reach the lake. I’m on my way!”

“Who’s going to tow you?” demanded Billy.

“I don’t need any towing,” returned Spink, sharply. “There’s one thing sure, I can beat that old milkwagon of yours. Better take up my offer, girls!” he added, grinning impudently.

He did shoot away in advance at a good pace, and Lettie cried, under her breath: “Oh! don’t you dare to let him beat us, Dan Speedwell!”

“The race is not always to the swift,” returned Dan, smiling.

“I really wouldn’t pay any attention to that fellow,” said Mildred. “He is not worth noticing. And I don’t see any reason why he should be so mean to us.”

“Looks to me as though he wanted to cut Dan and me out with you girls,” chuckled Billy.

“Well!” said Lettie Parker, in earnest for once, “that might be, too. But the particular reason why he dislikes you boys is because you don’t ‘make much’ of him as some of the others do. You know, Barry’s mother is rich.”

“Seems to me I’ve heard something about that before,” said Dan, laughing.

“He got in bad with you boys at the start. Billy only charged him a nickel for saving his life – isn’t that so, Billy?” asked Lettie, with a giggle.

“I didn’t want to overcharge the poor chap,” returned Billy, with an answering grin.

“Well, you can’t expect him to feel very kindly towards you, then,” said Lettie.

“He’s going to build a wonderful boat to beat anything you boys can put on the river,” sighed Mildred. “He’s going to win all the ice races at the regatta Mr. Darringford is arranging. Oh! I heard him telling all about it the other evening at Mary Greene’s.”

“Don’t let that worry you for a little minute,” Billy broke in, with some excitement. “Dan’s got the plans of a boat right in his pocket now that will knock the eye out of any craft that will be on the ice this winter.”

“I admire your slang!” exclaimed Lettie, with scorn.

“I bet I caught it from you,” returned Billy, ready to “scrap” on the instant.

“Be good! be good!” cried Mildred. “Oh, Dannie! you are overtaking that white boat.”

“That’s what we’re here for,” returned the older boy, who had been attending strictly to business since Spink had challenged them.

The Fly-up-the-Creek was making good its name. They were rushing up the river at a terrific pace. The White Albatross, whenever she tacked, lost ground. And finally when they came to the lower end of Island Number One, she had to make a long leg towards the farther side of the river, and so get to the leeward of the island.

Billy was staring at the island all the time they were passing.

“What’s the matter, Billy?” demanded Lettie Parker. “What do you expect to see over yonder?”

“Billy’s looking for Robinson Crusoe,” chuckled Dan. “He believes there’s a fellow living over there.”

“Oh! you told us before,” cried Lettie. “And, do you know, I told father and he said Sheriff Kimball ought to know about that.”

“About what?” queried Mildred.

“Not that poor dummy?” cried Billy. “There isn’t an ounce of harm in that fellow, I am sure.”

“No. About there being something buried on the island. I don’t know just what father meant. But you know, he is very friendly with the sheriff.”

“Say! we don’t want to get that poor chap into trouble,” Billy urged. “Just like a girl – telling everything she knows!”

Before Miss Parker could “flare up” at this statement and speak her mind, Mildred gave a little shriek.

“What’s the matter?” demanded Dan, flashing a look around, too.

“See him? There!”

“It’s Dummy!” yelled Billy, who was out on the crossbeam at his usual station and could see behind the bellowing sail.

There, upon a high rock on the shore of the island stood the figure of the boy Billy and Dan had knocked over in the snowstorm, weeks before. They could not be mistaken.

He was gazing across the end of the island toward the open ice on the far side. Suddenly he turned about and waved both arms madly at the Fly-up-the-Creek and her crew. But although he opened his mouth and babbled something or other, neither the boys nor their guests could understand what he said.

“He wants something of us!” cried Lettie.

“He’s warning us!” gasped Mildred.

Dan swerved the helm and in a moment the iceboat came up into the wind and lost headway. They drifted past the end of the island, which was heavily wooded. And at that moment the White Albatross swooped around the head of the island, aimed directly for the Speedwells’ craft.

“Look out!” yelled Billy, leaping up and waving his hand.

The girls screamed, too. There was not enough headway on the Fly-up-the-Creek for Dan to swerve her out of the track of the other boat.

There was a crash. The bow of the White Albatross struck the other craft a glancing blow and the latter whirled in a complete circle. Fortunately Dan had let go the halyards and the sail came down with a rush. But it went over the side, tangled in the runners, and the iceboat stopped dead, while Barry Spink and his companion, both grinning over their shoulders at their rivals, shot on up the river.

“Guess you know who’ll reach Karnac first this time!” called Spink, waving his hand.

CHAPTER X
COASTING

It was a mean trick, and one that might have had serious consequences. It was certain that Spink had seen the drifting Fly-up-the-Creek and might have averted the collision.

“If that lad over there had been able to talk plain,” declared Dan, helping the girls out from under the smother of canvas, “we could have gotten out of the way. He tried his best to tell us what was coming.”

Mildred was crying a little, for she was frightened; but Lettie Parker, Billy declared, sputtered like a bottle of soda.

“What a mean, mean thing to do!” she stammered. “I – I could box that Spink boy’s ears myself! Stop crying, Milly – we’re not all dead yet.”

Billy chuckled – he had to. “We’re far from dead; but Dan looks kind of bright-eyed. I wonder what he’d do to Barrington Spink right now?”

“Come on, Mildred,” said the older Speedwell, patting the shoulder of the doctor’s daughter. “Don’t you mind. We’re none of us really hurt, and neither is the boat – much.”

Billy was examining the broken cables. The canvas, too, was badly slit where it had got under the sharp runners.

“We don’t get to Karnac Lake to-day, I reckon,” he said. “Guess you’d better have taken up that fellow’s offer, girls.”

“I’ll never speak to Barrington Spink again!” declared Lettie.

Mildred dried her eyes, and then began scrutinizing the shore of the island. “Where is that boy who tried to warn us?” she asked.

“Dummy? I declare! he’s skipped out,” Billy said. “Now, Dan! what do you think? Didn’t I tell you he was living on this island?”

“And guarding a buried treasure – eh?” chuckled the older boy.

“I’m going to see him – and talk to him!” declared Billy, earnestly.

“Not that he’ll be able to talk to us – eh?” queried his brother.

“Well, he can make himself understood somehow,” said Lettie, taking up the idea. “Come on, Billy! let’s find him.”

Mildred looked at Dan as though she thought he might forbid the search; but he did nothing of the kind. “Let the young ones run their legs off, if they want,” he said to Mildred, as Billy and Lettie climbed the rocky shore of the island. “I bet they don’t catch that dummy.”

“Why?” she asked, in wonder.

“He’s too blamed elusive,” declared Dan, hard at work mending the cordage that had been ripped loose by the collision.

Dan flung aside his coat to be less hampered. Mildred held things for him, and helped as she could until, when Billy and Lettie came back – disappointed – the iceboat was in some sort of shape for the start back.

“Well! where is he?” demanded Dan, flinging his coat across the stern of the boat.

“Ask me!” growled Billy.

“What! not found?”

“There’s something blamed funny about this island,” declared his younger brother with emphasis.

“We didn’t find a trace of him,” announced Lettie.

“But the smell of smoke,” corrected Billy.

“That’s so,” agreed the girl, rather mildly for her. “We did smell wood smoke. But we didn’t find a mark – not a footprint – ”

“I should say not,” said Billy. “And the island all rocks and frozen ground – not a smitch of snow on it anywhere.”

“Funny thing,” grunted Dan. “I wouldn’t mind seeing that dummy myself. Well! let’s get on. Can’t take you any farther up-river, to-day, girls.”

“Of course not!” said Lettie, tossing her head. “It seems as though we are fated never to get any farther up-stream on this old boat than hereabout.”

They couldn’t get back to town in the damaged iceboat. They managed to beat their way to John Bromley’s wharf, and then Billy ran all the way home and brought back the motor car, in which to transport the girls to their homes.

“That mean Barrington Spink!” exclaimed Lettie. “He’s just gone past in his boat. We saw him stop for some time up there by Island Number One.”

And later the Speedwell boys had reason to remember this statement. When they went to bed that night Dan searched his coat pocket in vain for the plans and specifications of the new motor-iceboat.

“Lost them – by jolly!” gasped Billy. “Where?”

Dan couldn’t be sure of that; but he had his suspicions. He remembered clearly removing his coat where they had had the accident at Island Number One. The envelope might have fallen from his coat pocket.

So anxious were the boys that they went up the river road the next day after Sunday school, and walked across the ice to the island. There were no boats on the river, but they saw the marks of their own and the White Albatross’s runners on the ice at the head of the island.

So, too, did they find the torn envelope in which the plans had been; but Dan’s drawings and specifications were not in it.

Who had got the plans? Was it Spink, when he stopped on his way down the river in the White Albatross? Or was it the mysterious occupant of the island whom the boys had dubbed “Dummy”?

The question not alone puzzled Dan and Billy; they were both troubled vastly by the loss of the drawings. A good mechanic could easily get the principle of Dan’s invention and – perhaps – build a boat similar to the one the Speedwells were constructing.

Under Billy’s earnest urging Dan agreed that they should search the island for some trace of the boy who could not talk; but they made absolutely nothing out of it. Not even a smell of smoke this time.

“That chap has the magic, all right, all right!” grumbled Billy. “He disappears as though he had an invisible cap.”

“More probably he’s here only once in a while,” said Dan.

“How about yesterday?” demanded the younger boy. “He wasn’t on the ice when Lettie and I hunted for him – that’s sure. He’s got a hide-out here, and don’t you forget it.”

“Maybe he buries himself – along with the treasure – when he is pursued by curious folk,” chuckled Dan.

But it was really no laughing matter. Dan was as glum as Billy when they returned home that Sunday evening. The plans were gone – and with them, perhaps, the chance the Speedwells had of building a faster boat than anybody who would enter for the iceboat races.

Not that Dan was unable to redraw the plans. That was easy. But the brothers feared that whoever found the original plans would make use of Dan’s invention in the line of motor-propulsion for ice craft.

This was really a very novel arrangement, and might be worth some money if once the boys made a practical test of the idea on the river, and demonstrated its worth. Mr. Robert Darringford, the young proprietor of the machine shops, was always on the lookout for worthy inventions; he was the Speedwell boys’ very good friend. Dan had rather hoped to interest Mr. Darringford in the invention.

Of course, he did not want to show the plans to the machine shop proprietor until after the races on the ice, for Mr. Darringford was going to enter an iceboat of special design himself. But Robert Darringford was a trustworthy man, and the boys were greatly tempted to tell him about the loss of the plans.

However much disturbed they were by this loss, there were other matters which kept the boys busy and their minds alert during the next few days. The Speedwells were more than ordinarily good scholars, and stood well in their classes. Even “Doc Bugs,” as one of their chief instructors was called by the more irreverent youth of Riverdale, seldom had to set down black marks against Dan or Billy.

Billy’s superabundance of energy and love of fun was well exercised out of school hours; he stuck pretty well to his books in the classroom.

There was another snowfall which rather spoiled the skating for a few days; but did not halt the trials of the several iceboats on the river. The snow brought to the fore another sport that had always been popular in Riverdale – and is worthy of being popular in every section of our country where winter holds sway for any length of time.

“Coasting to-night on Shooter’s Hill!” yelled Money Stevens, seeing the Speedwell boys making for their electric truck, which they had left behind Appleyard’s store, as usual. “Bring down the ‘bob,’ boys. We’ll have a jim-hickey of a time.”

“Whatever that may, be – eh?” chuckled Dan.

“Girls allowed?” asked Billy.

“Sure!” said Money. “Wouldn’t be any fun bobsledding if it wasn’t for the girls. They usually supply three things: The lunch, unnecessary conversation, and plenty of squeals,” and he went his way to stir up other of the young folk of Riverdale.

That he – and others – were successful in gathering a throng at the top of Shooter’s Hill by eight o’clock that evening, was a self-evident fact. Dan and Billy hitched old Bob and Betty to the pung and drove into town for Mildred and Lettie.

But for once the Speedwell boys were disappointed in their plans. They had not thought to call up either the doctor’s daughter, or the town clerk’s lively daughter. Dan and Billy took too much for granted.

When they reached the doctor’s house, they were told Mildred had gone to spend the evening with Lettie; and when they pulled up with a flourish at the latter’s domicile their hail brought nobody but a maid to the door.

“The girls ban gone off to Chooter’s for sledding,” explained the Swedish serving maid, grinning broadly at the disappointed boys.

“Goodness, Dan!” exclaimed Billy. “We’re stung. What do you know about this?”

Dan was a bit grumpy himself. Yet he couldn’t blame Mildred. She, of course, had no idea the Speedwells, who lived so far out of town, knew anything about the plans for the evening.

“Hey, Selma!” yelled Billy, before the door closed. “Who’d they go with?”

“Das gone mit Mr. Greene and Mr. Spink,” replied the girl.

“Stung twice!” grunted Billy. “That blamed Barrington Spink is getting under my skin, Dan. He’s forever putting his oar in where it isn’t wanted. Just as sure as you live, boy, he and I are going to lock horns yet.”

“You keep out of scraps, Billy,” advised his brother, as he turned the horses.

“Take care of the bob!” cried Billy, suddenly.

Their bobsled was tailing on behind the pung and Billy didn’t want to see it smashed. “Shall we keep on to the hill?” asked Dan.

“Bet you! We’ll show Let Parker that she’s made a mistake by going with the Spink kid. No matter what he’s got to slide on – even if it goes by steam – I bet we can beat him.”

“That’s putting it pretty strong, Billy,” laughed Dan. “Do you think you can fulfill the contract?”