CHAPTER XIII
THE STRANGER
It was both a cold and windy day on which Dan and Billy finally got themotor-iceboat down upon the ice. It was in Christmas week.
“I reckon that old blizzard you were telling about is pretty near due,Dannie,” quoth the younger boy, blowing his fingers to get somesemblance of warmth into them, for the boys and old Bromley had to workwithout gloves part of the time.
“There’s a storm brewin’,” declared the old boatman, cocking his eyetoward the streaky looking clouds that had been gathering ever sincedaybreak. “You can lay to that! And it wouldn’t surprise me if itbrought a big snow, boys. Ye know we ain’t re’lly had our share of snowthis winter so fur. We’ve had ice enough, the goodness knows!”
“You bet,” agreed Billy, with a chuckle. “And ice gathers some fast,too—if you take it from Money Stevens.”
“What’s happened to him now?” asked Dan.
“Why, Money went fishing up Karnac Lake way last Saturday—didn’t youhear? Says he would have had great luck, if only he could have kept thehole open through which he was fishing. He swears he hooked a pickerelso big that he couldn’t get it through the hole he’d cut in the ice!”
“That sure must have been some pickerel,” chuckled Dan. “Now, John, whatdo you think of this craft?”
“By gravy! I don’t know what _to_ think of it, boy,” grunted the oldboatman. “It ain’t like nothin’ in the heavens, or on the airth, norag’in in the waters under the airth! If you say that dinky little ingineis goin’ to make her go, why I reckon go she will! But seein’sbelievin’.”
“Right-O!” agreed Dan, smiling. “And we will proceed to put the matterto the test right now before we step the mast. Get aboard.”
But Old John wouldn’t do that. He preferred to watch the proceedingsfrom the dock—and he said so.
“I ain’t got so many more years ter live no way ye kin fix it,” he said,grinning. “Lemme live ’em whole. I wouldn’t venter on one o’ themsailin’ iceboats, let erlone this contraption.”
Dan and Billy pushed out from the shore and started the engine. Dancould easily manipulate the power as well as steer the _Follow Me_.Billy was passenger only on this trial trip.
There was a stiff breeze blowing and they headed directly into it. Themoment the wheel under the boat gripped the ice she began to driveahead. As Dan gradually increased its revolutions they moved faster andfaster, while the whine of the engine and the sharp strokes of thewheel-points joined in an ever-increasing roar.
Behind them the ice showed a plain trail of punctures from thewheel-points. The _Follow Me_ left a trail that might easily be followedanywhere on the ice.
But its speed was not great at first. Dan increased it slowly and, whenshe rounded to and headed back toward the landing, Billy was flatlydisappointed.
“Crickey! this isn’t going to do much, Dan. Why, the old boat can beather.”
“What did you expect?” asked his brother, smiling.
“But, old man! we’re going to race with this thing!”
“Of course.”
“And the _Fly-up-the-Creek_ can beat her out—easy.”
“Sure of that; are you?”
“What you got up your sleeve, Dannie?” the other demanded. “Did you getall the speed out of her you could?”
“You saw that she was wide open,” chuckled Dan. “But you forget that wehad no sail set. Let’s get the mast up and the sail bent on. _Then_we’ll give her a fair trial.”
Billy shook his head, however. He had believed that his brother’sinvention was going to prove as fast as a power-launch, without anycanvas.
The mast and sail were both ready. They had the new boat rigged in anhour. There was still a full hour before sunset and again Dan took hisplace in the stern while Billy raised the sail.
The canvas of the _Follow Me_ was not as heavy as that of theSpeedwells’ first iceboat. They had made some short runs in the_Fly-up-the-Creek_ that had equalled fifty miles an hour—and more.Billy’s heart had fallen pretty nearly to his boots. He did not believethe _Follow Me_ could do anything like that.
But Dan only grinned at him. The wind filled the sail almost immediatelyand the motor-iceboat staggered away from Bromley’s dock. The oldboatman stood there and watched them with a grim face, for the new craftstarted very slowly. She seemed really to hobble at first.
“Them boys air going to be disappointed—by jings!” muttered Bromley.“And that’s too bad. But these yere new-fangled notions——”
“By gravey! what’s happened?”
Suddenly the “put, put, put!” of the engine reached his ears. And at thesame time the sail filled and bellied full. The motor-iceboat leapedahead, the exhaust became a rumble, and the _Follow Me_ shot up theriver faster—it seemed to Bromley—than he had ever seen any craft movebefore.
She crossed the frozen stream diagonally and in two minutes was out ofsight behind the humpback of Island Number One! Her disappearance leftthe old man breathless.
“Some boat—that,” said a voice behind him.
“Heh?” exclaimed John Bromley, turning to see a strange man standingcoolly on his private wharf.
“That’s a fine sailer,” said the stranger.
“Mebbe ’tis,” returned John, eyeing the man fixedly.
The latter was a keen-looking chap, lean and wiry, and dressed in along, loose, gray ulster, buckled about his waist with a belt. Hereturned the old boatman’s look, after a moment, with interest.
“You know those chaps who are running that boat?” asked the stranger.
“I reckon I know the Speedwells pretty well,” grunted John.
“Speedwell—eh? Is that their name?”
“Yes, it is.”
“What business have they got over on that island?”
“What business have you got asking me?” returned the old man,freezingly.
“I want to know.”
“Keep wanting. Everything comes ter them that waits, they tell me.”
“You are of a sour temper, I see,” observed the stranger, eyeing Bromleyquite calmly.
“Mebbe. But my temper is none of your business. Something else is.”
“What’s that, old timer?” asked the thin man, grinning slightly.
“You’re on a piece of the earth I own. Get off it,” said John Bromley,advancing truculently. “This dock is mine—and I own to the road. You gitback to the road and stay there.”
The man eyed him for a few seconds, as though to see whether he reallymeant the command, or not. It was quite plain that Bromley meant it. Hewas beginning to roll up his sleeves, and old as he was he looked to bea bad man to tackle.
“Oh! very well,” said the stranger, backing off. “No offense meant.”
“And that’s lucky, too,” growled John. “For if you was meanin’ offense Imight come out into the road to you, at that!”
The stranger said no more, but gradually “oozed off the scenery,” asBromley told the boys afterward. “But that feller’s got some reason fornosin’ around here,” the old boatman added, as he helped fasten themotor iceboat to the spiles of the dock. “I didn’t like his looks—not alittle bit.”
“Do you suppose it is somebody trying to see what kind of an inventionyou have here, Dannie?” asked the awed Billy.
For the second trip of the motor iceboat had convinced the youngerSpeedwell lad that his brother was a marvel. He wasn’t talking muchabout that trip, but if John Bromley had considered the speed of the_Follow Me_ quite surprising, how much more impressed was Billy—and evenDan himself.
It was true they had had a favoring breeze—and a stiff breeze, too. Thewind would have driven the boat at high speed, alone. But with theauxiliary motor at work the _Follow Me_ had traveled at a breath-takingpace. She had gone the length of Island Number One, and the islandbeyond it, rounded the farther end of that second island, and comerushing back down the river to John Br
omley’s dock in an almostunbelievably short time.
“It doesn’t matter who the fellow was,” said Dan, finally; “you know wedon’t want anybody examining this boat. John understands that; don’tyou, John?”
“I’ll keep me eye on her,” growled the boatman. “They’ve got to be wideawake to beat old John. You leave it to me.”
But both boys felt some worriment of mind as they scurried around thatevening in the motor truck, picking up the cans of milk from thedairies.
If it had begun to snow they might have felt better about it. With astorm under way it would not be likely that anybody would seek out the_Follow Me_ at John Bromley’s lonely dock, for any purpose.
The Speedwell boys got back to the house, however, finished the choresfor that night, and went in to supper before a single flake of thepromised storm had fallen.
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