CHAPTER VII
OUT ON THE ROAD
The humming runners of the _Fly-up-the-Creek_ quickly drowned theirvoices. The wind was light, and it was not fair for the boats running upstream; yet handled right, the ice craft made good speed in thatdirection.
Billy, by Dan’s order, shook out the jib, and with all canvas drawingthey made a long leg to the farther shore of the Colasha, so that whenthey tacked they were ahead of both the _Redbird_ and Barry Spink’scraft.
The three iceboats, however, were not far apart at any time as theytacked up the river. Money Stevens did not handle the _Redbird_ assmoothly or as neatly as did Barry Spink and his mate; therefore the_White Albatross_ was the nearer to the Speedwells’ craft.
Once the Spink boat crossed the bows of the _Fly-up-the-Creek_, and theexcited Lettie cried:
“Oh, dear! that boy is beating us. Can’t you go faster, Dan? I thoughtyou always were speedy?”
“No. Only Speedwell,” returned Dan, gravely.
“I think we’re going quite fast enough,” remarked Mildred, who wasclinging tightly to the hempen loop that Dan had put into her hand whenthey started.
“It does not follow that we’re being left behind because the _Albatross_crossed in front of us,” Dan reassured Lettie.
The girl raised up her head to look, and Billy yelled at her:
“Low bridge! Down, I say! Do you want your head knocked off?”
For at that moment Dan had brought the helm about. The boom swept acrossthe body of the iceboat. Billy himself dropped to a horizontal posture.
With creaking and groaning the huge sail bellied out at just the rightangle and the slant of the wind flung the iceboat forward on the newtack. She fairly leaped from the ice under the momentum of that suddengust, and both girls screamed.
Billy laughed happily, for nobody was hurt, and the _Fly-up-the-Creek_was almost at once on even keel again. But the two girls could onlycling tight for the next few minutes and gasp their fear into eachother’s ears.
“Look behind!” commanded Dan, after a minute.
Mildred and Lettie did so. To their amazement both the _White Albatross_and the _Redbird_ were far astern. At least a mile separated them fromthe Speedwells’ craft.
“How—how did you do it, Dannie?” asked Mildred, wonderingly.
“Oh! whatever you did, don’t do it again,” gasped Lettie.
“We went fast enough to suit you that time; did we, Let?” chortledBilly.
“I merely took advantage of a flaw in the wind,” declared Dan. “You see,the wind is not steady this afternoon, and really, bye and bye, I expectit will get around into a new quarter and stick there. I was looking forthat puff, and Spink wasn’t. He tacked too soon and thought he hadbeaten us. But now——”
“He won’t catch us in a week of Sundays!” finished Billy, in delight.
The wind became so uncertain, however, within the next few minutes, thatDan decided it was inexpedient to continue farther than Island NumberOne. There were clouds in the northeast, too, and a storm might be onthe way.
Therefore the boat was headed about and the canvas filled again as thesteel runners squealed around the head of the island.
“Don’t see our friend the dummy anywhere, Dan!” yelled Billy.
“Pshaw! there isn’t anybody on this island,” returned his brother.
This attracted the girls’ attention and Lettie asked, curiously: “Who is‘the dummy,’ Billy? Anybody I know?”
“Give it up! he may be one of your particular friends for all I know,”returned the younger boy. “But he doesn’t speak English—not so’s youknow what he says; and I never heard, Let, that you were very proficientin French or German. How about it?”
“What does he mean, Dan?” asked Lettie, turning her back upon the otherboy. “Who is this dummy?”
Dan was pretty busy with the steering of the boat, but he managed totell the girls—briefly—of his short association with the strange boywhom Billy had almost run over in the snowstorm.
“Isn’t that strange!” exclaimed Mildred. “And do you suppose the poordumb boy is still somewhere about here?”
“Billy says he’s camping on the island yonder,” chuckled Dan.
“Of course, that’s just like Billy,” scoffed Lettie Parker. “Chock fullof romance.”
“All right, all right,” grumbled the younger boy. “You folks wait.Dummy’ll turn up again when you least expect him.”
And oddly enough Billy proved to be a prophet in this event; but theothers did not believe it at the time.
The uncertainty of the wind shortened the stay of the Speedwell iceboaton the river that day. The boys took the girls back to the landing andthen were quite two hours in getting the _Fly-up-the-Creek_ to JohnBromley’s.
There was some snow that night; but not enough to clog the roads, and itall blew off the ice. The intense cold continued and most of theRiverdale Academy pupils spent their spare time on the ice the followingweek. But Dan and Billy Speedwell had work in another direction.
Their racing car was now four years old, for they had bought it secondhand. For short distances there were probably a dozen cars right inRiverdale that could best the boys’ racer.
But when it came to the longer runs, Dan and Billy were well aware thatskillful handling counted really more than the machine itself. Therewere frequent amateur road races and the Speedwells never refused achallenge.
Now they intended to put their old car into tip-top order, and most ofthe boys’ spare time that week was devoted to this object.
They got her out on the road Monday afternoon and despite the coldworked for three hours between their house and the Meadville turnpike.Dan drove her and the speedometer registered what they would haveconsidered very good time indeed for an ordinary run. But they didn’tmake racing time——“Not by a jugful!” as Billy grumbled.
“There’s something wrong,” admitted his brother, seriously.
“S’pose she needs a regular overhauling? Have we got to knock her downand overhaul her from the chassis up?”
“I don’t know. It’s not so long ago that we had her in on the machineshop floor, you know, Billy, and Mr. Hardy, Biff’s father, went all overher himself. She’s getting old, of course, and we’ve used her a lot.”
“I—should—say—yes,” drawled the younger boy. “Nobody’s got more out of amotor car around Riverdale than we have out of this one.”
“But I believe she’s good for many a race,” asserted Dan. “You see, itmay be some little thing. There might be a leak——”
“Leak? pshaw! you know the gas runs as clean as a whistle. And whatwould _that_ have to do with her losing time?” demanded Billy.
“Wait. I mean a leak in the ignition wiring.”
“Wow!”
“Never thought of that—eh?” demanded Dan.
“No. And I’m not thinking much of it now, Dannie—you old fuss.”
“Don’t you be too fresh calling me names, sonny,” advised the olderyouth. “You want to remember that the wiring of this car is old. A tinybreak in the insulation would be enough to spell ‘trouble.’ Get me,Billy?”
“Uh-huh! But I don’t see——”
“Let’s try it. That’s the only thing to do to make sure.”
“How are you going to do it?” demanded Billy, anxiously.
“Watch me,” returned his brother, with assurance, and he immediatelywent to work to test the insulation.
Billy was sure he was “some punkins” (as he often remarked) when it cameto mechanics; but he knew Dan had him “beaten to a mile” when once theelder boy put his mind to a mechanical problem. So he watched Dannarrowly.
To find a leak in the ignition wiring of a machine is no joke; the breakmay be of the tiniest and in a remote location, too. But Dan had apractical idea about it and he started right.
First he disconnected the conductors, one at a time, replacing them withtemporar
y connections made with an ample length of free wire, laidoutside the motor parts.
It did not take long to do this, and this method of “bridging” theconductors without dismantling the connections brought about just whatDan wished. There were two tiny leaks and in an hour Dan had correctedthe faults and put everything in shape again.
“Now, we’ll give her another spin,” he grunted. “If I’m not mistaken,Billy, she will act like a different car.”
“Come on. You’ve got to show me,” returned the other. “Doesn’t seem asthough those two little cracks in the insulation could put her in sobad.”
They got the car out on the hard road. There was still an hour beforesunset and they could go far in an hour.
And how the old car spun along! Billy was delighted and Dan grinnedhappily. “You sure hit the trouble, old boy!” declared the youngerbrother. “You are one smart kid——”
Dan punched him good-naturedly in the ribs, and said:
“Be respectful—be respectful, sonny. Remember I’m older than you.”
“That doesn’t worry me much,” returned Billy. And then suddenly hejumped up, demanding: “D’ye see that, Dan? Look!”
They had been going pretty fast, but Dan shut off the power at once. Farahead of them on the road a red touring car was approaching—a brilliantpatch of color against the background of saffron sky.
If the color scheme had caught _their_ eye, so much more did it catchthe eye of Farmer Bulger’s black bull, that had just broken out ofbounds and entered the highway from the barnyard lane.
Instantly the beast saw the red car coming and it bellowed a challenge,pawing the frozen ground and shaking his horns threateningly. His backwas to the Speedwells’ gray car, and he paid that no attention; the boyssaw that the brilliantly painted touring car was filled with girls.
“It’s Burton Poole’s new car!” gasped Billy.
“And Mildred and Lettie are in it!” added Dan, quite as excited as hisbrother.
“Crickey! why doesn’t that Poole know enough to back out. That bull isan ugly fellow.”
“It isn’t Burton at the wheel,” growled Dan, suddenly. “It’s BarrySpink——By George!”
There were other girls in the car besides the doctor’s daughter andLettie. They were all screaming as the red car dashed toward the greatbeast that barred the way. At last Spink stopped; but then it was toolate to turn the car and escape.
With a vicious bellow the bull charged and struck the radiator of thecar a solid blow, breaking it. He bounded back from the collision andshook his head from side to side; but he showed every intention ofmaking a second charge and this time he might clamber into the caritself!
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