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CHAPTER III
UP THE MOHUNK ON AN ICE-BOAT

As Fred and Bristles, as well as Sid Wells, were all taking a post graduate course, they got out much earlier than any of the other scholars. This was how on Monday afternoon Bristles turned up at the Fenton home close to the river, he having arranged with Fred to have a last spin on the ice-boat which the Carpenter boy had made himself, and used with more or less success during the past Winter.

The weather had indeed hardened over Sunday, so that the slush was turned into ice again. The surface of the river was not as smooth as they could have wished, but then since it promised to be their very last chance to make use of the Meteor that year, the boys could not complain, or let the opportunity pass by.

"We'll have to be careful about some of the blowholes in the ice," Bristles was saying, as they headed for the bank where he kept his craft in a shed he had built for the purpose, and which was close to Fred's home. "Everybody says the ice seems to be thin around where the water bubbles up. I'd hate to drop in and have to go home wringing wet, to scare ma half out of her wits."

"Oh! no need of doing that, even if we should have the hard luck to get wet," Fred told him. "I always carry a waterproof matchsafe, so we could go in the woods somewhere, start up a bully hot fire, and dry off. All the same, here's hoping we don't have to try that stunt out. It sounds well enough, but in this cold air a fellow'd shiver so he'd think his teeth were dropping out. We'll keep a bright watch for those same blow-holes, believe me, Bristles."

Fred was a careful hand at everything he undertook, from driving a horse or a car, to manipulating an ice-boat. So Bristles, who had the utmost confidence in his superior merits, did not feel the slightest uneasiness as he led the way down the bank to the shed that sheltered his home-made but very satisfactory ice craft.

Of course he had a padlock on the door. This was not because the sprawling craft was so very valuable; but Bristles had expended considerable time and money in fashioning the flier; and he did not mean to put it in the power of any malicious boy to injure or steal, if a mere padlock could prevent such a catastrophe.

There were some pretty mean boys in Riverport, as indeed you can always find in any town. The leading spirit among this class of young rascals was Buck Lemington, who had once been the bully of Riverport, until Fred, coming to town, succeeded in breaking up the combination that had so long held sway.

Ever since that time the Lemington boy had lost no opportunity to try to get back at Fred Fenton. He had played several tricks on the other, and his chosen friends, who also came under the condemnation of Buck; but as a rule the vicious leader of the bad set had had these things recoil on his own head.

Still, knowing how gladly Clem Shooks, Oscar Jones, Conrad Jimmerson and Ben Cushing, the cronies of Buck, would seize upon a chance to destroy his pet ice-boat, Bristles had always kept it under lock and key when not in use.

"Everything seems to be lovely," said Bristles, opening the door of the shed. "Somehow I never count on finding my things as I left 'em, because often I've seen one of that bunch hanging around the river here, as if he were only waiting for half a chance to get even with me. Why, each time the fire bells have rung at night time this Winter, I've climbed into my duds with the feeling that it was good-bye to my bully old Meteor."

"Oh! I hardly think they'd dare do anything as bad as that, after the lesson they had before," Fred went on to say, as he bent over to help the owner drag the rather clumsy craft out toward the nearby shore.

"Well, when you're dealing with such a tough gang as that," explained Bristles, "there's only one thing to do, and that's believe 'em equal to anything. I warrant you now that many a time it's only been the fear they have for our hustling little fire eater of a police officer, Chief Sutton, that's kept Buck and his crowd from trying a heap more stunts than they did. Remember when they cut the wires, and left that big meeting in pitch darkness? Yes, and that other time they turned loose a dozen mice at the bazaar, and set the ladies to shrieking and fainting? But thank goodness I've got through the Winter without losing my boat, and I'm calling myself Lucky Jim."

They soon had the queer craft ready for service, with its mast rigged, and the few ropes in place. Bristles secured a couple of old comfortables to serve them in place of cushions, which more elaborate ice-boats carried. These were tied on the boards in a way to suit the needs of those who would soon be sprawled out under the swinging boom.

"If the ice were only a whole lot smoother, I'd call this a jolly day for a spin," the skipper of the craft went on to say, while continuing his preparations.

"Yes," added Fred, standing there, and having completed his arrangements to his complete satisfaction, "the sun shines with just a taste of Springtime about it; and the breeze is neither too hard nor too squally. It comes from the best quarter we could wish for, across from the west, so we'll be able to run up or down the river without trying to tack, and that's always a hard job on a narrow stream, when you're booming along so fast."

"Well, everything's ready, Fred, so hop aboard."

"Is it up or down this time?" demanded the other.

"Whichever you say, it doesn't matter a pin to me either way," Bristles continued.

"On the whole, I rather think we'd better head up-river this time," said Fred. "We went down the last trip we made, yes, and the one before that too, because of a poor wind, and the river being wider below, so we could tack better. I'd like to go past Mechanicsburg and as far up as we can, for the last time this year."

"Call it settled then, Fred. Let's point her nose that way and get a move on us in a jiffy."

Some small boys were skating near the shore, and had come around to watch the starting of the iceboat, which was a familiar sight with them, though they never seemed to grow weary of watching it go forth on its swift cruise. Bristles had waited only long enough to make use of the padlock again, so that no one might meddle with such things as he kept in the shed. Then he was ready to raise the sail, and spin up the river like the wind.

Just as Fred had said, they were apt to have an unusually hazardous trip on this particular afternoon, partly on account of the rough ice opening up chances for an upset, and then again because of the presence of so many weak places, where the recent thaw had started blow-holes.

Of course the very swiftness of their passage would be one means of safety; for the ice-boat could skim across a small stretch where a skater would most surely break in. But Fred did not mean to take any more chances than necessity demanded; and Bristles, though commonly known as a reckless fellow, had promised to steer clear of any spot which his companion told him was unsafe.

Both of the boys were very fond of this sort of sport. It was a delight to them to feel themselves being carried along over the ice at a merry clip, with the steel runners singing a sweet tune, and the wind humming through the dangling ropes.

The shore fairly flew past them, once the iceboat got fairly started; and it seemed almost no time before they glimpsed the smoke from the factories of Mechanicsburg, which was just three miles above their home town, and on the same bank of the frozen Modunk.

"Keep a bright outlook while we're passing!" called out Fred; "they may have been cutting ice up here, as they were early in the Winter, though the openings froze over again."

"Looks a bit suspicious over to the right, and I'll hug this shore. Give me a call if you see any hole ahead, so I can sheer off, Fred."

"That's what I will, Bristles, you can depend on it!"

Already they had come abreast the lower houses. The breeze had even freshened a little, or else the bank was somewhat lower, so they caught its full force. At any rate, they fairly rushed past the busy manufacturing town, where there were a number of big mills and factories, giving employment to hundreds of hands.

"Somebody's waving his hat to us on the bank up there, and shouting in the bargain," called Bristles, who was too busily engaged in looking straight ahead to turn his eyes aslant.

"Yes, and I think it's Felix Wagner," admitted Fred. "Looked like his figure, but I can't squirm around so as to see again. Doesn't matter much anyway. Hi! there, turn out a little more, Bristles; you're heading for a hole! Not too far, because there's another just as bad stretching out from the other side. Careful now, boy; a little too much either way, and we're in for a ducking!"

"Just room enough to get through, I reckon, Fred. Whee! that's going to be a tight hole for us. I hope we can make the riffle, all right!"

"Steady, a little bit more to the left; now a quick swing the other way, and we're over safely enough. Say, that was as pretty handling of an ice-boat as I ever saw done. You deserve a heap of credit for that job, Bristles, and that's straight!"

"Thanks, awfully, Fred," said the other, in rather an unsteady voice; "but all the same, I'm glad we're well across the narrow pass. My heart seemed to climb right up into my throat. I tell you I never would have made it only for you tipping me off the way you did."

"Yes you would, Bristles, even if you'd been alone, because you must have seen how the lay of the ice ran for yourself. But I hope we don't strike another place like that above. I don't think we shall, though they cut ice and let it float down till it gets opposite the town; but that's done only on one side, as a rule."

They had quickly left the smoky town far behind them, and on both sides of the river could now be seen snow-covered farms, patches of woods, sloping hillsides, and now and then little hamlets. Once they passed what seemed to be a lumber camp, at which some sturdy men were at work, getting logs ready to float down the river with the usual Spring freshet.

Occasionally it was not so easy to make progress. This was when the crooked river took a sudden turn, and they had the breeze from a different quarter. But since Bristles knew how to manage his strange craft very well, they overcame all such difficulties, and continued to make rapid headway for some little time.

"The holes seem to be getting worse up around here," remarked Bristles, after he had had to execute several speedy movements in order to avoid running into dangerous spots.

"Yes, and as it's getting rougher in the bargain, as well as narrow between the banks, perhaps we'd better call a halt, and start back," suggested Fred.

"Let's make that turn up yonder," urged the skipper. "I remember there's something of a wider span there, and I'd like to try swinging around without stopping, if I can. Last time I made a stab at doing the same, I piled up ashore in a wreck; but the wind's in my favor to-day. You can't down a Carpenter, that's all there is to it."

"Just as you say, Bristles; I'm game to stick it out with you. Swing over a little farther, so as to get all the space you can for turning. Listen, wasn't that somebody screaming; or could it have been a locomotive whistling for a crossroad?"

"I heard it too, Fred," said Bristles, hastily, "and give you my word for it I think it came from around the bend there. We'll turn in before you can count twenty. There it is again, Fred, and worse than before. Somebody's in, the chances are, and I only hope we get on hand in time to be of help."

As the flying ice-boat turned the bend and they could begin to see the wider stretch of the Mohunk, both boys eagerly waited to discover what the cause of all that screaming could be.

CHAPTER IV
THE RESCUE, AND A MYSTERY

"Look there, Fred!" cried Bristles, "over nearer the shore, to the left!"

"I see them!" replied the other, almost instantly.

"It's a girl, and she acts as if she might be trying to get at somebody in the water," the skipper of the ice-boat shouted, as he headed the flying craft straight toward the spot.

"Be ready to bring up in the wind, so we can tumble off, Bristles!" advised Fred, taking in the whole situation at a glance, in his comprehensive way.

Bristles was already so excited that he came near upsetting the ice-boat by being too speedy about making the turn. Both boys scrambled to their feet as soon as they possibly could, and hurried toward the place where a girl of about ten years of age was wringing her poor little hands, and trying to reach a boy who was clinging to the crumbling edge of the ice. He was up to his neck in the cold water of the river.

"Hold fast, and we'll get you out of that!" cried Fred, as they drew near. His quick eye had already taken note of the fact that a rail fence came down close to the water's edge just beyond, and it was straight toward this that he was now hurrying. Bristles knew what he was going for, and he kept near the heels of his chum.

The frightened girl thought they were deserting her, and redoubled her cries.

"Help! Oh! help us! Please don't go away! My poor brother will be drowned! He can't hold on much longer! Oh! come back and help get him out!"

By that time Fred had reached the end of the fence, which ran into the water so as to keep the cows from straying out of their pasture. He struggled with one of the rails, and managed to break it loose.

"Get another, and chase after me, Bristles!" he shouted, as he once more turned and hastened toward the hole in the rotten ice, where the boy, who could not be more than twelve years of age, was trying as best he could to keep from being drawn under by the sucking force of the strong current.

Once close up, Fred dropped on his knees, shoving the rail ahead of him. In this fashion he was able to push it directly to the imperiled boy. Bristles had been so rapid in his actions that he was hardly ten seconds behind the leader. He immediately copied Fred's example, so that there were now two rails reaching out in the direction of the hole, their further ends actually overtopping the gap in the ice.

"Stay here, Bristles, and do whatever I tell you!" Fred told his chum, when, having arranged the rails as he wished, he started out along them.

His weight being now distributed over a wide surface there was no danger of the rotten ice giving way under him. That is the essential point about nearly all rescues on the ice, and what every boy should bear in mind the moment his services are needed in order to save an imperiled companion.

Fred was now enabled to approach the very edge of the hole, so that he could hold out his hand to the boy in the water, who had been constantly telling the girl to keep back lest she too fall in. Between them it was possible to accomplish the rescue, for while Fred pulled, the boy also exerted himself to the utmost, and presently crawled over the edge.

"Keep your weight as much as you can on the rails, because with your clothes soaked, you weigh twice as much as I do," Fred kept telling him; and yard by yard he drew the other along until finally they could get to their feet, and make for the shore.

The girl was crying hysterically now, although she had shown considerable bravery before.

"Oh! Brother Sammy, what if you had let go, and the current had drawn you under the ice! I think I'd have wanted to jump in, too, because I'd have nothing left to live for then!" she kept repeating, as she patted his cold hand tenderly, and tried to warm it.

Fred knew that unless something was done immediately, the boy would be very apt to be taken down sick, after all that nervous exhaustion, and the cold bath he had suffered. The air was chilly, and must strike him keenly.

"Here, you can't go home in that way, no matter how near by you live," he went on to say, in his cheery way.

"Home!" repeated the girl, and her eyes exchanged a strange look with her brother. "But what can we do, for there isn't any farmhouse around here? We were coming across the river, and Sammy went too near a hole. Then the ice broke, and all I could do was to scream. He wouldn't let me come near him, but kept trying to climb out himself. Every time he got up on the ice it broke again, and he went in. Oh! it was just terrible, terrible! But he'll freeze now, mister, if we don't find a house soon."

"No he won't, not if we know it," said Fred. "Here, slap your arms about you this way as hard as you can, and jump up and down as if you were crazy. Never mind how it looks, if only you get the blood to circulating good. Bristles, it's up to you and me to start a fire booming in a hurry."

"Here's as good a place as any, Fred, for there's plenty of loose wood around."

Fred was already busily engaged in hunting all manner of small bits of dry fuel under the sheltered sides of the logs, and in hollow stumps. As soon as he had gathered a few handfuls of this tinder, he drew out a match, and started it burning.

Fred was a clever hand at making a fire, and this one did not fail him. Bristles had in the meantime brought an armful of wood, and, selecting the smaller pieces, the two soon had a fine, large blaze going, that began to send out a considerable amount of welcome heat.

"Back up here, and see how this feels, Sammy," Fred told the shivering lad. When the other had done so, he added, "Now, just as soon as you feel warm on one side, change to the other. You know what they say, 'one good turn deserves another,' and here's where it applies. Keep up your exercising, because all that is going to help prevent you from taking cold. If I only had some hot tea or coffee, I'd give you some, but we'll have to do without it, I'm afraid."

He kept talking to the boy and girl as he worked at the fire, and Bristles continued to carry fresh supplies of wood, laboring like a good fellow. In this way Fred managed to learn that the name of the boy they had rescued was Sam Ludson and that he lived with Corny Ludson; though when he asked how far away it was they lived the answer was an evasive one.

"A good distance away," was about all the boy would say, and Fred could not help noticing that he again exchanged uneasy looks with his sister.

There was certainly something very queer about these two, though Fred could not understand why they should feel backward about telling where they lived, and especially to a couple of boys who had just done them a great favor.

Still, Fred was not unduly curious about it. If the brother and sister did not want to take him into their confidence, he was not the one to persist. So far as he could remember, Ludson was a name he had never heard before, so it did not seem as though they could ever have lived around Riverport. Bristles later on also declared that it was strange to him, and he had been born there, while Fred was comparatively a newcomer, having arrived only a couple of years previous to this time.

His particular business, as Fred saw it, was not to poke into other people's private affairs, but to get the clothes of Sam dry as soon as possible. Then he would feel that he and Bristles had finished their duty.

So he continued to keep the fire burning, and have Sam turned around every little while. At first the child steamed at a tremendous rate, but as by degrees the moisture was absorbed by the heat, he began to feel much more comfortable.

"I guess I'll go now, mister," Sammy remarked, finally, as though anxious to get away from these kind friends before they took to asking him any awkward questions.

"Just hold up a little while longer, and then you'll be all right, Sam," he was told by Fred, and like a great many other fellows, the boy fell into a habit of observing the wishes of this leader among the scholars at Riverport High.

"Whatever you say, mister, goes," he observed, with humility. "You've sure done me a great service, and I ain't going to forget it, either. I don't reckon it'll happen that I c'n pay you back, but if the chance ever does hit me, I'm agoin' to do it, sure thing."

"Are you feeling as good as ever again, Sammy?" asked his sister, who was rather a pretty girl, Bristles thought, as he looked her over, from the wretched little hat she wore on her bonny brown hair, the odd cheap pin at her throat, the faded dress, to the coarse shoes that gaped badly at the toes.

"I certainly am," he responded, caressing the hand she had laid on the sleeve of his ragged jacket. Somehow it struck Fred right then and there that mutual suffering must have drawn these two frail looking beings closer together than the average brother and sister.

"Well, then you can make off home if you feel fit," Fred told them, "and let me tell you my friend here and myself both feel mighty glad we happened to be as close by as we were. It taught you a lesson, I expect, Sam, and you'll fight shy of blow-holes in the rotten ice after this, won't you?"

"You bet I will, mister; and say, I guess I'm gladder'n you c'n be about that same thing; because the river is awful swift around here, and I kept getting colder and weaker all the while. Couldn't have held out much longer. I want to thank both of you for what you did. I ain't goin' to ever forget it either, see if I do, though, shucks! I don't 'spect I'll ever have a chance to pay you back."

He shook hands with both Fred and Bristles, as did also the little girl, now looking both grave and pleased. Then they walked away, making for the nearby road that led from Mechanicsburg to some other town many miles away, and leaving the vicinity of the Mohunk.

Fred and Bristles prepared to seek once more the ice-boat, and resume their interrupted cruise, this time heading for home. Both of them were thrilled with a deep satisfaction on account of having been given such a splendid chance to effect a rescue, for nothing pleases the average boy more than to realize that he has been enabled to play the part of a hero.

They were not the ones to boast of such a thing as that. Indeed, neither of them considered that they had been in the slightest danger at any time. Had one of them found it necessary to jump into the cold waters of the Mohunk in order to save the drowning boy, that might have been a different matter.

"This fire does feel pretty fine," Bristles remarked, as they got ready to depart, "and I kind of hate to leave it, because, as you know, Fred, I always worship a camp fire. No need to put this one out, is there? because it couldn't set these woods afire if it tried its best, while everything's covered with snow.

"Ready to make the start? What'd you think of Sam and his sister, Sadie Ludson, eh? Mysterious sort of pair, weren't they? Didn't want to tell us anything about themselves, at all. I'm trying to knock my head and say where I've heard that name before, but so far it gets me. Well, we never may see them again, so what's it matter? I'm glad, though, you pulled Sam out of the river. He owes his life to you, Fred."

"To us, you mean, Bristles, for you had just as much to do with it as any one," insisted Fred; and afterwards, whenever he told the story, he always maintained that Bristles had stood by him, and done his share of the rescue work.

They managed to make the return trip safely, and Bristles took it upon himself later on to try to find out if anybody knew the Ludsons, but he met with little success, and with Fred was compelled to put the thing down as a mystery that could not be solved.