The Dozen from Lakerim Part 12

XVIII

He sneaked into his clothes, and descended the cold, creaking staircase in his stocking-feet. Then he put on his rubber boots, and stole out of the house like a burglar.

The wind would have wrecked any umbrella alive; but he cared naught for the rain, and hurried down the street where the Twins were sleeping the sleep of the righteous. He threw pebbles at their windows till they were awakened; and after a proper amount of deliberation in which each requested the other to go to the window, both went hand in hand on their shivering toes.

When they had leaned out and learned what B.J. invited them to, they reminded him that he was either crazy or walking in his sleep.

But B.J. answered back that they were either talking in their sleep or were "cowardy calves."

The worst of all fools is the one that is afraid to take a dare; and the Twins were--well, let us say they were not yet wide enough awake to know what they were doing. At any rate, they could not stand the banter of B.J., and had soon joined him in the soaking storm outside.

When the lake was reached the Twins were more than ever convinced that B.J. was more than ever out of his head; for, instead of the smooth mirror they had been accustomed to gliding over in the boat, they found that the ice was covered with an inch of slush and water.

The sky above was not promising and blue, nor did the wind have a merry whizz; but it laughed like a maniac, and shrieked and threatened them, warning them to go back home or take most dreadful consequences.

B.J., however, would not listen to the advice they tendered him, but went busily about getting the sails up and preparing the boat for the voyage.

The Twins were still pleading with B.J. to have some regard for the dictates of common sense, when he began to haul in the sheet-rope and put the helm down; and they had barely time to leap aboard before the boat was away.

They felt, indeed, that they were sailing in a regular sloop, and that, too, going "with lee rail awash"; for instead of the soft crooning sound the runners made usually, there was a slash and a swish of ripples cloven apart; and instead of the little fountains of ice-dust which rise from the heels of the sharp shoes when the boat is skimming the frozen surface, there rose long spurting sprays of water.

The Twins reproached each other bitterly for coming on such a wild venture. But they did not know how really sorry they were till they got well out on the lake, where the wind caught them with full force and proved to be a very gale of fury. The mast writhed and squealed, and the sails groaned and wrenched, as if they would fairly rip the boat apart.

The world seemed one vast vortex of hurricane; and yet, for all the wind that was frightening them to death, the Twins seemed to find it impossible to get enough to breathe. It was bitter, bitter cold, too, and Reddy's hands and feet reminded him only of the bags of cracked ice they put on his forehead once when he had a severe fever.

B.J., however, was as happy as the Twins were miserable, and he yelled and shouted in ecstatic glee. Now he was a gang of cow-boys at a round-up; now he was a band of Apache Indians circling fiendishly around a crew of those inland sailors who used to steer their prairie-schooners across the West.

Before the Twins could imagine it, the boat had reached the opposite side of the lake, and it was necessary to come about. Suddenly the skipper had thrown her head into, the wind, the jib and mainsail were clattering thunderously, and the boom went slashing over like a club in the hands of a giant. Before the Twins had dared to lift their heads again, there was a silence, and the sails began to fill and the boat to resume her speed quickly in a new direction. In a moment the _Greased Lightning_ was well under way along a new leg, and sailing as close as B.J. could hold her.

And now, as the Twins glared with icy eyeb.a.l.l.s into the mist ahead, suddenly they both made out a thin black line drawn as if by a great pencil across the lake in front of them.

"Watch out, B.J.," they cried; "we are coming to an enormous crack."

"Hooray for the crack!" was all the answer they got from the intrepid B.J.

And now, instead of their rushing toward the crack, it seemed to be flying at them, widening like the jaws of a terrible dragon. But the ice-boat was as fearless and as gaily jaunty as Siegfried. Straight at the black maw with bits of floating ice like the crunching white teeth of a monster, the boat held its way.

Neatly as the boy Pretty ever skimmed a hurdle in a hurdle-race, the boat skimmed the gulf of water. The ice bent and cracked treacherously, and the water flew up in little jets where it broke; but _Greased Lightning_ was off and away before there was ever a chance to engulf her. And then the heart of the Twins could beat again.

The boat was just well over the crack when she struck a patch of rough ice and yawed suddenly. There was a severe wrench. B.J. and Reddy were prepared for it; but Heady, before he knew what was the matter, had slid off the boat on to the ice and on a long tangent into the crack they had just pa.s.sed.

He let out a yell, I can tell you, and clung to the edge of the brittle ice with desperate hands.

He thought he had been cold before; but as he clung there now in the bitter water, and watched B.J. trying to bring the obstinate boat about and come alongside, he thought that the pa.s.sengers on the ice-boat were warm as in any Turkish bath.

After what seemed to him at least a century of foolish zigzagging, B.J. finally got the boat somewhere near the miserable Heady, brought the _Greased Lightning_ to a standstill, and threw the dripping Twin the sheet-rope. Then he hauled him out upon the strong ice.

B.J. begged Heady to get aboard and resume the journey, or at least ride back home; but Heady vowed he would never even look at an ice-boat again, and could not be dissuaded from starting off at a dog-trot across the lake toward home.

Reddy wanted to get out and follow him; but B.J. insisted that he could not sail the boat without some ballast, and before Reddy could step out upon the ice B.J. had flung the sail into the wind again, and was off with his kidnapped prisoner. Reddy looked disconsolately after the wretched Heady plowing through the slush homeward until his twin brother disappeared in the distance. Then he began to implore B.J. to put back to Lakerim.

Finally he began to threaten him with physical force if he did not.

B.J. fairly giggled at the thought of at last seeing one of those mutinies he had read so much about. But he contented himself with having a great deal to say about tacking on this leg and on that, and about how many points he could sail into the wind, and a lot of other gibberish that kept Reddy guessing, until the boat had gone far up the lake.

At last, to Reddy's infinite delight, B.J. announced that he was going to turn round and tack home. As they came about they gave the wind full sweep. The sail filled with a roar, and the boat leaped away like an athlete at a pistol-shot.

And now their speed was so bird-like that Reddy would have been reminded of the boy Ganymede, whom Jupiter's eagle stole and flew off to heaven with; but he had never heard of that unfortunate youth. He had the sense of flight plainly enough, though, and it terrified him beyond all the previous terrors of the morning.

As I have said before, different persons have their different specialties in courage, as in everything else; and while Reddy and Heady were brave as lads could well be in some ways, their courage lay in other lines than in running dead before the wind in a madcap ice-boat on uncertain ice.

The wind had increased, too, since they first started out, and now it was a young and hilarious gale. It began to wrench the windward runner clear of the ice and bang it down again with a stomach-turning thud.

In fact, the wind began to batter the boat about so much that B.J.

decided he must have some weight upon the windward runner, or it would be unmanageable. He told Reddy that he must make his way out to the end of the see-saw.

Reddy gave B.J. one suspicious look, and then yelled at the top of his voice:

"No, thank you!"

The calm and joyful B.J. now proceeded to grow very much excited, and to insist. He told Reddy that he must go out upon the end of the runner, or the boat would be wrecked, and both of them possibly killed. After many blood-curdling warnings of this sort, the disgusted Reddy set forth upon his most unpleasant voyage.

He crept tremblingly along the narrow backbone until he reached the crossing-point of the runner; there he grasped a hand-rope, and made his way, step by step, along the jouncing plank to the end, where he wrapped his legs around the wire stay, and held on for dear life.

Reddy's weight gave the runner steadiness enough to rea.s.sure B.J., though poor Reddy thought it was the most unstable platform he had stood upon, as it flung and bucked and shook him hither and yon with a violence that knew no rest or regularity. But, uncomfortable as he was, and much as he felt like a seasick balloonist, he did not know in what a lucky position he was, nor how happy he should have been that it was not even riskier.

There is some comfort, or there ought to be, in the fact that a situation is never so bad that it might not be worse.

B.J. was now so well satisfied with his live ballast that he began once more to sing and make a mad hullabaloo of pure enjoyment. He finally grew careless, and forgot himself and the eternal alertness that is necessary for a good skipper. Just one moment he let his mind wander, and that moment was enough. The boat, without warning to either B.J. or Reddy, jibed!

Reddy, now more than ever astounded, suddenly found himself pitching forward in the air and slamming on the ice. He slid along it for a hundred feet or more on his stomach, like a rocket with a wake of spray and slush for a tail. Reddy was soaked as completely as if he had fallen into a bath-tub, and his face and hands were cut and bruised in the bargain.

But his feelings, his mental feelings, were hurt even worse than his flesh.

As for the reckless B.J., though he was not so badly bruised as his unfortunate and unwilling guest, he was to suffer a still greater torment. He, too, was thrown from the boat into the slush; and by the time he had recovered himself the yacht was well away from the hope of capture. But that wilful boat, the _Greased Lightning_, seemed unwilling to let off her tormentor so easily.

For the astounded B.J., glaring at her as she ran on riderless, saw her come upon some rough ice, and jolt and ditch her runner, and veer until she had actually made a half-circle, and was heading straight for him!

All this remarkable change took place in a very short s.p.a.ce of time; but a large part of that small time was spent by B.J. in absolute amazement at the curious and vicious action of his boat. Then, as the yacht began to bear down on him with increasing speed, he made a dash to get out of its path; but his feet slipped on the wet ice, and he could make no headway.

B.J. saw immediately that one of two things was very sure to happen; and he could not see how either of them would result in anything but terrible disaster to him.

For if he should stand still the runner-plank would strike him below the knee and break both his legs like straws; besides, when he was knocked over he was likely to be struck by the tiller-runner, which would finish him completely.