The delight of the Lakerimmers in the banquet was no greater than the misery of the Crows whose wings had been clipped, and who had been left to flop about in the dark nooks of the chapel. The feast of the Dozen had just begun when two of the Crows in the cupola and two others in the cellar bethought themselves to roll close to each other, back to back, and untie the knots around each other's wrists. They were soon free, and quickly had their fellows liberated and the gags all removed. But the liberty of hands and feet and tongues, though it left them free to express their rage, still left them as far as ever from the banquet which, as they soon suspected, was disappearing rapidly under the teeth of the Lakerimmers. They groped around in the pitch-black darkness, and finally one of the men in the cupola found a little round window through which he could put his head and yell for help. His cry was soon answered by another that seemed to come faintly from the depths of the earth.



XI

The far-off cry which the six Crows in the cupola heard coming from the depths of the earth was raised by the eleven Crows in the cellar. By dint of much yelling the two flocks made their misery known to each other. The trouble with the cellar party was that it could not get up. The trouble with the cupola crowd was that it could not get down. And they seemed to be too far apart to be of much help to each other, for the cupola Crows had lost little time in lifting the trap-door of the belfry and finding that the ladder was gone, and none of them was hardy—or foolhardy—enough to risk the drop into the uncertain dark. So there they waited in mid-air.

The cellar Crows, when they had released each other's bonds, and groped around the jagged walls, and stumbled foolishly over each other and all the other tripping things in their dungeons, had succeeded in forcing apart the wooden doors between their three cells and joining forces—or joining weaknesses, rather, because, when they finally found the cellar stairs, they also found that, for all the strength they could throw into their backs and shoulders, they could not lift the door, with all the heavy weights put on it by the Dozen. There were a few matches in the crowd, and they sufficed to reveal the little cellar windows. These they reached by forming a human ladder, as the Gauls scaled the walls of Rome (only to find that a flock of silly geese had foiled their plans). But there were no geese to disturb the Crows, and the first of their number managed to worm through to the outer air and help up his fellows in misery.

It seemed for a time, though, as if even this escape were to be cut off; for a very fat Crow got himself stuck in a little window, and the Crows outside could not pull him through, tug as they would. Then the Crows inside began to pull at his feet and to hang their whole weight on his legs.

But still he stuck.

Then they all grew excited, and both the outsiders and the insiders pulled at once, until the luckless fat boy thought they were trying to make twins of him, and howled for mercy.

He might have been there to this day had he not managed, by some mysterious and painful wriggle, to crawl through unaided.

Before long, then, the whole crowd of cellar Crows was standing out in the cold air and asking the cupola Crows why they didn't come down.

One of the Crows (Irish by descent) suddenly started off on the run; the others called him back and asked what he was going for.

"For a clothes-line," he said.

"What are you going to do with it?" they asked.

And he answered:

"Going to throw 'em a rope and pull 'em down."

Then he wondered why they all groaned.

The word "rope," however, suggested an idea to the cupola prisoners, and after much groping they found the bell-rope, and one of them cut off a good length of it. They fastened it securely then, and slid down to the next floor, whence they made their way without much difficulty down the stairs to the ground. There they found the outer door firmly locked. Then they felt sadder than over.

But by this time the hubbub they had raised had brought on the scene several of the instructors, one of whom had a duplicate key of the gymnasium. And they suffered the terrible humiliation of being released by one of the Faculty!

On being questioned as to the cause of such a breach of the peace of the Academy, all the seventeen Crows attempted to explain the high-handed and inexcusable conduct of the wicked Dozen which had picked on eighteen defenseless men and made them prisoners. The instructor had been a boy himself once, and he could not entirely conceal a little smile at the thought of the cruelty of the Lakerim Twelve. Just then MacManus came by, and with one accord the Crows exclaimed:

"Where did they tie you up?"

"Down at Moore's restaurant," said MacManus, sheepishly.

"Well, what has happened to the banquet?" they exclaimed.

"It's all eaten!" groaned MacManus.

"Who ate it?" cawed the Crows.

"The Dozen!" moaned MacManus.

And that was the last straw that broke the Crows' backs.

They threatened all sorts of revenge, and some of the smaller-minded of them went to the Faculty and suggested that the best thing that could be done was to expel the Lakerim men in a body. But, by a little questioning, the Faculty learned of the attempted hazing that had been at the bottom of the whole matter, and decided that the best thing to do was to reprimand and warn both the Crows and the Dozen, and make them solemnly promise to bury the hatchet.

Which they did.

And thus ended one of the bitterest feuds of modern times.



XII

Now, Heady, who had set the whole kidnapping scheme on foot as soon as he joined the Dozen at Kingston, had brought to the Academy no particular love for study; but he had brought a great enthusiasm for basket-ball.

And this enthusiasm was catching, and he soon had many of the Kingstonians working hard in the gymnasium, and organizing scrub teams to play this most bewilderingly rapid of games.

Most of the Lakerimmers went in for pure love of excitement; but when Heady said that it was especially good as an indoor winter exercise to keep men in trim for football and baseball, Tug and Punk immediately went at it with great enthusiasm.

But Tug was so mixed up in the slight differences between this game and his beloved football, and so insisted upon running (which is against the rules of basket-ball), and upon tackling (which is against the rules), and upon kicking (which is against the rules), that he finally gave up in despair, and said that if he became a good basket-ball player he would be a poor football-player. And football was his earlier love.

Sleepy, however, who was the great baseball sharp, made this complaint, in his drawling fashion:

"The rules say you can only hold the ball five seconds, and it takes me at least ten seconds to decide what to do with it; so I guess the blamed game isn't for me."

Out of the many candidates for the team the following regular five were chosen: For center, Sawed-Off, who was tall enough to do the "face-off" in excellent style, and who could, by spreading out his great arms, present in front of an ambitious enemy a surface as big as a windmill—almost. The right-forward was Heady, and of course the left-forward had to be his other half, Reddy. Pretty managed by his skill in lawn-tennis to make the position of right-guard, and the left-guard was the chief of the Crows, MacManus. The Dozen treated him, if not as an equal, at least as one who had a right to be alive and move about upon the same earth with them.

The Kingston basket-ball team played many games, and grew in speed and team-play till they were looked upon as a terror by the rest of the Interscholastic League.

Finally, indeed, they landed the championship of the various basket-ball teams of the academies. But just before they played their last triumphant game in the League, and when they were feeling their oats and acting as rambunctious and as bumptious as a crowd of almost undefeated boys sometimes chooses to be, they received a challenge that caused them to laugh long and loud. At first it looked like a huge joke for the high-and-mighty Kingston basket-ball team to be challenged by a team from the Palatine Deaf-and-Dumb Institute; then it began to look like an insult, and they were angry at such treatment of such great men as they admitted themselves to be.

It occurred to Sawed-Off, however, that before they sent back an indignant refusal to play, they might as well look up the record of the deaf-and-dumb basket-ball men. After a little investigation, to their surprise, they found that these men were astoundingly clever players, and had won game after game from the best teams. So they accepted the challenge in lordly manner, and in due time the Palatiners appeared upon the floor of the Kingston gymnasium. A large audience had gathered and was seated in the gallery where the running-track ran.

Among the spectators was that girl to whom both Reddy and Heady were devoted, the girl who could not decide between them, she liked both of them so immensely, especially as she herself was the champion basket-ball player among the girls at her seminary. Each of the Twins resolved that he would not only outdo all the rest of the players upon the gymnasium floor, but also his bitter rival, his brother.

There was something uncanny, at first, in the playing of the Palatines, all of whom were deaf-mutes, except the captain, who was neither deaf nor dumb, but understood and talked the sign language.

The game opened with the usual face-off. The referee called the two centers to the middle of the floor, and then tossed the ball high in the air between them. They leaped as far as they could; but Sawed-Off's enormous height carried him far beyond the other man, and, giving the ball a smart slap, he sent it directly into the clutch of Reddy, who had run on and was waiting to receive it half over his shoulder. Finding himself "covered" by the opposing forward, he passed the ball quickly under the other man's arm across to Heady, who had run down the other side of the floor. Heady received the ball without obstruction, and by a quick overhead fling landed it in the high basket, and scored the first point, while applause and wonderment were loud in the gallery.

The Kingstonians played like one man—if you can imagine one man with twenty arms and legs. Sawed-Off made such high leaps, and covered so well, and sent the ball so well through the forwards, and supported them so well; the twin forwards dodged and ran and passed and dribbled the ball with such dash; and the guards were so alert in the protection of their goal and in obstructing the throwing of the other forwards, that three goals and the score of six were rolled up in an amazingly short time.

Sawed-Off was in so many places at once, and kept all four limbs going so violently, that the spectators began to cheer him on as "Granddaddy Longlegs." A loud laugh was raised on one occasion, when the Palatine captain got the ball, and, holding it high in the air to make a try for goal from the field, found himself covered by the towering Sawed-Off; he curved the ball downward, where one of the Twins leaped for it in front; then he wriggled and writhed with it till it was between his legs. But there the other Twin was, and with a quick, wringing clutch that nearly tied the opposing captain into a bow-knot, he had the ball away from him.

At the end of the three goals the Kingstonians began to whisper to themselves that they had what they were pleased to call a "cinch"; they alluded to the Palatines as "easy fruit," and began to make a number of fresh and grand-stand plays. The inevitable and proper result of this funny business was that they began to grow careless. The deaf-mutes, unusually alert in other ways on account of the loss of hearing and speech, were quick to see the opportunity, and to play with unexpected carefulness and dash.

The swelled heads of the Kingstonians were reduced to normal size when the Palatines quickly scored two goals. It began to look as if they would add a third score when the desperate Reddy, seeing one of the Palatine forwards about to make a try for goal, made a leaping tackle that destroyed the man's aim and almost upset him.

Reddy was just secretly congratulating himself upon his breach of etiquette when the shrill whistle of the referee brought dismay to his heart. His act was declared a foul, and the Palatines were given a "free throw." Their left-forward was allowed to take his stand fifteen feet from the basket and have an unobstructed try at it. The throw was successful, and the score now stood 6 to 5 in favor of Kingston.

The game went rapidly on, and at one stage the ball was declared "held" by the referee, and it was faced off well toward the Palatine goal. Sawed-Off made a particularly high leap in the air and an unusually fierce whack at the ball.

To his chagrin, it went up into the gallery and struck the girl to whom the Twins were so devoted, smack upon her pretty snub nose. Though the blow was hard enough to bring tears to her bright eyes, she smiled, and with a laugh and a blush picked up the ball and dropped it over the rail.

The Twins both made a dash to receive this gift from her pretty hands, and in consequence bumped into each other and fell apart.

The ball which they had robbed each other of fell into the clutch of Pretty, who made the girl a graceful bow that quite won her heart. Pretty was, by the way, always cutting the other fellows out. This was the only grudge they ever had against him.

The Twins were now more rattled than ever; and Heady determined to do or die. He saw one of the Palatines running forward and looking backward to receive the ball on a long pass, and he gave him a vicious body-check. He knew it was a foul at the time, but he thought the referee was not looking. His punishment was fittingly double, for not only did the referee see and declare the foul, but the big Palatine came with such impetus that he knocked Heady galley-west. Heady went scraping along a row of single sticks and wooden dumb-bells, making a noise like the rattle of a board along a picket fence.

Then he tumbled in a heap, with the Palatine man on top of him. As the Palatine man got up, he dislodged a number of Indian clubs, which fairly pelted the prostrate Heady. This foul gave the Palatines another free throw, and made the score a tie.



XIII

The Twins were now so angry and ashamed of themselves that they played worse than ever.

Everything seemed to go wrong with them. Their passes were blocked; their tries for goal failed; the Palatines would not even help them out with a foul. In their general disorder of plan, they could do nothing to prevent the Palatines from making goal after goal till, when the referee's whistle announced that the first twenty-minute half was over, the score stood 12 to 6 against Kingston.

The Twins were feeling sore enough as it was, but when they went to the dressing-room dripping with sweat and gasping for breath from their hard exertions, Tug appeared to rub salt into their wounds by a little lecture upon their shortcomings and fargoings.

"Heady," he said, "I guess you have been away from us a little too long. The Lakerim Athletic Club never approved of foul playing on the part of itself or any one else, and you got just what you deserved for forgetting your dignity. I suppose Reddy got the disease from you. But I want to say right here that you have got to play like Lakerim men or there is going to be trouble."

The Twins realized the depths of their disgrace before Tug spoke, and they were too much humiliated in their own hearts to resent his lofty tone. They determined to wipe the disgrace out in the only way it could be effaced: by brilliant, clean playing in the second half of the game.

When the intermission was over, they went in with such vim that they broke up all the plans of the Palatines for gaining goal, and put them to a very fierce defensive game. Heady soon scored a goal by passing the ball back to Reddy and then running forward well into Palatine territory, and receiving it on a long pass, and tossing it into the basket before he could be obstructed.

But this ray of hope was immediately dimmed by the curious action of MacManus, who, forgetting that he was not on the football field, and receiving the ball unexpectedly, made a brilliant run down the field with it, carrying it firmly against his body. He was brought back with a hang-dog expression and the realization that he had unconsciously played foul and given the Palatines another free throw, which made their score 13 to 8.

A little later Reddy, finding himself with his back to the Palatine goal, and all chance of passing the ball to his brother foiled by the large overshadowing form of the Palatine captain, determined to make a long shot at luck, and threw the ball backward over his head.

A loud yell and a burst of applause announced that fortune had favored him: he had landed the ball exactly in the basket.

But Heady went him one better, for he made a similarly marvelous goal with a smaller element of luck. Finding himself in a good position for a try, he was about to send the ball with the overhead throw that is usual, when he was confronted by a Palatine guard, who completely covered all the space in front of the diminutive Heady. Like a flash Heady dropped to the floor in a frog-like attitude, and gave the ball a quick upward throw between the man's outspread legs and up into the basket.

And now the audience went wild indeed at seeing two such plays as have been seen only once or twice in the history of the game.

With the score of 13 to 12 in their favor, the Palatines made a strong rally, and prevented the Kingstonians from scoring. They were tired, and evidently thought that their safety lay in sparring for time. And the referee seemed willing to aid them, for his watch was in his hand, and the game had only the life of a few seconds to live, when the ball fell into the hands of Heady. The desperate boy realized that now he had the final chance to retrieve the day and wrest victory from defeat. He was far, far from the basket, but he did not dare to risk the precious moment in dribbling or passing the ball. The only hope lay in one perfect throw. He held the ball in his hands high over his head, and bent far back. He straightened himself like a bow when the arrow of the Indian leaves its side. He gave a spring into the air, and launched the ball at the little basket. It soared on an arc as beautiful as a rainbow's. It landed full in the basket.

But the force of the blow was so great that the ball choggled about and bounded out upon the rim. There it halted tantalizingly, rolled around the edge of the basket, trembled as if hesitating whether to give victory to the Palatines or the Kingstons.

After what seemed an age of this dallying, it slowly dropped—

To the floor.

A deep, deep sigh came from the lips of all, even the Palatines. And down into the hearts of the Twins there went a solemn pain. They had lost the game—that was bad enough; but they knew that they deserved to lose it, that their own misplays had brought their own punishment. But they bore their ordeal pluckily, and when, the next week, they met another team, they played a clean, swift game that won them stainless laurels.



XIV

Snow-time set Quiz to wondering what he could do to occupy his spare moments; for the drifts were too deep for him to continue his beloved pastime of bicycling, and he had to put his wheel out of commission. So he went nosing about, trying a little of everything, and being satisfied with nothing.

The Academy hockey team, of which Jumbo was the leader, was working out a fine game and making its prowess felt among the rival teams of the Tri-State Interscholastic League. But hockey did not interest Quiz; for though he could almost sleep on a bicycle without falling over, when he put on a pair of skates you might have thought that he was trying to turn somersaults or describe interrogation-points in the air.

It was a little cold for rowing,—though Quiz pulled a very decent oar,—and the shell would hardly go through the ice at an interesting speed. Indoor work in the gymnasium was also too slow for Quiz, and he was asking every one what pastime there was to interest a young man who required speed in anything that was to hold his attention.

At length he bethought him of a sport he had seen practised during a visit he paid once to some relatives in Minnesota, where the many Norwegian immigrants practised the art of running upon the skies. At first sight this statement looks as if it might have come out of the adventures of that trustworthy historian, Baron Muenchhaeusen. But the skies you are thinking of are not the skies I mean.

The Scandinavian skies are not blue, and they are not overhead, but underfoot. Of course you know all about the Norwegian ski, but perhaps your younger brother does not, so I will say for his benefit that the ski is a sort of Norwegian snow-shoe, only it is almost as swift as the seven-league boots. When you put it on you look as if you had a toboggan on each foot; for it is a strip of ash half an inch thick, half a dozen inches wide, and some ten feet long; the front end of it pointed and turned up like that of a toboggan.

When you first get the things on, or, rather, get on them, you learn that, however pleasant they may grow to be as servants, they are certainly pretty bad masters; and you will find that the groove which is run in the bottom of the skies to prevent their spreading is of very little assistance, for they seem to have a will of their own, and also a bitter grudge against each other: they step on each other one moment, and make a wild bolt in opposite directions the next, and behave generally like a pair of unbroken colts.

Quiz had once learned to walk on snow-shoes. He grew to be quite an adept, indeed, and could take a two-foot hurdle with little difficulty. But he soon found that so far from being a help, his familiarity with the snow-shoe was a great hindrance.

The mode of walking on a Canadian snow-shoe, which he had learned with such difficulty, had to be completely unlearned before he could begin to make progress with the Scandinavian footgear. For in snow-shoe walking the feet must be lifted straight up and then carried forward before they are planted, and any attempt to slide them forward makes a woeful tangle; to try to lift the ski off the ground, however, is to invite ridiculous distress, and the whole art of scooting on the ski is in the long, sliding motion. It is a sort of skating on incredibly long skates that must not be lifted from the snow.

Quiz had the skies made by a Kingston carpenter; and he was so proud of them that, when a crowd gathered to see what he was going to do with the mysterious slats, he proceeded to make his first attempt in an open space in the Academy campus. He put the skies down on the snow, slipped his toes into the straps, and, sweeping a proud glance around among the wondering Kingstonians, dashed forward in his old snow-shoe fashion.

It took the Kingstonians some seconds to decide which was Quiz and which was ski. For the skittish skies skewed and skedaddled and skulked and skipped and scrubbed and screwed and screamed and scrawled and scooped and scrabbled and scrambled and scambled and scumbled and scraped and scrunched and scudded and scuttled and scuffled and skimped and scattered in such scandalous scampishness that the scornful scholars scoffed.

Quiz quit.

The poor boy was so laughed at for days by the whole Academy that his spunk was finally aroused. He got out again the skies he had hidden away in disgust, and practised upon them in the fields, at a distance from the campus, until he had finally broken the broncos and made a swift and delightful team of them. He soon grew strong enough to glide for hours at a high rate of speed without weariness, and the ski became a serious rival to the bicycle in his affections.

He learned to shoot the hills at a breathless rate, climbing up swiftly to the top; then, with feet apart, but even, zipping like an express-train down the steep incline and far along the level below.

He even risked his bones by attempting the rash deeds of old ski-runners. Reaching an embankment, he would retire a little distance, and then rush forward to the brink and leap over into the air, lighting on the ground below far out, steadying himself quickly, and shooting on at terrific pace.

But this rashness brought its own punishment—as fool-hardiness usually does.



XV

At dinner, one Saturday, Quiz had broken out in exclamations of delight over his pet skies, and had begun to complain about the time when spring should drive away the blessed winter.

"I can't get enough of the snow," he exclaimed.

"Oh, can't you?" said Jumbo, ominously.

Quiz could hardly finish his dinner, so impatient was he to be up and off again, over the hills and far away. When he had gone, Jumbo asked the other Lakerimmers if they had not noticed how exclusive Quiz was becoming, and how little they saw of him. He said, also, that he did not approve of Quiz' rushing all over the country alone and taking foolish risks for the sake of a little solitary fun.

The Lakerimmers agreed that something should be done; and Jumbo reminded them of Quiz' remark that he could not get enough snow, and suggested a plan that, he thought, might work as a good medicine on him.

That afternoon Quiz seemed to have quite lost his head over his ski-running. He felt that there were signs of a thaw in the air, and he proposed that this snow should not fade away before he had indulged in one grand, farewell voyage. He struck off into the country by a new road, and at such a speed that he was soon among unfamiliar surroundings.

As the day began to droop toward twilight he decided that it was high time to be turning back toward Kingston. He looked about for one last embankment to shoot before he retraced his course.

Far in the distance he thought he saw a fine, high bluff, and he hurried toward it with delicious expectation. When he had reached the brink he looked down and saw that the bluff ended in a little body of water hardly big enough to be called a lake. After measuring the drop with his eye, and deciding that while it was higher than anything he had ever shot before, it was just risky enough to be exciting, he went back several steps, came forward with a good impetus, and launched himself fearlessly into the air like the aeronaughty Darius Green.

He launched himself fearlessly enough, but he was no sooner in mid-air than he began to regret his rashness. It was rather late now, though, to be thinking of that, and he realized that nothing could save him from having a sudden meeting with the bottom of the hill.

He lost his nerve in his excitement, and crossed his skies, so that when he struck, instead of sailing forward like the wind, he stuck and went headforemost. Fortunately, one of his skies broke—instead of most of his bones; and a very kind-hearted snow-bank appeared like a feather-bed, and somewhat checked the force of his fall. But, for all that, he was soon rolling over and over down the hill, and he landed finally on a thin spot in the ice of the lake, and crashed through into the water up to his waist.

Now he was so panic-stricken that he scrambled frantically out. He cast one sorry glance up the hill, and saw there the pieces into which his ski had cracked, as well as the pathway he himself had cleared in the snow as he came tumbling down. Then he looked for the other ski, and realised that it was far away under the ice.

He was now so cold, that, dripping as he was, he would not have waded into the lake again to grope around for the other ski if that ski had been solid gold studded with diamonds.

Plainly, the only thing to do was to make for home, and that right quickly, before night came on and he lost his way, and the pneumonia got him.

It was a very different story, trudging back through the snow-drifts in the twilight, from flitting like a butterfly on the ski. He realized now that his legs were tired from the long run he had enjoyed so much. He lost his way, too, time and again; and when he came to a cross-roads and had to guess for himself which path to take, somehow or other he seemed always to take the wrong one, and to plod along it until he met some farmer to put him on the right path to Kingston. But though he met many a farmer, he seemed to find never a wagon going his way, or even a hospitable-looking farm-house.

He was still miles away from Kingston when lamp-lighting time came. A little gleam came cheerfully toward him out of the dark. He hurried to it, thinking of the fine supper the kind-hearted farmers would doubtless give him, when, just as he reached the gate of the door-yard, there was a most blood-curdling uproar, and two or three furious dogs came bounding shadowily toward him.

He lost no time in deciding that supper, after all, was a rather useless invention, and Kingston much preferable.

Previously to this, Quiz had always understood that the dog was the most kind-hearted of animals, but it was months after that night before he could hear the mere name of a canine without shuddering.

Well, a boy can cover any distance imaginable,—even the path to the moon,—if he only has the strength and the time. So Quiz finally reached the outskirts of Kingston.

His long walk had dried and warmed him somewhat; but he was miserably tired, and he felt that his stomach was as empty as the Desert of Sahara. At last, though, he reached the campus, and dragged heavily along the path to his dormitory.

He stopped at Tug's to see if Tug had any remains left of the latest box of good things from home; but no answer came to his knock, and he went sadly up to the next Lakerim room. But that was empty too, and all of the others of the Dozen were away.

For they had become alarmed at Quiz' absence, and started out in search of him, as they had once before set forth on the trail of Tug and History.



By the time Quiz reached his room he was too tired to be very hungry, and he decided that his bed would be Paradise enough. So, all cold and weary as he was, he hastily peeled off his clothes, and blew out the light. He shivered at the very thought of the coldness of the sheets, but he fairly flung himself between them.

Just one-tenth of a second he spent in his downy couch, and then leaped out on the floor with a howl. He remembered suddenly the look Jumbo had given him at dinner when he had said he could not get snow enough.

Jumbo and the other fiends from Lakerim had filled the lower half of his bed with it!

* * * * *

Late that night, when the eleven Lakerimmers came back, weary from their long search, and frightened at not finding Quiz, Jumbo went to his room with a sad heart. When he lighted his lamp and looked longingly toward his downy bed, he saw a pair of flashing eyes glaring at him over the coverlet. They were the eyes of Quiz; and within easy reach lay a baseball bat and several large lumps of coal. But all Quiz said was:

"Excuse me for getting into your bed, Jumbo. You are perfectly welcome to mine."



XVI

But, speaking of cold, you ought to hear about the great fire company that was organized at the Academy.

The town of Kingston was not large enough or rich enough to support a full-fledged fire department with paid firemen and trained horses. It had nothing but an old-fashioned engine, a hose-cart, and a ladder-truck, all of which had to be drawn by two-footed steeds, the volunteer firemen of the village.

The Lakerimmers had not been in Kingston many weeks before they heard the fire-bell lift its voice. It was not more than twenty minutes before the Kingston fire department appeared galloping along the rough road in front of the campus at a fearsome speed of about six miles an hour.

Several of the horses wore long white beards, and others of them were so fat that they added more weight than power to the team.

Such of the academicians as had no classes at that hour followed these champing chargers to the scene of the fire.

It turned out to be a woodshed, which was as black and useless as a burnt biscuit by the time the fire department arrived.

But the Volunteers had the pleasure of dropping a hose down the well of the owner of the late lamented woodshed, and pumping the well dry. The Volunteers thus bravely extinguished three fence-posts that had caught fire from the woodshed, and then turned for home, proud in the consciousness of duty performed. They felt sure that they had saved the village from a second Chicago fire.

Jumbo said that the department ought not to be called the Volunteers, but the Crawfishes. B.J., who had a scientific turn of mind, said that he had an idea for a great invention.

"The world revolves from west to east at the rate of a thousand miles an hour," he said.

"I've heard so," broke in Jumbo, "but you can't believe everything you see in print."

B.J. brushed him aside, and went on:

"Now, all you've got to do is to invent a scheme for raising your fire-engine and your firemen up in the air a few feet, and holding them still while the earth revolves under them. Then you turn a kind of a wheel, or something, when the place you want to get to comes around, and there you are in a jiffy. It would beat the Empire State Express all hollow. Why, it would be faster even than an ice-boat!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "I guess I'll have to get that idea patented."

"But say, B.J.," said Bobbles, in a puzzled manner, "suppose your fire was in the other direction? You'd have to go clear around the world to get to the place."

"I didn't think of that," said B.J., dejectedly.

And thus one of the greatest inventions of the age was left uninvented.

* * * * *

But Tug had also been set to thinking by the snail-like Kingston firemen.

"What this place really needs," he said, "is some firemen that can run. They want more speed and less rheumatism. Now, if we fellows could only join the department we'd show 'em a few things."

"Why can't we?" said Punk, always ready to carry out another's suggestion.

"George Washington was a volunteer fireman," was History's ever-present reminder from the books.

The scheme took like wild-fire with the Dozen, and after a conference in which the twelve heads got as close together as twenty-four large feet would permit, it was decided to ask permission of the Academy Faculty and of the town trustees.

The Kingston Faculty was of the general opinion that it is ordinarily—though by no means always—the best plan to allow restless boys to carry out their own schemes. If the scheme is a bad one they will be more likely to be convinced of it by putting it into practice than by being told that it is bad, and forbidden to attempt it. So, after long deliberation, they consented to permit half a dozen of the larger Lakerim fellows to join the volunteer department.

Fires were not frequent, and most of the buildings of the village were so small that little risk was to be feared.

The trustees of the village saw little harm in allowing the academicians to drag their heavy trucks for them, and promised that they would not permit the boys to rush into any dangerous places.

In a short while, then, the half-dozen were full-fledged firemen, with red flannel shirts, rubber boots, and regulation hats. The Lakerimmers were so proud of their new honor that they wanted to wear their gorgeous uniforms in the class-rooms. But the heartless Faculty put its foot down hard on this.

The very minute the six—Tug, Punk, Sleepy, B.J., and the Twins—were safely installed as Volunteers, it seemed that the whole town had suddenly become fire-proof.

The boys could neither study their lessons nor recite them with more than half a mind, for they had always one ear raised for the sound of the delightful fire-bell. They always hoped that when the fire would come it would be in the midst of a recitation; and Sleepy constantly failed to prepare himself at all, in the hope that at the critical moment he would be rescued from flunking by a call to higher duties. But fate was ironical, and after two or three weeks of this nerve-wearing existence the Volunteers began to lose hope.

One Saturday afternoon, when the roads were frozen into ruts as hard and sharp as iron, and when the Dozen had just started forth to take a number of pretty girls to see a promising hockey game, the villainous old fire-bell began to call for help.

The half-dozen regretted for a moment that they had ever volunteered to be Volunteers; but they would not shirk their duty, and instantly dashed toward the shed where the fire department was stored. They were there long before any of the older Volunteers, and had a long, impatient wait. Then there were all manner of delays; breakages had to be repaired and axles greased before a start could be properly made. But at last they were off, tearing down the rough roads at a speed that made the older firemen plead for mercy.

The alarm had come from a man who had been painting a church steeple, and had seen a cloud of smoke in the direction of the "Mitchell place," a large farm-house some little distance out of the village limits.

There was a fine exhilaration about the run until they reached the edge of the town, and began to drag the bouncing, jouncing cart over the miserable country road. Still they tugged on, going slower and slower, and the older Volunteers letting go of the rope and falling by the wayside like the wounded at the hill of San Juan.

Finally even the half-dozen had to slacken speed, too, and walk, for fear of losing the whole fire department—the chief had already given out in exhaustion, and insisted upon climbing on one of the trucks and riding the rest of the way. But at length, somehow or other, the Kingston Volunteers reached the farm-house at a slow walk, their tongues almost hanging out of their mouths, and their breath coming in gasps.

Strange to say, there were no signs of excitement at the Mitchell place, though a great cloud of black smoke poured from a huge hollow sycamore-tree that had been cut off about ten feet from the ground, and was used as a primitive smoke-house.

The Volunteers looked at this tree, and then at one another, without a word. Then Mr. Mitchell came slowly toward his gate, and asked why he had been honored with such a visit.

The only one that had breath enough to say a word was the fire chief, who had ridden the latter part of the way. He explained the alarm, and asked the cause of the smoke.

Mr. Mitchell drawled: "Wawl, I'm jest a-curin' some hams."

As they all pegged dismally homeward, the half-dozen thought that Mr. Mitchell had also just about cured six Volunteers. And when the half-dozen took off their red flannel shirts that day, they no longer looked upon them as red badges of courage, but rather as a sort of penitentiary uniform.

The fire department of Kingston had such another long snooze that the half-dozen began now to rejoice in the hope that there would not be another fire before vacation-time. They had almost forgotten that they were Volunteers, and went about their studies and pastimes with the fine care-freedom of glorious boyhood.

* * * * *

Then came a cold wave suddenly out of the West—a tidal wave of bitter winds and blizzardy snow-storms, that sent the mercury down into the shoes of the thermometer.

Things froze up with a snap that you could almost hear.

It seemed that it would be impossible even to put a nose out of the warm rooms without hearing a sudden crackle, and seeing it drop to the ground, and the ears after it. The very stoves had to be coaxed and coddled to keep warm.

Jumbo said: "Why, I have to button my overcoat around my stove, and feed it with coal in a teaspoon, to keep it from freezing to death!"

The academicians went to and from their classes on the dead run, and even the staid professors scampered along the slippery paths with more thought of speed than of dignity.

That night was the coldest that the oldest inhabitant of Kingston could remember. The very winds seemed to be tearing madly about, trying to keep warm, and screaming with pain, they were so cold! Ugh! my ears tingle to think of it. The Lakerimmers piled the coal high in their stoves, and piled their overcoats, and even the rugs from the floor, over their beds.

Sleepy, whose blood was so slow that he was never warm enough in winter and never very warm in summer, even spread all the newspapers he could find inside his bed, and crawled in between them, having heard that paper is one of the warmest of coverings. The journals crackled like, popcorn every time he moved; but he moved very little and it would have been a loud noise indeed that could have kept him awake.

At a very early hour, then, the Volunteers and the rest of the Dozen were as snug as bugs in rugs.

And then,—oh, merciless fate!—at the coldest and dismalest hour of the whole twenty-four, when the night is about over and the day is not begun, at about 3 A.M., what, oh, what! should sound, even above the howls of the wind and the rattlings of the windows and doors, but that fiend of a fire-bell!

It clanged and banged and clamored and boomed and pounded its way even through the harveyized armor-plate of the Lakerim ship of sleep.

Tug was the first to wake, and his heart almost stopped with horror of the time the old bell had chosen for making itself heard. Tug was a brave boy, and he had a high sense of responsibility; but he had also a high sense of the comfort of a good warm bed on a bitter cold night, and he lay there, his heart torn up like a battle-field, where the two angels of duty and evil fought bitterly. And he was perfectly willing to give them plenty of time to fight it out to a finish.

* * * * *

In another room of the dormitory there was another struggle going on, though it would be rather flattering to say that they were angels who were struggling. The Twins had wakened at the same moment, and each had pretended to be asleep at first. Then each had remembered that misery loves company, and each had jabbed the other in the ribs, at the same time.

"What bell is that?" Reddy had asked Heady, and Heady had asked Reddy, at the same instant.

"It's that all-fired fire-bell!" both exclaimed, each answering the other's question and his own.

"Jee-minetly! but this is a pretty time for that old thing to break out!" wailed Reddy.

"It ought to be ashamed of itself," moaned Heady.

"It's too bad," said Reddy; "but a fireman mustn't mind the wind or the weather."

"That's so," sighed Heady, "but I'm sorry for you."

"What!" cried Reddy, "you're sorry for me! What's the matter with yourself?"

"Why, I couldn't possibly think of going out such a night as this," explained Heady; "you know I haven't been at all well for the last few days."

"Oh, haven't you!" complained Reddy. "Well, you're twice as well as I am, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself to shirk your duty this way."

"Duty! Humph! There's nothing the matter with you! It would be criminal for me, though, to go out a night like this, feeling as I do. Mother would never forgive me. But you had better hurry, or you'll be late," urged Heady.

"Hurry nothing!" said Reddy. "I'm surprised, though, to see you trying to pretend that you're sick, and trying to send me out on a terrible night like this when you know I'm really sick."

Then the quarrel waxed fiercer and fiercer, until they quit using words and began to apply hands and feet. It was not many minutes before each had kicked the other out of bed, and each had carried half of the bedclothing with him.

Neither of them remained any longer than was necessary on the cold floor, but each grabbed up his half of the bedding, and rolled himself up in it, and lay down with great dignity as far away from the other as he could get, even though he hung far over the edge.

But the covers had been none too warm all together, and now, divided into half, the Twins were soon shivering in misery. They stood it as long as they could, and then, as if by a silent agreement, they decided to declare a peace, and each remarked:

"I guess we're both too sick to go out such a night as this." And they were soon asleep again.

* * * * *

When Punk heard the fire-bell, his heart grew bitter at the thought of the still bitterer night. He did not think it proper for one of his conservative nature to violate all the rules of health and self-respect by going out in such rowdy weather.

He peeked over the edge of his coverlet, and saw that his stove was still glowing, and that his own room was not on fire.

Then he reached out one quick arm and pulled his slippers into bed with him, and when they were warm enough put them on his feet, wrapped himself up well, and, running to the window, raised it quickly, thrust his head out, and looked up and down the campus. This quick glance satisfied him of two things: first, that none of the beloved Academy buildings were on fire; and second, that he was never much interested in the old village, anyway.

So he toddled back to his cozy bed.

B.J. was sleeping so soundly that the fire-bell could not wake him; it simply rang in his ears and mingled with his dreams. In the land of dreams he went to all sorts of fires, and saved thirty or forty lives, mainly of beautiful maidens in top stories of blazing palaces. His dreamland rescues were as heroic as any one could desire, but that was as near as he came to answering the call of the Kingston alarm.

* * * * *

As for Sleepy, it is doubtful if the bell would have awakened him if it had been suspended from his bed-post; but from where it was it never reached even to his dreams, if, indeed, even dreams could have wormed their way into his solid slumbers.

* * * * *

Tug's conscience, however, was giving him a sharper pain than he suffered at the thought of the night outside. At length he could stand the thought of being found wanting in his duty, no longer.

He flung himself out of bed and into his clothes, his teeth beating a tattoo, his knees fighting a boxing-match, and his hands all thumbs with the cold. Then he put on two pairs of trousers, three coats, and an overcoat, two caps, several mufflers, and a pair of heavy mittens over a pair of gloves, and flew down the stairs and dived out into the storm like a Russian taking a plunge-bath in an icy stream. Fairly plowing through the freezing winds, along the cinder paths he hurried, and down the clattering board walks of the village to the building of the fire department.

He met never a soul upon the arctic streets, and he found never a soul at the meeting-place of the all-faithful Volunteers. What amazed him most was that he found not even a man there to ring the bell. The rope, however, was flouncing about in the wind, and the bell itself was still thundering alarums over the town.

Tug's first thought at this discovery was—spooks! As is usual with people who do not believe in ghosts, they were the first things he thought of as an explanation of a mysterious performance.

His second thought was the right one. The hurricane had ripped off the boarding about the bell, and the wind itself was the bell-ringer.

With a sigh of the utmost tragedy, Tug turned back toward his room. He was colder now than ever, and by the time he reached the dormitory he was too nearly frozen to stop and upbraid Punk and the other derelicts who had proved false at a crisis that also proved false.

The next morning, however, he gathered them all in his room and read them a severe lecture. They had been a disgrace to the Lakerim ideal, he insisted, and they had only luck, and not themselves, to credit for the fact that they were not made the laughing-stock of the town and the Academy.

And that day the half-dozen sent in its resignation from the volunteer fire department of the village of Kingston.



XVII

It was not long after this that the Christmas vacation hove in sight, and the Dozen forgot the blot upon its escutcheon in the thought of the delight that awaited it in renewing acquaintance with its mothers and other best girls at Lakerim, not to mention the cronies in the club-house. Each had his plans for making fourteen red-letter days out of the two weeks they were to spend at home. Peaceful thoughts filled the hearts of most of them, but B.J. dreamed chiefly of the furious conflicts that awaited him on the lake, which had been the scene of many an adventure in his mettlesome ice-boat.

The last days crawled painfully by for all of them, and the Dozen grew more and more meek as they became more and more homesick for their mothers. They were boys indeed now, and until they reached the old town; but there there was such a cordial reception for them from the whole village—fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, best girls, cronies, and even dogs—that by the time they had reached the club-house which had been built by their own efforts, and in which they were recorded on a beautiful panel as the charter members, they felt that they were aged, white-haired veterans returning to some battle-field where they were indeed famous.

A reception was given in their honor at the club-house, and Tug made a speech, and the others gave various more or less ridiculous and impressive exhibitions of their grandeur.

After a day or two of this glory, however, they became fellow-citizens with the rest of the villagers, and were content to sit around the club-room and tell stories of the grand old days when the Lakerim Athletic Club had no club-house to cover its head—the days when they fought so hard for admission to the Tri-State Interscholastic League of Academies. They were, to tell the truth, though, just a little disappointed, in the inside of their hearts, that the successors left behind to carry on the club were doing prosperously, winning athletic victories, and paying off the debt in fine style—quite as well as if they themselves had been there.

The most popular of the story-tellers was B.J., whose favorite and most successful yarn was the account of the great ice-boat adventure, when the hockey team was wrecked upon Buzzard's Rock, and spent the night in the snow-drifts, with the blizzard howling outside. The memory of that terrible escape made the blood run cold in the veins of the other members of the club; but it aroused in B.J. only a new and irresistible desire to be off again upon the same adventure-hunt.

Now, B.J.'s father was an enthusiastic sailor—fortunately, not so rash a sailor as his son, but quite as great a lover of a "flowing sail." Wind-lover as he was, he could not spend a winter idly, and turned his attention to ice-boating.

He owned a beautiful modern vessel made of basswood, butternut, and pine, with rigging all of steel, and a runner-plank as springy as an umbrella frame. She carried no more than four hundred square feet of sail; but when he gave her the whip, and let her take to her heels, she outran the fleetest wind that ever swept the lake.

And she skipped and sported along near the railroad track, where the express-train raced in vain with her; for she could make her sixty miles an hour or more without gasping for breath.

She was named Greased Lightning.

Now, B.J.'s father had ample cause to be suspicious of that young man's discretion, and he never permitted him to take the boat out alone, good sailor as he knew his son to be; so B.J. had to content himself with parties of boys and girls hilarious with the cold and speed, and wrapped up tamely in great blankets, under the charge of his father, who was a more than cautious sailor, being as wise as he was old, and seeing the foolishness of those pleasures which depend only on risking bone and body.

But B.J. was wretched, and chafed under the restraint of such respectable amusement—with girls, too!

And when, in the midst of the holidays, his father was called out of town, B.J. went to bed, and could hardly fall asleep under the conspiracies he began to form for eloping on one last escapade with the ice-boat.

He woke soon after daybreak, the next morning, and hurried to his window. There he found a gale of wind blowing and lashing the earth with a furious rain. The wind he received with welcoming heart, but the rain sent terror there; for it told him that the ice would soon disappear, and he would be sent back to Kingston Academy, with never a chance to let loose the Greased Lightning.

"It is now or never!" mumbled B.J., clenching his teeth after the manner of all well-regulated desperados.



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 eyeballs 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 passed.

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 passengers 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 reassure 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 space 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.

If, on the other hand, he tried to jump into the air and escape the runner, he stood a fine chance of being hit on the head by the boom, which would deal a blow like the guard of an express-engine. Before these two sickening probabilities the boy paused motionless, helpless.

It was the choice of frying-pan or fire.



XIX

B.J. decided to take the chances of a battered skull rather than let both the windward runner and the tiller-runner have a slash at him.

He gathered himself for a dive into the air.

But, just as he was about to leap, a sudden gust of wind lifted the windward runner off the ice at least two feet.

Like lightning B.J. dropped face down on the ice, and the boat passed harmlessly over him, the runner just grazing his coat-sleeve.

Having inflicted what seemed to it to be punishment enough, the Greased Lightning sailed coquettishly on down the lake, and finally banged into a dock at home, and stopped. B.J. and Reddy made off after it as fast as they could on the slippery ice with the help of the wind at their backs; but they never overtook it, and the run served them only the good turn of warming them somewhat, and thus saving them from all the dire consequences they deserved for their foolhardiness.

When Reddy reached home, he found that Heady had preceded him. Both were put to bed and dosed with such bitter medicine that they almost forgot the miseries they had had upon the lake. But it was many a day before they would consent to speak to B.J.

When they saw him coming they crossed the street with great dignity, and if he spoke to them they seemed stricken with a sudden deafness.

B.J.'s troubles did not end with his return home; for, somehow or other, the escapade with the ice-boat reached his father's ears. And it is reported that B.J.'s father forgot for a few minutes the fact that his son was now a dignified academician. At any rate, B.J. took his meals standing for a day or two, and he could not explain this strange whim to the satisfaction of his friends.

* * * * *

Every member of the Dozen realized the necessity of keeping the body clean if he would be a successful athlete, and of keeping his linen and clothes comely if he would be a successful gentleman. Taken altogether, the Twelve were exactly what could be called "neat but not gaudy." But presentable as all of them were, there was none that took so much pains and pride in the elegances of dress as the boy Pretty, who won his title from his fondness for being what the others sometimes called a dude. But he was such a whole-hearted, vigorous, athletic young fellow, with so little foolishness about his make-up, that the name did not carry with it the insult it usually conveys.

The chief offense Pretty gave to the less careful of the Dozen was his fondness for carrying a cane, a practice which the rest of the boys, being boys, did not affect. But Pretty was not to be dissuaded from this, nor from any of his other foibles, by ridicule, and the others finally gave him up in despair.

When he went to Kingston there was a new audience for his devotion to matters of dress. But at the Academy it was considered a breach of respect to the upper-classmen for the lower-classmen to carry canes. Pretty, however, simply sniffed at the tradition, and said it didn't interest him at all.

Finally a large Senior vowed he would crack the cane in pieces over Pretty's head, if necessary.

Pretty heard these threats, and was prepared for the man. When the fatal moment of their meeting arrived, though the Senior was much bigger than Pretty, the Lakerim youth did not run—at least, he ran no farther than was necessary to clear a good space for the use of a little single-stick exercise.

Pretty was no boxer, but he was a firm believer in the value of a good stout cane. Imagine his humiliation, then, when he found, in the first place, that the crook of his stick had caught in his coat-pocket and spoiled one good blow, and, in the second place, that the fine strong slash he meant to deliver overhead like a broad-sword stroke merely landed upon the upraised arm of the Senior, and had its whole force broken. Pretty then had the bitter misery of seeing his good sword wrenched from his hand and broken across the knee of the Senior, who very magnificently told him that he must never appear on the campus again with a walking-stick.

Pretty was overcome with embarrassment at the outcome of his innocent foppery, and of his short, vain battle, and he was the laughing-stock of the Seniors for a whole day. But, being of Lakerim mettle and metal, he did not mean to let one defeat mean a final overthrow. He told the rest of the Lakerimmers that he would carry a cane anyway, and carry it anywhere he pleased, and that the next man who attempted to take it from him would be likely to get "mussed up."

About this time he found a magazine article that told the proper sort of cane to carry, and the proper way to use it in case of attack; and he proceeded to read and profit.

Now, inasmuch as Sawed-Off was working his way through the Academy, and paying his own expenses, without assistance except from what small earnings he could make himself, it was only natural that he should always be the one who always had a little money to lend to the other fellows, though they had their funds from home. It was now Pretty who came to him for the advance of cash enough to buy a walking-stick of the following superb description: a thoroughly even, straight-grained bit of hickory-wood, tapered like a billiard-cue, an inch and a half thick at the butt and three fourths of an inch thick at the point, the butt carrying a knob of silver, and the point heavily ferruled.

Pretty had managed to find such a stick in the small stores of Lakerim. He bought it with Sawed-Off's money, and he practised his exercises with it so vigorously and so secretly that when he next appeared upon the campus and carried it, the Senior who had attacked him before, let him go by without any hindrance. He was fairly stupefied at the impudence of this Lakerimmer whom he thought he had thrashed so soundly. He did not know that the main characteristic of the Lakerimmer is this: he does not know when he is whipped, or, if he does know it, he will not stay whipped.

But once he had recovered his senses, the haughty Senior did not lose much time in making another onslaught on Pretty.

When some of his friends were pouring cold water on this Senior's bruised head a few minutes later, he poured cold water on their scheme to attempt to carry out what he had failed in, for he said:

"Don't you ever go up against that Lakerim fellow; his cane works like a Gatling gun."

So Pretty was permitted to carry his cane; and though he swaggered a little, perhaps, no further attempt was made by the Seniors to take the stick away from him. They had to content themselves with trying to throw water on him from upper windows; but their aim was bad.



XX

Pretty had not been home long on his Christmas vacation before he called at the home of the beautiful girl Enid, who had helped him win so many tennis games, and who was the best of all the best girls he devoted himself to, either in Kingston, Lakerim, or any other of the towns he blessed with his smiling presence.

Enid and Pretty, being great lovers of fresh air, took many a long walk on the country roads about Lakerim.

One day, when the air was as exhilarating and as electric as the bubbles in a glass of ice-cream soda, they took a much longer stroll than usual.

Then they made a sudden decision to turn homeward; for, rounding a sharp bend in the road, they saw coming toward them three burly tramps.

At the sight of these Three Graces both Pretty and Enid stopped short in some little uneasiness. The tramps also stopped short, and seemed to engage in a conversation about the two young people ahead of them on the road.

Pretty, on account of the extreme neatness of his costume, often got credit for being a much richer lad than he was. And Enid also was as careful and as successful in her costumery as Pretty. So the three tramps probably thought they had before them two children of wealth, who would be amply provided with pocket-money. But if they had only known how little the two really had in their possession, the adventure you are about to hear would never have happened.

But while Pretty was flicking the dirt at the end of his toe with his walking-stick, and wondering if he really cared to go any farther, the tramps moved toward him quickly.

Enid, being a girl, was frightened, and did not try to conceal it, but said:

"Oh, Pretty, let's go home at once!"

Pretty, being a boy, thought he must make a display of courage, even if he didn't feel it; so, while his heart clattered away in his breast, and he could hardly find breath to speak, he said with some show of composure:

"Yes, Enid; I think we have walked far enough for to-day."

Then they whirled about and started for home at a good gait. They had not gone far when Enid, glancing back over her shoulder, noticed that the tramps were coming up at a still more rapid walk.

One of them, indeed, called out in a suspiciously friendly tone:

"Hey, young feller, hold up a minute and tell us what time it is, will ye?"

Enid gasped:

"Let's run, Pretty; come on."

But Pretty answered with much dignity:

"Run? What for?" And he turned and called back to the tramp: "I don't know what time it is."

Then the tramps insisted again that Pretty wait for them to come up. But when he continued to walk without answering them, they began to hurl oaths and rocks, and to run toward him. Now Pretty thought that discretion was the better half of valor, and he seized Enid's wrist and started off on a run, an act in which she was willing enough to follow his lead. But he had to explain, just to preserve his dignity:

"They're three to one, you know."

But while Enid understood well enough the necessity for speed, she had no breath to expend expressing her appreciation of Pretty's delicate position. She was too frightened to run even as well as she knew how, and she was going at a gait that was neither very fast nor very economical of muscle and breath. Pretty, however, ran scientifically: on the balls of his feet, with his head erect, his chest out, and his lips tightly locked.

But before long he was doing all the work for two, and laboring like a ship that drags its anchor in a storm. They came to a hill now, and here Enid leaned her whole weight upon him. He barely managed, with the most tremendous determination and exertion, to get her to the top of this long incline. As they labored up he decided in his own mind, and told her, that she must leave him and run on for help.

Just one tenth of a second his terrified mind had been occupied with the thought that he might run on alone and leave her. The tempting idea of self-preservation had whispered to him that if he stayed behind, it would only result in disaster to two, while if he ran on alone, at least one would be saved.

But this cowardly selfishness he put away after the tenth of a second of thought, and now he was insisting, even against Enid's gasping objection, that she must run on alone and leave him to take care of the footpads. He did not know how he was going to do this, but he felt that upon him devolved the duty of being the zealous rear-guard to cover the retreat of a vanquished army.

Enid, however, was stubborn, and proposed to stay and fight with him, even drawing out a very sharp and very dangerous hat-pin to emphasize her courage. But Pretty, while he blessed her for her bravery and her full-heartedness, still commanded her to run on and bring help, promising her that he would keep out of harm's way till help could come. With this assurance, the poor girl staggered on, gaining strength from the necessity of speed to save her beloved Pretty.

At the brow of the hill Pretty found himself alone, and turned and looked at the on-coming trio with defiant sternness. After a moment, which gave him some much-needed rest and a chance to gain new breath, he realized that one half a battle is with the warrior that is wise enough to make the first onslaught. So, after a tremor of very natural hesitation, the boy dashed full at the three hulkish tramps.



XXI

The overgrown brutes were so much taken aback at the change of front on the part of the young fellow whom they had hoped to run down like a scared rabbit, that they stopped short in sheer surprise.

But this was only for a moment. Then the leader of the three rushed forward, with a large club. He carried it high in the air in the same indiscreet manner in which Pretty had once attacked the Senior.

Just before the tramp and the boy came to close quarters Pretty made a diving sidelong dodge, and as the tramp's club whisked idly through the air past him, he dealt the fellow a furious blow across the left shin. Now, as any one who was ever struck there knows, a man's shin is as tender as a bear's nose; and the surprised tramp was soon dancing about in the air, hugging his bruised leg and yowling like a wildcat. But Pretty had run on past, leaving him to his misery.

Now he came up to the other two, who moved in single file toward him. The first man Pretty received right upon the point of his cane, driving the hard metal ferrule straight at the man's solar plexus. The combination of the man's rush and Pretty's powerful thrust was enough to lay the wretch upon the ground, writhing and almost unconscious.

For the last thug Pretty had prepared a beautiful back-handed slash across the face; but the villain, seeing what was in store for him, dropped down, and rushed at the boy low enough to evade the stick. Pretty, however, had a check for this move also, and a quick step to one side saved him from the man's clutch.

Now he recovered himself quickly enough to deliver a vicious whack straight at the back of the man's head—a blow that would have settled the tramp's mind for some time to come, but the fellow was running so fast that Pretty missed his aim, and his stout weapon only dealt a stinging blow upon the man's left shoulder.

The thug ran on far enough to gain a good vantage-ground, and then, whirling, came at Pretty again. Now his uplifted hand held an ugly knife.

The look of this was not pleasant to Pretty's eyes; but the excitement of the situation was much increased when a glance out of the side of his eye showed him that the first thug had regained enough nerve to come limping forward in the endeavor to throttle him.

The men were not coming at him in such a way that he could use the "point-and-butt thrust" that he had learned for such occasions, so he decided instantly to repeat upon the first thug the shin-shattering blow that had been so successful before.

As the man came on, then, Pretty gave a terrific backward slash that caught the tramp's uninjured shin. It was a beauteous shot, and sent the fellow to his hunkers, actually boohooing with agony.

And now, with another fine long sweep, this time upward, Pretty sent a smashing blow at the third tramp's upraised arm. The force of the stroke was alone strong enough to send the knife flying; but, by the addition of a bit of good luck, Pretty caught the wretch on his crazy bone, and set him to such a caterwauling as cats sing of midnights on a back-yard fence.

Leaving the battered Three Graces to their different dances, Pretty picked up the knife he had knocked from the hand of the third, and sauntered homeward, adjusting his somewhat ruffled collar and tie as he went, with magnificent self-possession.

On his way he met the party of rescuers sent to him by Enid, who had managed to reach town in rapid time. Pretty calmly sent them back to pick up the three tramps he had left; and these gentlemen were stowed away in the Lakerim jail, where they cracked rock and thought of their cracked bones till long after Pretty's Christmas vacation was over.

As for Enid, I will leave you to guess whether or no she thought Pretty the greatest hero of his age,—or any age,—and whether or no she gossiped his bravery all around Lakerim long after the Dozen were away again in Kingston.



XXII

The night before the Lakerim contingent went back to the Kingston Academy, another grand reception was given in their honor at the club-house; and the Dozen made more speeches and assumed an air of greater magnificence than ever.

But, nevertheless, they were just a trifle sorry that they had to leave their old happy hunting-ground. But there was some consolation in the thought that the life at the Academy would not be one glittering revel of studies and classes. For the Dozen believed, as it believed nothing else, that all play and no work makes Jack a dull boy.

The general average of the Dozen in the matter of studies was satisfactory enough; for, while Sleepy was always at the bottom of his classes, and probably the laziest and stupidest of all the students at Kingston, History was certainly at the head of his classes, and probably the most brilliant of all the students at Kingston.

With these two at the opposite poles, the rest of the Dozen worked more or less hard and faithfully, and kept a very decent pace.

But the average attainment of the Dozen in the field of athletics was far more than satisfactory.

It was brilliant.

For, while there was one man (History) who was not quite the all-round athlete of the universe, and was not good at anything more muscular than chess and golf, the eleven others had each his specialty and his numerous interests.

They believed, athletically, in knowing everything about something, and something about everything.

* * * * *

The winter went blustering along, piling up snows and melting them again, only to pile up more again. And the wind raved in very uncertain humors. But, snow or thaw, the Dozen was never at a loss to know what to do.

Finally January was gone, and February, that sawed-off month, was dawdling along its way toward that great occasion which gives it its chief excuse for being on the calendar—Washington's Birthday.

From time immemorial it had been the custom at Kingston to celebrate the natal anniversary of the Father of his Country with all sorts of disgraceful rioting and un-Washingtonian cavorting. The Lakerim Twelve were not the ones to throw the weight of their influence against any traditions that might add dignity to the excitements of school-book life.

Of the part they took in raising the flag on the tower of the chapel, and in defending that flag, and in tearing down a dummy raised in their colors by the Crows in the public square of the village—of this and many other delightfully improper pranks there is no room to tell here; and you must rest content with hearing of the important athletic affair—the affair which more truly and fittingly celebrated the anniversary of the birth of this great man, who was himself one of the finest specimens of manhood and one of the best athletes our country has ever known.

The athletic association from a neighboring school, known as the Brownsville School for Boys, had sent the Kingstonians an offer to bring along a team of cross-country runners to scour the regions around Kingston in competition with any team Kingston would put forth.

The challenge was cordially accepted at once, and the Brownsville people sent over John Orton, the best of their cross-country runners, to look over a course two days in advance, and decide upon the path along which he should lead his team. It was agreed that the course should be between six and eight miles long. The runners should start from the Kingston gymnasium, and report successively at the Macomb farm-house, which was some distance out of Kingston, and was cut off by numerous ditches and gullies; then at the railway junction two miles out of Kingston; then at a certain little red school-house, and then at the finish in front of the campus. It was agreed that the two teams should start in different directions and touch at these points in the reverse order. Each captain was allowed to choose his own course, and take such short cuts as he would, the three points being especially chosen with a view to keeping the men off the road and giving them plenty of fence-jumping, ditch-taking, and obstacle-leaping of all sorts.

The race was to have been run off in the afternoon; but the train was late, and the Brownsvillers did not arrive until just before supper. It was decided, after a solemn conference, that the race should be run in spite of the delay, and as soon as the supper had had a ghost of a chance to digest. The rising of a full and resplendent moon was a promise that the runners should not be entirely in the dark.

Tug and the Brownsville chief, Orton, had made careful surveys of the course they were to run over. It was as new to Tug as to the Brownsville man. Each of the two had planned his own short cuts, and even if they had been running over the course in the same direction they would have separated almost immediately. But when the signal-shot that sent them off in different directions rang out, they were standing back to back, and did not know anything of each other's whereabouts until they met again, face to face, at the end of the course.

The teams consisted of five men each. The only Lakerim men on the Kingston team were Tug, the chief, who had been a great runner of 440-yard races, and Sawed-Off, who had won the half-mile event on various field-days. The other three were Stage, Bloss, and MacManus. All of them were stocky runners and inured to hardship.

They had come out of the gymnasium in their bathrobes; and when the signal to start was given, the spectators in their warm overcoats felt chills scampering up and down their ribs as they noticed that all the men of both teams, when they had thrown off their bath-robes, stood clad only in running-shoes, short gymnasium-trunks, and jerseys.

But their heat was to come from within, and once they were started, cold was the least of their trials.

The two teams broke away from each other at the gymnasium, and bolted at a wide angle straight across the campus. They all took the first fence in perfect form, as if they were thoroughbred hunters racing after a fox.

Quiz and one or two other of the bicycle enthusiasts attempted to follow one or the other of the two packs; but they avoided the road so completely that the bicyclists soon lost them from sight, and returned to watch the finish.

The method of awarding the victory was this: the different runners were to be checked off as they passed the different stages of the course, and crossed off as they came across the finish-line. Each man was thus given the number of his place in the finish, and the total of the numbers earned by each team decided the match, the team having the smaller number winning. Thus the first man in added the number 1 to the total score of his side, while the last man in added 10 to his.

Tug had explained to his runners, before they started out, that team-work was what would count—that he wished his men to keep together, and that they were to take their orders all from him.

After the first enthusiasm of a good brisk start to get steam and interest up, Tug slowed his pace down to such a gait as he thought could be comfortably maintained through the course.

The Brownsville leader, Orton, however, being a brilliant cross-country runner himself, set his men too fierce a pace, and soon had upon his hands a pack of breathless stragglers.

Tug vigorously silenced any attempt at conversation among his men, and advised them to save their breath for a time soon to come when they would need it badly.

His path led into a heavy woods, very gloomy under the dim moonlight; and he had many an occasion to yell with pain and surprise as a low branch stung him across the head. But all he permitted himself to exclaim was a warning cry to the others:

"Low bridge!"

The grove was so blind (save for the little clearing at Roden's Knoll, which Tug and Sawed-Off recognized with a groan of pride) that the men's shins were barked and their ankles turned at almost every other step, it seemed. But Tug would not permit any of them the luxury of complaint.

In time they were out of the wood and into the open. But here it seemed that their troubles only increased; for, where the main difficulty in the forest was to avoid obstacles, the chief trouble in the plain was to conquer them. There were many barbed-wire fences to crawl through, the points clutching the bare skin and tearing it painfully at various spots. The huge Sawed-Off suffered most from these barbs, but he only gasped:

"I'm punctured."

There were long, steep hills to scramble up and to jolt down. There were little gullies to leap over, and brooks to cross on watery stepping-stones that frequently betrayed the feet into icy water.

After vaulting gaily over one rail fence, and scooting jauntily along across a wide pasture, the Kingstonians were surprised to hear the sound of other footsteps than theirs, and they turned and found a large and enthusiastic bull endeavoring to join their select circle.