The Boy Scouts and the Army Airship

By this time, also, a big crowd had gathered, and as Rob and his companions, scorched and singed, stood triumphantly by the side of the machine they had rescued, they could hear angry shouts and the sounds of an argument coming from the direction of the engine. Elbowing their way through the throng, many members of which sought to detain and congratulate them, the lads found that the regular firemen had arrived and were attempting to wrest the hand-brakes from the Boy Scouts.

The boys were, somewhat naturally, protesting. Just as Rob and his friends came up, one big, hulking fellow laid hands on little Joe Digby and was about to hurl him backward out of the crowd.

“You young monkey!” he exclaimed; “you kids had no business to steal our engine!”

“Good thing they did,” howled the crowd. “If they hadn’t the whole village might have been burned by the time you fellows got on your uniforms.”

“You’re all right at a firemen’s picnic, but no good at a fire,” shouted someone.

“’Ray for the Boy Scouts,” came another cry.

“Shut up!” roared the exasperated firemen, reddening under their shiny helmets, all glistening with paint and decorations.

“Here, this has got to stop,” said Rob, stepping forward. “Scouts, let go of the engine. We’ve done our part of the work; now let them get busy.”

“That’s right, Rob,” came his father’s voice out of the crowd; “while they were arguing the fire was burning. Work those pumps, boys.”

“’Ray!” yelled the crowd again, as the firemen began to pump strenuously.

The machine clanked and rattled like a thresher, and a great stream of water poured forth, but, unfortunately it had no effect upon the blaze.

“The house! The house!” came a sudden cry in a woman’s voice. “Sparks are falling on the roof. It’ll be on fire in a minute.”

It was Mrs. Perkins. With her hair in curl papers and a wonderful flannel nightgown on, she stood in the back door of her home and yelled this warning. At any other time the boys might have felt inclined to laugh. The situation now was too serious for that, however. As she spoke, a perfect hail of sparks were being driven upon the shingled roof. It was dry and old, and was already beginning to smolder.

“Get that ladder,” shouted Merritt, whose sharp eyes had spied one leaning against an old tree some distance from the house. In an instant a dozen pairs of Boy Scout hands had carried it to the scene.

“Run her up, boys, and get all the buckets you can,” ordered Rob, as the ladder was placed in position.

Calling Dale Harding, Merritt and Tubby, the boy sprang up toward the roof. Behind him, upon the ladder, stood the others. They had guessed his purpose—to form a bucket line from the pump to the roof. With Hiram at the pump handle, and plenty of willing volunteers to relieve him when he tired, buckets and tin pails of water were soon passing rapidly along the line and being splashed over the roof. As fast as Rob got one section wetted, he passed on to another, till the whole covering of the house was drenched, and there was no danger of the place catching.

By this time, the wonderful motor-scooter had, too, been dragged beyond the reach of the flames, and although the wagon house was speedily reduced to a heap of glowing embers, the invention, for which Freeman Hunt and his father had striven so desperately, was safe. As the crowd saw that the excitement was over, it began to break up and melt away, till only a few persons were left about the ruins.

Among these lingerers were Stonington Hunt and his worthy son. The elder of the two seemed to be in a great rage. He gritted his teeth as he gazed at the Boy Scouts clustering about Paul’s machine, and spoke to his offspring in a low voice.

“Luck seems to have turned against me of late,” he muttered, savagely; “another failure. But either I’ll have that machine or no one else shall, or my name’s not Stonington Hunt.”

“We started the fire at the wrong end of the wagon house, pop,” rejoined his son, in a low voice, but low as his tones were, his father seemed seized with alarm.

“Not a word, Freeman,” he muttered hoarsely, looking about him in a scared sort of way. “Remember we know nothing about the fire. We were in bed when it started, and raced down here to find out what terrible calamity threatened our fair village.”

Freeman Hunt nodded comprehendingly.

“All right, pop; mum’s the word,” he breathed, “but we’ll try again.”

“Those brats are not through with me yet by a good sight,” rejoined his father, vindictively, by way of reply.

“Nor with me,” chimed in Freeman.

Soon after this worthy pair left the place, having been unnoticed by Rob or any of his chums or scouts. It was Tubby who, poking about the ruins after his usual inquisitive fashion, made a sudden discovery, a short time later. He had come across a piece of wood which was unburned, having been thrown aside by Paul Perkins in his first efforts to quell the fire.

The boy sniffed this bit of wood curiously and then summoned his friends.

“Smell that,” he demanded of them in turn.

Each lad took a sniff of the proffered bit of wood and passed it on to the next in silence.

“Well?” interrogated Tubby, after it passed a dozen hands, “what is it?”

“Kerosene,” was the unanimous answer.

“That’s right,” rejoined Rob; “fellows, it’s up to the Boy Scouts to find out who set fire to Paul Perkins’s wagon house, and tried to destroy his machine.”

“Maybe this will help us do it,” suggested Tubby, meditatively. As he spoke he extended the oil-soaked fragment into the glare of a lantern hanging from the fire engine. On it they could then see distinctly was the impress of a man’s thumb.

“I’ve heard of robbers and bad men being detected through just such imprints,” declared Rob; “may be it will work in this case. They say no two men’s thumb prints are alike.”

“If that’s so, we’d better start out making a collection,” suggested Tubby, “and I’ve got an idea that there is one man in this town whose imprint would be of interest in that connection.”

“Who?” queried a dozen eager Boy Scout voices.

“The man in the moon,” laughed the fat youth, pocketing the fragment of wood. But it was to be a long time before he had an opportunity to use it to confirm his suspicions.

CHAPTER XVIII.
JACK USES A FILE.

“Ahoy there, lad!” exclaimed the singer, bluff old Captain Hudgins, “bringing up all standing,” as he would have expressed it, in front of Rob Blake’s home on the morning of the Bob-sled Carnival.

“What time are them sliding craft due to slip their moorings on Jones’s Hill?”

“Why, hullo, cap,” exclaimed Rob, hastening down the snowy path to meet his old friend from Topsail Island. “I thought I knew that song. The races start this afternoon, but owing to the number of entries the committee has decided to continue them to-night.”

“Ter-night!” exclaimed the ancient mariner, “you’re a-goin’ ter come sky-hootin’ down that hill in the black night, boy? Stand by.”

“Not in the black night, exactly,” laughed Rob, amused at the old man’s bewilderment; “you see, this was decided on some days ago, and they’ve got incandescents rigged up on both sides of the course. It’s going to be a pretty sight, and there’ll be a big crowd out to see it.”

“Reckon I’ll have to stay over then,” snorted the captain. “When I was a boy we thought bob-sledding was good enough, without havin’ races atween port and starboard craft, with patent steerers, and more opportunities to break your neck than you can shake a stick at.”

“Oh, it’s not as bad as that,” Rob assured him. “It’s safe enough if the fellows are careful, and they all are, and besides that, they all know how to handle a big sled, and that’s a whole lot.”

“Reckon so,” agreed the captain. “Wal, I’ve got to trim my sails and get afore the wind. I’m setting my course for the post office.”

“I’m going that way, too,” said Rob; “I’ll walk with you.”

Together they set off up the street, which was filled with men and boys, all discussing the forthcoming bob-sled races. The regular population of Hampton was already augmented by rooters from other towns, and the afternoon trains would bring in more. In front of the post office Rob met Tubby Hopkins, Merritt Crawford, Paul Perkins and Hiram Nelson. They were to form the team of the “Eagle,” as the Boy Scout’s sled had been named.

Several other boys had their tobogganing sleds in front of the post office, which appeared to be quite a gathering place for the prospective contestants. Among them were Jack Curtiss and his team. The former bully of the Hampton Academy sneered as the boys came up, but made no other sign of hostility.

The “Eagle” was painted a bright red with gilt trimmings, and looked very handsome. Several in the crowd were making admiring comments on her as Rob approached. Jack Curtiss’ sled, too, came in for a lot of attention. It fairly glistened with paint and varnish, and being a store-made affair was naturally better finished off than the Boy Scouts’ craft.

“Curtiss and his bunch will win the cup, hands down,” a man was saying, as the Boy Scouts moved off on their way to the hill, where already several boys were practicing.

“Not much doubt of it,” was the response; “they’ve sure got a fine sled there.”

“Say, young feller, want to bet on yer team?” cried the first speaker after Rob.

“I don’t bet, thank you,” was the response; “but we’ve got as good a chance of winning as the next fellow.”

“Well, wouldn’t that jar you?” muttered the man, as the crowd broke into a laugh at Rob’s retort.

“You want to bet all your money on us,” said Freeman Hunt, and he and his cronies prepared to follow Rob and his chums.

“How’s that?” asked the man.

“Because we’re going to win. There’s no doubt of it,” was the rejoinder.

“Well, you seem mighty positive about it,” commented the man.

Workmen were busy on either side of the hill stringing up electric lights, as the boys arrived. Between the rows of tall poles crowds of lads were scooting down the hill on their sleds, or laboriously hauling them up again. It was an animated scene, and there were plenty of lookers-on as the racing sleds glided swiftly over the smooth surface. It had been watered and packed till it was as hard and smooth as a sheet of glass. It glistened in the winter sun like polished steel.

“Wow! Won’t we whiz over that!” exclaimed Merritt, as they hastened to ascend the hill by a path left at one side of the course. Arrived at the top, an examination of the runners of the sled followed. They were found to be as smooth as a mirror, which is an important thing, for the slightest roughness will check a sled’s speed more than would be thought possible.

“That’s one reason I think we may have a chance over Curtiss and his bunch,” explained Rob, as they took their seats for a trial trip.

“How’s that?” inquired Tubby, who, on account of his weight, sat in the middle.

“Why, their runners have hardly had time to wear smooth yet,” went on Rob. “You know it takes a long time to get them into good shape. We wore ours down last year, before we lightened the sled and widened it.”

“Ready!” shouted Merritt, from his seat in front.

“Right!” came the reply.

The next instant they were off. How that sled flew down the smooth hill! The frosty air whipped tinglingly back against their happy faces. The runners screamed as they rushed over the hard snow. Small boys cheered as they shot by. Everybody knew that the “Eagle” was one of the favorites in the big event—the race for the silver cup.

“She’s fast,” grudgingly admitted Jack Curtiss, as the red sled flew by him on its way down the hill.

“But we can clip a nailparing of a second off her,” rejoined Freeman Hunt, boastfully.

“Think so?” inquired Lem Lonsdale.

“Oh, sure,” chimed in Bill Bender, confidently.

Both Bill and Jack had been betting pretty freely on their success, and both felt certain that they would win. But a momentary look of anxiety had crossed their faces as Rob and his chums flew by. There was no denying that their pace was tremendous. The Aquebogue team, which had arrived on an early train, followed the “Eagle” down the hill, but did not seem to make such good time. Still, it was possible that, as defenders of the cup, they were not showing all they could do.

“We can beat them with a ton of hay tied on behind,” sneered Jack Curtiss, as he watched the Aquebogue Wolves make their practice trips. His words seemed justified by the speed their own sled made. Like a varnished streak, she shot down the hill again and again, each time wearing her runners smoother and making better time.

And so the morning wore away. The afternoon was devoted to the small races, Ernest Thompson and Joe Digby, of the Eagles, winning two prizes to their great delight. Some of the Hawk boys, too, captured events. But the feature of the afternoon was Paul Perkins’s winged sled, which cavorted and flopped about to the huge delight of the crowd, and to the terror of the lad’s mother, who was among the onlookers. At four o’clock the minor events were all over and there only remained the silver cup to be contested for.

The Aquebogue Wolves, all strapping youths, considerably older than the Hampton boys, strode about the town confidently during the evening, although the talk of the Hamptonites must have disturbed them a little. The teams from the other contesting towns also talked big, but that seemed to be more to keep up appearances than anything else.

“Gee, the time seems as if it would never pass,” said Tubby, as after supper the lads hastened back to the hill. The electric lights were glowing now, casting a yellow radiance over the snow. Few people were on hand as yet, however, as the race was not to start till eight o’clock.

The few that were on hand were warmly muffled up in furs and heavy overcoats. Of course, there were plenty of small boys about, playing all manner of tricks on one another to keep warm, and hurling snowballs at persons they deemed good-natured enough not to resent it—and at others, too. What boy doesn’t enjoy “a chase”?

The sleds which were to take part in the race were lined up in readiness near the starting point. While the crews had been at supper various persons had been left in charge of the sleds. Rob and his chums had found a youth, who was quite a character in the village, to take care of theirs. This lad’s name was Sim Bimm.

Whether it was caused by his name—which rhymed, or by natural gift that way, nobody knew, but Sim Bimm had difficulty in saying anything in prose. On the contrary, rhyming marked his conversation. He was reputed to be half-witted, but in some things he was shrewd enough. For lack of a better guardian the boys had singled Sim Bimm out.

“Now, Sim,” Rob had said impressively, “there’s a dollar coming to you if you watch our sled carefully. Don’t let anyone come near it or touch it in any way. Do you understand?”

“Right and true, I’ll watch for you,” responded Sim, giving vent to his peculiar mode of expression.

“No matter what excuse they give don’t let them lay hands on the sled, Sim,” added Merritt.

“Not a foot nor a hand, be they ever so grand,” Sim assured the boys, proudly.

“All right, Sim,” said Tubby, as they moved off; “we trust you, remember.”

“You’re right Sim to trust; I’ll watch till I bust,” rejoined the rhyming youth.

Hardly had the lads vanished down the hill, however, before Sim, who in order to watch more closely, was seated right upon the sleigh, saw two figures approaching him.

“Here comes William Bender, and Jack Curtiss so slender,” improvised Sim as they drew closer.

“Hello, Sim,” exclaimed Jack, with great appearance of cordiality, “what are you doing?”

“Watching this sled, with heart and head,” was the response.

“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Jack, “at your rhyming again, eh, Sam? Want to earn a little money?”

“Don’t care for money; now isn’t that funny?” firmly replied Sim, taking a grip on the sled with both hands.

“But you like candy, don’t you?” asked Jack.

“Gee! Mo-lasses candy; wish I had some handy,” wavered Sim, his mouth beginning to water.

“Well, if you’ll go a little errand for me I’ll give you fifty cents to buy some with,” Jack promised, taking out a fifty-cent piece and extending it temptingly. “We’ll watch the sled while you’re gone.”

“I oughtn’t to go; that’s one thing I know,” said Sim; but there was a sort of undecided quaver in his voice.

“You’ve got him,” whispered Bill. Jack nodded.

“It isn’t very far,” the enemy of the Boy Scouts went on. “It’s just to get my gloves. I dropped them at the foot of the hill. You can be there and back in ten minutes.”

“I’ll go like the wind, be back quickly, you’ll find,” promised Sim, rising to his feet. The thought of molasses candy had proven too much for him.

“Very well, then; be off. We’ll wait for you here to take care of the sled.”

“With a dollar and a half, I’ll sing and I’ll laugh,” chuckled Sim to himself as he dashed off, going as fast as his long legs would carry him.

“Now, then,” exclaimed Jack as he vanished. Reaching into his pocket he drew out a file, and while Bill Bender raised the Boy Scouts’ sled he rapidly filed the runners till they were as rough as newly-molded metal.

“Guess that will fix them,” he said, as Sim came panting back to announce that he could find no gloves. But as both Jack and Bill Bender had known all along that there were no gloves there, this information didn’t seem to interest them as much as Sim had expected when he exclaimed:

“I looked low and high, but no gloves could I spy.”

CHAPTER XIX.
THE GREAT RACE.

Ten minutes before the race was to start, the hill, so bare and unpeopled when the boys climbed it after supper, was alive with a gay throng. Some carried horns which they blew loudly, the harsh notes ringing out and adding to the clamor of tongues. At the starting place a big crowd was gathered, but the densest throng was assembled about the finishing point. Excitement was at a high pitch. The silver cup, for which the race was to be run, had been on exhibition all day in the window of the town jeweler, and had excited great admiration.

“Oh, I do hope our Wolf boys keep it,” said a pretty girl from Aquebogue, as she passed, on the arm of her escort.

Men and women from other towns were as eager for their champions to win. Every face shone with anticipation of the coming struggle. At the finish line several photographers, sent to the place by New York papers and periodicals, had their flashlight apparatuses ready to take pictures of the finish. Others stood at the starting point, holding aloft their powder-filled metal troughs and clicking the triggers which would ignite the flashes, impatiently.

About a hundred yards back from the starting line an anxious group was gathered. Rob, Merritt and the others had just made a final inspection and discovered the mischief that had been done to their sleigh. It seemed hopeless to remedy the damage, for it was manifestly impossible to fit new runners, and only in that way could they hope to be in a condition to compete.

“I wonder who was mean enough to do such a thing,” wondered Rob.

“The marks of a file are as plain as day,” exclaimed Merritt, angrily.

“I’ll bet Jack Curtiss or some of his crowd put up this job,” grated out Tubby, angrily, gazing toward the bully and his companions, who were dragging their shining, glittering sled to the starting mark through an admiring crowd.

“Here you, Sim,” exclaimed Rob, in what was for him a sharp, angry tone, “did anyone come around the sled while we were gone?”

“No one I could see, not even a flea,” rejoined Sim.

“Oh, bother your rhymes. Answer my question. Did you see anyone here, or did you leave the sled while we were gone?”

“I can’t tell a fib; leave it I did,” was the rejoinder.

“Oh, you did, eh, and after promising to watch it, too,” said Merritt angrily. “What do you mean by it?”

He shook his fist menacingly under Sim’s pug nose.

“Don’t scare him or you won’t get a word out of him,” warned Rob, coming forward from the sled.

“Who was with it while you left it, Sim?” he asked.

“Until I came back I left it with Jack,” responded the shamefaced Sim.

“Hum, just as I thought, fellows,” said Rob, turning to his companions; “this was a put-up job. Anyone with Jack?” he demanded sharply.

“His chum Bill Bender, with him did defend her,” was the rejoinder.

“Defend her. Did her all the damage they could, I guess you mean,” sputtered Tubby. “Hark, fellows! There goes the starting bugle. It’s all off,” he concluded with a groan.

“Not, yet, we’ve got three minutes,” replied Rob, bravely, although he felt his spirits sink to the lowest ebb.

“Hullo, you fellows, what’s the matter? Looks as if you’d dropped a dollar and picked up a dime,” came a cheery voice behind them. They turned and saw a tall, sun-burned young fellow regarding them quizzically.

“Some rascals have roughened our runners with a file and we can’t compete,” was Rob’s reply.

“Tough luck,” sympathized the other; “we can’t either. I’m captain of the East Willetson team, you know. Two of our men missed their train and can’t get here, so we are out of the race.”

“Then you’re not going to use your sled?” questioned Rob, eagerly.

“No. Hard luck, ain’t it? It’s a new one, too—a dandy. I think it would beat any of these I see here. However, it can’t be helped.”

He was moving off, when Rob seized him. The lad began to speak hurriedly, his words tumbling out one after another.

“Say, old man, I don’t know your name, but mine is Rob Blake. We had a good chance to win this race if it hadn’t been for that bit of foul play. I wonder if we couldn’t——”

“Borrow our sled?” shot out the other, guessing the boy’s request before he had uttered it. “Sure you can, if the judges won’t object.”

“I’ll ask them,” panted Rob, slipping off in the crowd. In a minute he was back.

“They say they don’t care,” he panted; “where is it?”

“Right back here. Hurry up; there goes the line-up call.”

The clear, sharp notes of a bugle rang out, and men and boys began to hurry from all directions. Suddenly there came a disturbance in the crowd. Voices shouted:

“Make way there! Give them room!”

Through the crowd came shoving the Eagle boys, carrying the borrowed sled. In their green and black sweaters, green knitted sleighing caps and khaki trousers they were recognized as contestants.

“Hooray!” shouted the crowd, quick to scent a sensational happening.

“What’s all the trouble back there?” asked Jack, in a low voice, of Bill Bender, as they prepared to board their sled.

“Don’t know. Seems to be a lot of excitement. Great Hookey, it’s those kids!”

“What?”

“Yes. Look for yourself. They’ve got another sled.”

“The dickens they have! I’ll protest.”

“Better not talk too much. Somebody might know something and squeal, like they did at the aeroplane model race.”

“Looks as if they’d overreached us,” grumbled Freeman Hunt, who, like Lem Lonsdale, was in the secret of Jack Curtiss’ mean trick.

The race was to be run off in heats, on account of the number of contestants. As Jack and his chums were in the first heat, there was no time for more to be said.

“Ready!” cried the starter. Then, as the boys nodded, his pistol cracked, and off darted the gliders, flashing down the hill like so many streaks of brilliant color. Under the bright rays of the suspended electric lights they made a pretty sight, and so the crowd thought, for it cheered them to the echo.

Three heats were run off, and for the finals there lined up the three winners of the preliminary contests. These were the yellow and black Aquebogue Wolves, the holders of the cup, Jack Curtiss’ crew, and the Eagle men on their borrowed sled. Jack had started to make a feeble protest against the loaned sled being entered, but the judges had frowned him down. Afraid that they might have some inkling of who had filed the runners of the “Eagle,” he dared not say more.

The East Willetsons’ sled proved to be all that its owners had claimed for it. It had captured its heat with ease, shooting across the line a good two feet in front of the nearest competitor. The boys’ hearts beat high with hope and excitement. It seemed that there was a chance of their capturing the coveted cup, after all.

“Now then, boys, clap on all sail and come windjamming inter port ahead of the rest of them snow cruisers, or I won’t never speak to you again,” came the voice of Captain Jeb Hudgins from the crowd behind the starting line.

“He’s bet his gray Tomcat’s next litter of kittens on you,” came the voice of a joker.

“I’ll litter you if I get my hooks on yer, yer deck-swabbing lubber,” bellowed the captain angrily.

“Ready all!” warned the starter.

The boys gripped the sides of their sled. Rob, who was to steer, tautened a turn of the ropes about his hands.

“Bang!”

Amid a roar from the crowd packed on both sides of the illuminated hill, the three sleds were off. Down the narrow lane, edged with human faces, they flew, Aquebogue, Eagles, and Jack Curtiss’ unnamed crew, neck and neck, so to speak. A great uproar greeted them, but of this the boys were oblivious. Each steersman bent his every effort to getting the most out of his speeding sled.

“Jack Curtiss leads!” came a shout, as that worthy’s sled slightly gained on the other two at a spot where the grade was not quite so steep as the remainder of the way.

“How-oooo!” came deep-throatedly from the Wolves’ supporters.

“Come on you!” hissed the Aquebogue steersman, swaying his body back and forth. But try as he would, he could not shake off the Eagles. On they flew; the finish line, with its close-packed rows of white faces, stared straight in front of them now.

Jack Curtiss was in the lead by a very slight margin; then came the Eagles, with the Wolves right on their rear runners. But, in an unlucky moment, Bill Bender glanced back and saw how close Rob and his chums were upon them. With a sly move, he thrust out his foot, intending to sway the Eagles’ sled off its course. Instead, however, the unexpected drag caused his own sled to swerve. Amid a cry from the crowd, it swung round before Jack Curtiss could stop it, and went plunging up a bank through the crowd, narrowly avoiding injuring several people.

In the meantime, the Eagles’ borrowed sled, with Aquebogue a close second, flashed across the roaring, yelling, horn-blowing finish line, amid a perfect bombardment of “Boom! Boom! Boom!” from the flashlight artists.

“They threw us over. They did it!”

“It’s their fault!”

Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender, followed by their two cronies, came rushing up as a congratulatory crowd pressed about the cup winners.

Jack shook his fist angrily in Rob’s face.

“You stole the race!” he bellowed furiously. “We had it won.”

“Won by a mile!” declared Freeman Hunt.

“By a file, you mean,” shot out Rob, looking straight into the other’s eyes. Jack Curtiss’ gaze wavered and fell.

“Come on, fellows. Let’s leave the babies to have their candy,” he sneered, as, amid the hoots and laughter of the crowd, he and his cronies slouched off.

CHAPTER XX.
A SCHOONER IN TROUBLE

“Any of you fellows going down to the water front?” asked Paul Perkins, one bitter Saturday morning. The air was bound in iron fetters. Hard, black ice froze up the creek behind his house—the same creek which had supplied the water to quench the wagon house fire—and a chill wind was sweeping in from the sea.

“The water front?” echoed Tubby, who, with Rob and Merritt Crawford, had dropped into Paul’s on their way to the Red Mill pond, where they meant to enjoy some skating.

“You must need a bath awfully badly if you’re going to plunge in to-day,” added the stout youth.

“I’m going down to overhaul the iceaeromobile,” declared Paul, who had a big monkey wrench in his hand. “I’ve got it down in Redding’s boathouse now. It was the only place I could find to store it. Sam Redding let me put it there.”

“That was white of Sam,” declared Rob. “What a change there is in that fellow since he emerged from the influence of Bill Bender and his crowd.”

“I should say so,” agreed Merritt. “Say, fellows, let’s go down and see how the machine looks. Maybe Paul will give her a try-out, eh, Paul?”

“Don’t know,” rejoined the inventive youth. “If the ice is over the Inlet good and firm, we might try it. I’d like to, all right.”

“I heard it was thick enough to bear a wagon,” chimed in Merritt. “Wow! feel that wind blow. If there’s any ship off shore, she’ll have a hard time beating up into it.”

“That’s right,” agreed Rob; “but come on; let’s be getting down to Redding’s. I’d like to have another good look at Paul’s gasolene bobsled.”

The boys were soon at the boatyard. Under a canvas cover, as they entered, they could see the outlines of Sam’s hydroplane—the one which had caused them so much trouble when the Eagle Patrol was first organized. Other yachts stood about, shrouded mysteriously in their winter coverings. Their bare spars looked odd and melancholy, sticking up like leafless trees in the bitter wind.

As they had noticed, it was unusually cold, and the wind from off the sea came sweeping in with force enough to drive their breaths back when they faced it. The Inlet was covered for half its breadth with a sheet of dull, iron gray ice, hummocky as a plowed field in places. Beyond, they could see the cold, steel-blue sea, breaking in showers of spray on the narrow strip of sand and brush which separated the Inlet from the open ocean and formed a breakwater. It was a depressing scene, and the chilliness and cheerlessness of it was added to by the shrieking voice of the wind whipping round the sharp angles of the boatyard buildings.

“Look!” cried Merritt suddenly, pointing seaward. “Isn’t that a schooner off there?”

He pointed to the southeast, where a small sailing vessel of some kind could be seen beating up into the wind, evidently making desperate efforts to keep off the coast.

“She’s pretty close in,” commented Rob. “They’ll have their hands full to claw her off.”

“What is she?” inquired Paul. “I can’t make out her rig.”

“Looks like a two-masted schooner from here,” said Rob. “My! but she’s eating up into that wind like a good one.”

“She’ll need to,” commented Merritt, as they entered the boathouse in which the motor-scooter stood installed, like a mechanical horse. For two hours or more they worked with Paul over the strange craft, rigging an inclined support for the gasolene tank. At last it was completed, to the young inventor’s satisfaction. He declared that the fuel would feed more rapidly, now that the improvement had been made.

The job completed, they emerged from the boathouse, having persuaded Paul to join the skating party. But what they saw as they came into full view of the sea drove all thoughts of skating out of their minds. The schooner they had noticed earlier in the day was now about off the Hampton Inlet beach. But she was so close in that they could almost see the figures moving about on her decks.

“Gee-hos-o-phat!” shouted Tubby. “She’ll be in the surf in another fifteen minutes.”

The others agreed with him. Desperately as the crew of the small, two-masted schooner were working to keep her out of the turmoil of the wind-driven breakers, she was being slowly but surely driven into the vortex.

“She won’t live in them an hour,” exclaimed Rob. “Remember what happened to the Sea Horse when she went ashore off there two years ago?”

“A few of her ribs are there yet, and that’s about all,” agreed Merritt, “and she was a large vessel.”

“Wonder if the life savers at Lone Hill know about her,” exclaimed Paul. “Maybe we’d better telephone.”

“Good idea,” agreed Rob. “Is there one around here anywhere?”

“There’s one in the yacht club. I’ve got a key—we’ll use that,” said Tubby, heading a hasty dash for the clubhouse. They were soon in the gloomy, closed-up place, and Rob made for the telephone.

“Hullo, Central! Give me Quogue 212,” he said. “There’s a schooner driving ashore. * * * What? Good gracious, you don’t say so! That’s hard luck!”

“Say, fellows,” he exclaimed, turning with a downcast face from the instrument, “she says that the wires are out of order, and there’s no chance of getting the life savers.”

“Well, one of the beach patrols is bound to sight her before long,” said Merritt.

“But before long she’ll be ashore. Let’s see! Are the club field-glasses on that table? Let’s borrow them and take a look at her.”

The glasses were soon being brought to bear on the storm-stressed schooner. She was making a brave fight for it, driving eastward rapidly, and looking, from where they were observing her, to be almost in the midst of the tossing, crashing breakers.

“Sa-ay!” exclaimed Rob, drawing a long breath, as he handed the glasses to Merritt, “there’s a woman on that schooner.”

“Wh-at!”

The exclamation came from all the lads simultaneously.

“That’s right,” confirmed Merritt the next minute. “I can see her standing at the stern. Seems to be right by the wheel.”

Their faces grew grave, as in turn they gazed at the little vessel clawing valiantly for sea room, but being beaten back on every tack.

“From the way she acts I guess her rudder’s broken,” reasoned Rob. “It seems as if she won’t head into that wind, and from her rig she ought to do a whole lot better than she is doing.”

Suddenly Paul, who was holding the glasses, uttered a sharp cry. His face was pale as the others turned to him to find out the reason for his exclamation.

“Say, fellows, there’s a kid—a little fellow on board there, too.”

“The dickens!”

“That’s right. Gee Willikens, can’t we do anything but stand here like a lot of clams? We are a fine bunch of Boy Scouts,” burst out Rob.

“We might walk across the ice,” suggested Tubby.

“Two miles over that ice? We couldn’t do it in two hours,” vetoed Rob. “I wish we had an ice-scooter. There are some at Aquebogue, but that doesn’t do us any good.”

“That’s so,” the others were forced to admit.

“Anyhow,” put in the practical Merritt, “a scooter wouldn’t be any good. We could never beat up into that wind with her.”

“I’ve got it!” cried Rob suddenly, in a sharp, excited voice. “Say, Paul, now’s the time to try out your iceaero-what-you-may-call-um.”

“Jumping bob cats, Rob Blake, do you think we can do it with that?” gasped Tubby.

“I think so, if the ice will bear. It’s thick enough to carry a scooter, all right, and that thing-um-me-bob isn’t much heavier. Can you run her, Paul?” he added, with sudden anxiety.

“Can a duck swim?” came back the indignant reply. “All I’ve got to do is to turn on the gasolene and the switch, tickle the carburetor, and off we go.”

“Then we’ll try it. I’m not going to see a woman and a kid go to Davy Jones without stirring a finger to help them,” declared Rob. “Come on, fellows. Tubby you get a coil of rope; there’s some in that locker, plenty of it—come on, boys, we haven’t got any time to be talking, either.”

Off they darted, and by the time Tubby joined them with two or three coils of half-inch manila rope, the others had the iceaeromobile out by way of the big front doors that opened seaward, and led on to a runway sloping downward into what had been water, but now was ice. At the top of the runway they made a rope fast to the stern of the odd craft, and then, taking a turn round a big iron “crab,” paid out the rope gradually till Paul’s invention stood on, what he intended to be, her native element.

The rope was then cast off, and the Boy Scouts crowded aboard, Tubby and Merritt clinging on behind the seat, while Paul seated himself in the driver’s place. Rob, after being carefully instructed, ran to the stern to work the aeroplane propeller, which was expected to drive the queer craft forward. While he did this, Paul shoved forward a lever which dug a spiked brake down into the ice, holding the craft firm till the engine was working in good shape.

In the intense cold it was necessary to prime the engine—that is, inject gasolene into it from a cup on top of the cylinders for that purpose, before it would start. Finally, after a lot of swinging of the propeller, there came a sharp explosion.

“Chug!”

“Hooray!” shouted Merritt and Tubby, as a whiff of blue smoke was whipped shoreward by the wind.