CHAPTER XIV
DICK TELLS HIS STORY
When Carl and Trevor, bruised and breathless, found their feet andstared about them, The Sleet was already a whisking gray blot in thetwilight. Trevor obeyed his first impulse and limping up the ice inthe direction of the disappearing boat, called frantically: “Dick!Dick!” Then, realizing the absurdity of his chase after a thing thatwas probably reeling off half a mile every minute or so, he stopped andcame dejectedly back to where Carl was silently rubbing a bruised thigh.
“Dick will be killed!” he cried hoarsely. “What shall we do?”
“Get back to the academy,” said Carl.
“What good will that do?”
“They can telegraph up the river and get some one to look for him. Iwonder how far from Hillton we are?”
“I don’t know,” answered Trevor, “but let’s hurry. Which way shall wego?”
“Across the river to the railroad track. Maybe, Trevor, there’s astation between here and Hillton; there ought to be, eh?”
“I don’t know,” sorrowed his companion. “Do you think Dick might havedropped off after we saw him? Maybe, Carl, he’s lying up there on theice somewhere.”
“I don’t believe so. I think Dick will hold on as long as he can.Perhaps he will manage to get back onto the boat; if he does he oughtto be able to stop her; he knows enough to lower the sail, I guess. Idare say he’ll turn up all right before long. The best thing for us todo is to find a telegraph office as soon as we can. Come ahead.”
Somewhat comforted, Trevor limped along and the two gained the riverbank and stumbled through the darkness to the railroad track. Down thisthey tramped, silent for the most part, with feet that had no feelingleft in them, and with fingers that ached terribly. How far from theacademy they were neither had any idea; perhaps ten miles, perhapsless. As for the time, that at least they knew, for Trevor managedto get his watch out and Carl supplied a match; the hands pointed totwenty minutes of six.
“We ought to be home by seven,” said Carl with attempted cheerfulness.Trevor groaned.
A quarter of an hour passed; a half. It was too dark to recognizeanything save the lines of track, which had left the river somedistance to the right. Suddenly a slight turn brought into view acluster of lights, white and green.
“A station!” cried Trevor.
The two boys increased their gait and five minutes later passed afreight train on a siding, and found a little box of a station, ablazewith light, and oh, how warm! Around a great whitewashed stove in themiddle of the waiting-room sat three men. Two had woolen caps on;the third was bareheaded, and him the boys rightly judged to be thestation-master. Their story was quickly told, and a moment later thekey at the telegraph desk was ticking off messages to stations up theline.
“You must have got thrown out at about Whitely Mills,” said one of themen at the stove. “The boat would have a clear track from there upto---- I say, Gus,” he called suddenly to the man at the instrument,“they were cutting ice to-day at the houses just this side of Lorraine.That would be a bad part of the river to get onto in the dark. You’dbetter tell the fellow at Lorraine to send some one down there with alantern; what d’ye think, Joe?”
The third man nodded his head. “Bad place; I noticed they were cuttingpretty well out toward the channel.”
“All right,” said the station-master. And the instrument ticked on.Carl and Trevor sat by the stove and held their feet and hands tothe grateful warmth. They were too tired, too dejected to talk. Theengineer and conductor of the waiting freight eyed them curiously butkindly. Finally the latter asked:
“How you boys going to get to Hillton?”
“Walk,” answered Carl with a faint smile. “How far is it from here?”
“Twelve miles.”
The two lads looked at each other and groaned.
“Well, I don’t care so much, now that I’ve got thawed out a bit,” saidTrevor. “How far do you think we have walked?”
“I guess it’s about three miles from Whitely here.”
“At that rate,” commented Carl dismally, “it will take us two hourslonger to reach Hillton. And”--he glanced at the station clock--“it’snow twenty after six; say half-past eight.” The engineer and conductorwere exchanging glances of amusement. Finally the conductor spoke again:
“Well, I guess we can fix it so as you won’t have to walk. The throughfreight will be here in seven minutes, and I guess they’ll give you alift. If they don’t you can ride down with us, although we won’t getthere much before seven. We’re slow but sure, we are; twenty-eight carsof coal and a caboose.”
The boys brightened and thanked the railroad men fervently. And thenthe station-master left the telegraph instrument and came out into thewaiting-room.
“It’s all right. I’ve put ’em on as far north as Yorkvale, and ifhe’s still on the yacht they’ll find him, I guess.” He turned to theconductor and added in lower tones: “Gregson, at Lorraine, says he’llsee that a party goes down right away; says he doesn’t believe a yachtcould pass there to-night, as the river hasn’t had time to freeze muchsince they quit cutting at about four.”
The conductor nodded. From far off came the long, shrill blast of alocomotive whistle, and the men drew on their coats, and presently,followed closely by Carl and Trevor, left the station.
There was a flood of yellow light on the rails to the north, and thenext instant the fast freight thundered by them for half its length,the brake shoes rasping deafeningly against the wheels. The matter wassoon arranged, and Trevor and Carl found themselves sitting in thestrange little caboose about a tiny stove that was almost red-hot, andtelling their story to two of the train crew. And then, almost beforethey knew that they had got well started, the train slowed down, andthey were tumbled out into the snow at the Hillton crossing, and,shouting their thanks after the scurrying car as it romped off againinto the darkness, they took up the last stage of their journey. Butnow, aside from the anxiety they felt as to Dick’s fate, they werefairly comfortable and contented; and the prospect of supper--for itseemed to them that never before in the history of the world had twopersons been so hungry--allowed them to view their coming interviewwith the principal with something approaching equanimity.
Half an hour later Professor Beck was speeding northward in a buggybehind the fastest horse in Watson’s stables, and Trevor and Carl,subdued and anxious, were eating as though their lives depended uponit in the deserted dining-hall. And afterward Trevor donned hisridiculous red dressing-gown and sat in front of the study fire forhours, listening anxiously for sounds on the stairs that would tell ofDick’s safe return. Sleep, despite his best endeavors, besieged himconstantly, and now and then he dropped off for a minute or two, onlyto reawake with a start and rub his smarting eyes confusedly.
“I wish Muggins was here,” he sighed. “It wouldn’t be so lonely.” Thenthe clock gathered its hands together at the figure XII, and Trevorcrept sleepily but protestingly to bed and dropped into heavy slumberthe moment his head touched the pillow.
Once--it seemed as though it must be almost daylight--there weredisturbing sounds in the bedroom, and Trevor turned over with a groan,and, even while he was asking himself what the noise meant, went off toslumber again. When he awoke in the morning, and the happenings of theprevious evening rushed back to memory, he sat up suddenly with a wild,anxious look toward the neighboring bed, and a deep sigh of relief andjoy escaped him. For Dick’s tumbled head lay on the pillow, and Dick’shearty snores made music in his ears.
In the afternoon the crew of The Sleet, including Stewart, weregathered about the hearth in Number 16, listening breathlessly toDick’s narrative.
“My, but that water was cold!” Dick was saying. “And deep, too. Itseemed as though I never would stop going down. You see, I was sosurprised that I just let myself go, and never thought of strugglingfor a long while. When I did, it took me so long to reach the surfaceagain that I hadn’t any breath left in my body. I got hold of the
edgeof the ice and tried to pull myself out, but it was only about half aninch thick, I guess, and broke right off every time, and down I’d goagain, over my head, maybe. Finally I stopped that and managed to keepmy head out. It was as dark as Egypt by that time, but after awhile Icaught sight of The Sleet just a few yards away, sticking up into theair like a big triangle. It was on its side with one runner ’way underthe water. Farther off I could make out three black hulks of thingsthat I concluded were ice-houses, and Professor Beck says that’s whatthey were. Of course, when I saw the yacht I knew that I was all right;all I had to do was to keep on breaking the ice until I reached it. ButI was so plaguy cold, and my teeth were chattering so, and my clothingwas so heavy that it wasn’t very easy after all. But after a while Ifound something that wasn’t ice; it was the sail, and it was lying flatover the water and broken ice. It sagged down with me after I managedto get onto it, but held me all right, and I crawled along it until Ireached the--the--what do you call it, Carl?”
“Boom?”
“Yes, boom. And then I got onto the mast and leaned against aplank--the cross-plank, it was--and I was all right, except that Iwas almost dead with the cold, and was afraid I’d freeze to death.So I kept stamping around and throwing my arms about as well as Icould without falling into the water again, and after a while I gotcomparatively warmed up. Then--I suppose I’d been there fifteen ortwenty minutes--I began to wonder if I couldn’t get off. You see, Iargued that the yacht would have broken through just as soon as the icebecame thin, and so it seemed to me that there must be thick ice justback of the boat. But, try as I might, I couldn’t for the life of medecide which was the back of the silly thing and which the front. AndI was afraid that I’d go plumping into that beastly cold water again.But after a while I got up my pluck and went to feeling about, lettingmyself down here and there, and crawling around. But every time I’dtry to stand on the ice, down I’d go; and so finally I gave it up. Butthe climbing about kept me warmed up after a fashion; I dare say I wasas warm as a fellow could be with his clothes sopping wet where theyweren’t frozen stiff. So I crawled back to the mast again and set outto holler.
“I wish you could have heard me! I yelled in forty different styles.And when I couldn’t think of anything else I cheered; cheered forHilton, cheered for The Sleet, cheered for the ice-houses, andincidentally, my young friends, cheered myself. And then my voice andmy breath gave out, and I stood still a while and kicked my frozenfeet against the plank and thought about fires and cups of hot coffeeand things to eat until I was nearly crazy. And then I saw some lightsflickering away off in the distance to the right of the ice-houses,and began yelling again. And that’s about all. There were three fellowswith lanterns and they got a piece of plank or something and took meoff. And what do you think?” he asked disgustedly. “There was thickice, half a foot thick, within three feet of me all the time!
“A man who said he was the station-master took me up to a house, andthey gave me some blankets and things and dried my clothes and pouredhot coffee and brandy stuff into me, and I went to sleep for a whilein front of a big round stove; and was never so happy in my life.Afterward I ate some supper; my, fellows, but it was good! And then, inabout an hour or so, Professor Beck popped in and said that he didn’twant to hurry me, but that if I’d quite finished bathing we’d go home.The station fellow--I believe I’ve forgotten his name--said he’d attendto having the ice-yacht hauled out for us, and would look after ituntil we sent for it.”
“Do you think it’s much broken up?” asked Carl.
“I don’t know,” replied Dick vigorously, “and what’s more, I don’t carea continental!”
* * * * *
The Sleet, to anticipate a trifle, went back to its former owner ata loss to the shareholders of six dollars, and a faculty edict wassolemnly published prohibiting forevermore at Hillton Academy thefascinating and exhilarating sport of ice-yachting.