It was like the flight of a meteor! Laura and Jess never had realized before what it meant to travel fast. Motoring on land was nothing like this. As though shot out of some huge cannon the aero-iceboat skimmed the lake. The wind was almost in their faces, but that made little difference to this new invention of the chums.
The other yachts had to tack against the wind; not so the aero-iceboat. Swift and straight she flew and suddenly Chet roared to Lance to shut down, and the propeller groaningly stopped.
Chet flung up his goggles and drew out his watch.
"Eight and a half minutes!" he cried, with glee. "And, as I told you, it's a good nine miles."
"Let me off! let me off!" gasped his sister, struggling down from the narrow body of the boat. "Why! I never want to travel any faster, Chet. Do you think it is safe?"
"You bet it is, Miss Laura," said Lance. "Or we wouldn't have invited you girls to go with us."
"Just wait till some day—say Saturday. By daylight I'd drive this thing faster than that. I tell you, we've got the speediest craft on the whole lake."
"It beats what Mrs. Case told us about ski
