CHAPTER XVIII
THE SKI RUNNERS
The New Year had ushered in the first big fall of snow—and it kept coming. Every few days, for the following fortnight, snow fell until Centerport's street-cleaning department was swamped, and the drifts lay deep upon the vacant lots and against fences and blind walls.
Skating was done for, for the ice on the lake had become overloaded, and had broken up into a shifting mass of blocks, grinding against each other when the wind blew, and threatening the safety of any craft that tried to put out in it.
So traffic on Lake Luna ceased, and, of course, ice-boating was likewise impossible. Chet and Lance Darby, had they not been so extremely busy learning their parts in the new play, could not have used their aero-iceboat during this time. Sleds were out in force, however—bobsleds, double-runners, toboggans, "framers," and every sort of coasting paraphernalia. Even the Whiffle Street hill was made a coasting place by the
146
