The Girls of Central High on the Stage/Chapter 15
CHAPTER XV
A MILE A MINUTE
The moon, hanging low upon the horizon, was young but brilliant. The air was so keen and clear that without the help of the moonlight it seemed as though the stars must have flooded the lake with white light.
Nearer the southern shore the jingle of sleighbells and the laughter and shouting of the skaters marked the revelers who gave a free course to the ice-boats out here nearer the open water. For both east and west of Cavern Island, which lay in the middle of Lake Luna, opposite Centerport, the ice was either unsafe, or there were long stretches of open water. The freight boats up and down the lake kept this channel open.
But there was a wide and safer course before the flying aero-iceboat. And soon she was moving so fast that the girls heard nothing but the shriek of the wind rushing by.
Here and there before them lanterns glowed like huge fireflies. These lights were in the rigging of several ice-yachts. Chet and Lance had a pair of automobile searchlights rigged forward on their own boat.
Another yacht had started from the old boathouse at about the time our friends and their new-fangled craft got under way. There were girls aboard it, too; but at first the Beldings and Jess and Lance did not recognize the other party.
The strange yacht was distinguished, however, by a red and green lamp. As Chet had been slow in starting, the other boat got ahead. But now, although the wind was fair and the other yacht traveled splendidly, the aero-iceboat bore down upon it, beating it out and leaving it behind like an express train going by a freight.
However, Chet would not allow Lance to throw on all speed. There were too many other craft on the ice before them—and it was night.
The lights of the City of Centerport soon fell behind them; then, almost at once, they picked up the lights of Keyport at the extreme end of the lake. They were traveling some!
Chet had strapped on a megaphone, which he had borrowed from Short and Long, who was coxswain of the boys' Central High eight-oared shell, and through this he shouted his orders to Lance. They ran down within a mile of Keyport, and then shut off the engine and circled about on the momentum they had gained. There were too many skaters and sleighs on the ice down here to make ice-boating either safe or pleasurable.
"My goodness me! Wasn't that fun?" gasped Jess.
"Felt like you was traveling some, eh?"
"Oh, Chet! it was great!"
"It certainly is a fine boat, Bobby," agreed Laura. "You and Launcelot have done well."
"Wait!" said Lance, warningly.
"Wait for what?" demanded Laura.
"We didn't travel that time. We were only preparing you—warming her up, as it were. Wait till we let her out."
"My goodness!" cried Jess. "Can you go faster?"
"We'll show you, going home," said Chet.
Just then the boat with the green and red light swooped down upon them and a voice shouted:
"What kind of a contraption is that you've got there, Belding?"
"Hullo!" exclaimed Chet. "That's Ira Sobel's yacht. Ira is Purt Sweet's cousin." Then he answered: "Oh, this is a little rigging of my own, Mr. Sobel. But she can travel. Rather beat's your Nighthawk, eh?"
"Well, she did that time," admitted Sobel, doubtfully.
"My goodness me!" the friends heard the Central High dandy exclaim. "I weally wouldn't want to travel any faster, Ira. I—I haven't weally got my breath yet!"
"Oh, I say!" cried another voice from the ice-boat, and they recognized Lily Pendleton's. "What do you think about the prize? Did you hear?"
"Why, they haven't decided on the best play yet, have they?" returned Jess, eagerly, and before her chum could speak.
"No. But I heard they'd put it all into Mr. Monterey's hands. He's the manager of the Opera House, you know. And mother is very well acquainted with him. You girls laughed at my play"
"Not I, Lily," interrupted Laura, good-naturedly. "I was too afraid that the rest of you might have a chance to laugh at mine."
"Well, I bet I've a good chance to win. Mr. Monterey is real nice, and mother is going to see him."
"Pooh!" exclaimed Chet. "She's one of those people who think influence brings things about. Don't you be worried, girls; I bet Mr. Sharp won't let anybody get that prize through favoritism."
"That's very encouraging, Chet," said Jess. "But perhaps Lily will win it. You know, she goes to plays more than any other girl in the Junior class of Central High, that's true. And she reads novels—real silly ones. Maybe she knows how to write just what would please a theatrical manager."
"Pooh!" said Laura, "I'm not giving up all hope yet—especially because of Lil Pendleton's say-so."
"Now, look out!" shouted Lance. "All ready to go back, Chet?"
"Start her!" exclaimed his chum. "Cling tight, girls—and take a good breath. I want to time this trip. It's all of nine miles to the starting point and we'll show you"
His voice trailed off and the girls did not hear the rest of his speech. The big propeller-wings began to beat the air, and the sound rose to a keen buzzing. Chet snapped his watch back into his pocket, raised his hand, and the ice-boat tore ahead.
In twenty seconds the wind rushed past them so that the girls were forced to bend their heads. The way was clear and Lance had "let her out." Chet bent sidewise watching the ice through his goggles. Occasionally he screamed an order to his chum, who signalled with his hand that he heard and understood.
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 running in Sweden," cried Jess, who was delighted with the experience. "And if Mrs. Case starts a class to travel on skis this winter, I want to be in it."
"Well! it's all right to hear about. But the experience is sort of shaking," sighed Laura. "I'm not sure that I have an over-abundance of pluck, after all."