"I'm afraid he's badly hurt," wailed Tom Clifton, in the greatest alarm. "I told him not to do it."
"Come on, fellows!" cried Bob Somers, and with the others close at his heels, he dashed forward.
Hackett lay motionless on the snow.
It was with the greatest misgivings that the boys rushed up to him.
"Hacky, I say, Hacky—are you hurt?" panted Nat, anxiously.
Hackett raised himself on his elbow and looked around with a bewildered stare.
"Are you hurt, Hacky?" repeated Nat, as all surrounded the prostrate boy.
"Hurt!" echoed Hackett, with a glare in his eye. "Of course I'm hurt. Do you suppose I could scoop up about eighty-five feet of snow with my back and not get bumped to pieces? And something gave me a fearful clip on the back of the head, too. I tell you, I saw a lot of stars!"
"But you're not hurt much?" cried Bob Somers, with a feeling of great relief.
"How do you know I ain't hurt much, Somers?" snapped Hackett. "You can't feel the pain in my back, can you?—or the slam I got on the neck?—or the bump over my left ear? My eye! I'd like to meet the man that invented this game. Take those sticks, 'Mushroom,' and start a fire with 'em."
Hackett shook his fist toward the skees, then painfully leaned over and began to unfasten them.
"It was a fierce slide you got—that's sure," commented Musgrove, in a greatly relieved tone. "Your own fault, though, Tackett. I told you—"
"If it hadn't been that my foot struck a rock, I'd have gone through all right. Don't stand around looking at me as if I was a prize pig in a show. Give me your hand, Nat!"
It soon became apparent that Hackett's temper had sustained the most serious damage. But this was more easily repaired than broken bones or strained tendons, and the boys were correspondingly thankful.
But Tim Sladder and Billy Musgrove had a pleasant surprise in store, which went far toward restoring his temper, and make him forget his aches and pains.
Musgrove went to the back of the hut and reappeared with an enormous wild goose.
"Got 'im yesterday!" he exclaimed. "Ain't he a whopper?"
"Where?" asked Hackett, eagerly. "My eye! I want to get a crack at one myself."
"You'll have plenty of chances, right along the lake. If you fellers want to stop, we'll brile it, eh?"
"You couldn't drive me away, after getting a sight of that," grinned Nat. "Hurry it up, Billy. I can hardly wait."
Sladder and Musgrove worked with commendable speed, and within a few minutes the goose was broiling over the fire.
It took a long time to cook, but the boys were well repaid for their wait, especially as roast potatoes were included in the meal.
"Say, Sladder," remarked Nat Wingate, at length, balancing a tin dipper of coffee in one hand and a goose leg in the other, "what did you mean by making us think that your dog is fierce?"
Sladder grinned. "So you found out?" he said. "Well, Musgrove an' me thought it was a good joke, 'cause Bowser's the tamest dog I ever saw."
"And it was you who threw a lot of snowballs at our camp—honest—wasn't it?"
"No such thing!" protested Tim Sladder, warmly. "Eh, Billy?"
"Own up to it now."
"Certainly we won't! I tell you it wasn't us!" Musgrove managed to say, between huge mouthfuls.
"What has that got to do with a skating match?" demanded Hackett. "Eh, 'Mushroom'?"
"Huh! d'ye mean to say that you feel like skating after sich a tumble as you had?" demanded Musgrove, in astonishment.
"A little thing like that doesn't bother me," said Hackett, reflectively, rubbing his left shoulder. "Who wants to go in the match?"
"I will," said Bob Somers.
"Count me in, too," added Dick Travers.
"And me, too," said Randall.
"How about you, Chubby?" asked Bob.
"Count me out of it," replied Dave, promptly.
"For the championship of Lake Wolverine let it be," grinned John Hackett. "Where'll we begin?"
"From here—to the end of the lake, in your direction," answered Musgrove, promptly.
"Good! In about an hour we'll start."
Sitting around the fire was so pleasant that the hour lengthened into two.
Finally Hackett jumped to his feet. "My eye!" he exclaimed; "it's getting late. Come ahead, 'Mushroom'—clap on your skates."
Billy Musgrove winked. It was an expressive wink, and seemed to be a fitting counterpart to his expansive grin.
"All right, Wackett," he said. "I'm ready—for the championship of Lake Wolverine," and his speech ended with a loud laugh.
"He won't smile so much after the race," whispered Hackett to Nat Wingate. "This is where he gets taken down the first peg."
"You can do it, Hacky, if any one can," returned Nat, in equally cautious tones. "Make him think he's standing still."
Bob Somers presently scratched a long line on the ice, and five contestants eagerly toed the mark.
"Bully sport—skatin'," grinned Musgrove.
"Only your legs ain't very long," chuckled Hackett.
"They don't have to grow none, to beat some fellers."
"One—two—three!" cried Nat,—"go!"
Like a flash, the boys were off.
"Hi, hi, Billy!" yelled Tim Sladder; "go it! hi, hi!"
"Keep it up, Hacky—you've got 'em left at the post!" shouted Nat.
Three of the party kept neck and neck—Bob Somers, Hackett and Musgrove, while Dick Travers and Sam Randall fell to the rear.
All had expected to see slim John Hackett quickly take the lead, but, to their surprise, both Somers and Musgrove at once set such a pace that the tall youth was compelled to exert himself to a far greater degree than he cared to at that stage of the proceedings.
From an unexpectedly one-sided affair, the race developed into an exciting contest.
The non-contestants trailed along in the rear, at a pretty fast clip.
"You're winning, hands down, Hacky!" yelled Nat.
"Keep it up, Bob Somers!" shouted Tom Clifton, excitedly.
"Hi, hi!" cried Tim Sladder. "Go it, Billy—go it!"
Musgrove was going it. His short legs moved with wonderful rapidity. Leaning well forward, he kept up a steady rhythmic movement, occasionally spurting in a manner which showed that he had himself well under control.
Hackett, guarding his strength and wind, saw, first with astonishment, then dismay, that Billy Musgrove refused to be shaken off. He was, before very long, breathing hard; his eyes gleamed with determination; off in the distance he saw the end of the lake rounding in a semicircle—the goal.
The moment for the final spurt had arrived; he was ready to bend all his energies in a last desperate effort to draw away from the grinning face beside him, when a strange sound reached his ears.
It was a curious, crackling noise, which increased in intensity. Then a clear, sharp report like a pistol-shot suddenly reverberated across the lake. Instantly a dark line flashed over the surface of the ice directly in the path of the skaters.
As occasionally happens, the ice had been under a tension, which finally became so great as to cause it to crack, leaving a bare space perhaps five or six inches wide.
The unexpected incident caused the boys to check their momentum, but there was not sufficient time to stop, and Musgrove's skate, striking the edge of the crack, almost sent him headlong. It was only by a powerful effort that he managed to save himself.
Hackett and Somers, who had jumped the crack safely, turned their heads to see how Musgrove had fared—then, puffing and blowing, came to a stop.
"Fierce luck!" panted Musgrove. "Was just going to spurt, too. I had your measure, Tackett."
"Spurt?" sniffed Hackett. "Much good that would have done. You would have been beaten so badly on the last stretch that—"
"Huh! I would, hey? You never saw the day when you could beat me, Crackett!"
"You'll have to grow about a foot, 'Mud-bank,' before you're in my class," retorted Hackett, angrily.
"No use scrapping about it, boys," said Bob Somers. "Plenty of time to settle the championship of Lake Wolverine."
"There ain't no one in Stony Creek can beat me," asserted Musgrove, positively; "ask Tim Sladder."
"Well, there's one here who can."
"'Tain't so! An' Scummers was right up with us, too."
"Oh, ho, fellows," drawled Dave Brandon; "what's the matter with you? The lake is still here, and to-morrow's coming. You can try it again, and maybe I'll go in for the championship myself."
This idea made the expansive grin reappear on Musgrove's face, and, with a survey of the poet laureate's generous proportions, he broke into his usual laugh.
"Let's get over to camp, fellows, and see if any one has been up to more funny tricks," suggested Tom Clifton.
"That's the idea," approved Dave. "It's too late, now, to go over and see those fellows across the lake. Besides, I'm half frozen."
When the party reached the huts, they found everything as it had been left.
"You fellows had better grub with us to-night," said Nat Wingate, addressing Sladder and Musgrove. "How will that do?"
"Bully!" replied the two in unison.
The canopy of cloud still hung over the landscape, and strong gusts of wind made the biting cold seem all the more intense.
"Wow! This is the worst yet," growled Dave. "Wouldn't care to have stayed out on the lake any longer."
"It will get a great deal wuss than this," put in Tim Sladder, cheerfully, "but I don't keer as long as there ain't no blizzard."
"Suppose one will be due pretty soon, eh?" remarked Sam Randall, with a critical glance at the lowering sky. "Bother the wind! Listen to it howling among those trees."
Between dancing, swinging their arms and crowding around the blazing fire, the boys managed to keep fairly comfortable.
Twilight began to blot out the distance and, at length, night enveloped the scene—a sullen, gloomy night—one of the blackest they had ever seen. The towering flames threw a wider circle of light than usual, and the near-by trees stood out weirdly against the background.
"Think I know where there's a b'ar hole," remarked Tim Sladder, in a casual way, as he began to eat with much eagerness a plate of rabbit stew. "Me an' Billy seen it yesterday mornin'."
"My eye! That's what I like to hear," said Hackett, enthusiastically. "Anybody can crack a six ounce rabbit. I'm for heavy-weight game."
"And I'm for eating all kinds," put in Dave Brandon, with a laugh.
"If we don't bring down a deer or two, I'll be disappointed," added Bob.
"I've bagged 'em," began Billy Musgrove, as he leaned over and helped himself to another plate of stew, "an' 'tain't so easy as you think, Plummers. No, sir; I remember once, me an' my dad, an' say—talk about shootin', there ain't none can beat him—well, we spotted a herd of deer in the distance, an', as luck would have it, the wind was just right."
Musgrove paused, and seeing that his hearers were displaying a proper amount of interest, was about to continue, when, with startling abruptness, a series of the most discordant, rasping cries came from the depths of the woods.