THE RACE OF THE ICE-BOATS
A bitterly cold, lowering day with a northeasterly gale blowing almost
straight down the river, nipping fingers and ears and noses. Now and
then a fitful flurry of snow, driving past like a miniature blizzard.
In front of the Ferry Hill landing two ice-boats, heads to the wind,
sails snapping and wire rigging singing in the blasts; one with red
hull and a cherry-and-black flag whipping from the masthead, the other
glistening in new green and bearing the brown-and-white banner of
Ferry Hill on high. About them some sixty boys from the rival schools,
turning and twisting in and out on their skates in an effort to keep
warm in the face of the biting gale. And over all a leaden, cheerless
sky.
The race was to be windward and return, a distance of about fourteen
miles. The starting-line was opposite the northern end of the
boat-house, the turning-point some seven miles up the river at a place
called Indian Head, where a small islet rose from the river near the
west bank to serve as a mark. The boats were to finish opposite the
boat-house. On the _Snowbird_ were Joe Thurston and his friend Bob
Cutler, while the _Boreas_ held Dick and Chub. Whitcomb, with a small
starting pistol in his gloved hand, was trying to push the crowd back
so that the boats might swing into the wind at the signal.
The warning was given, the rival skippers declared themselves ready
and the pistol barked, its sharp report being instantly whisked away
on the wind. The slender noses of the two boats were turned, the sails
filled slowly, and after a moment of seeming hesitation the _Snowbird_
and the _Boreas_ started slowly across the ice on the first tack to
starboard, while behind them the rival groups shouted encouragement
to the yachtsmen and defiance to each other. With every instant the
boats gathered headway, gliding across the glassy surface like gaily
hued dragon-flies above the surface of a pool. The white wings became
taut under the steady wind and the windward runners left the ice as the
boats heeled further and further. It was nip and tuck on that first
tack, the boats keeping their relative positions until the farther
shore was reached and the helms were put over. Around swung the crafts
and pointed their noses toward the right bank of the river.
On the _Boreas_ Dick and Chub lay on opposite sides of the backbone
which divided the steering-box into halves. Dick held the tiller. They
were wrapped in the warmest clothing they had been able to find, but
it was far from warm enough. The wind came slanting against them and
bored its way down necks and up sleeves. Fingers were already tingling
and foreheads aching.
“Cold!” shouted Dick above the singing of the runners and the whistle
of the wind. Chub nodded and made a grimace without taking his gaze
from the _Snowbird_, which, some fifty feet away, was bowling along
finely.
“She’s gaining,” said Chub presently. Dick turned and looked, glanced
at his sails and eased the helm a little. Then it was time to go about
again, since the shore was becoming dangerously near. The _Snowbird_
was already turning, slowing for a moment as she pointed dead to
windward and then springing away again as the gale slanted across the
sails. The _Boreas_ had lost and on this tack she was sixty or seventy
yards behind her rival. The latter’s larger sail area was telling.
Chub looked anxiously at Dick, but that youth was gazing across at the
_Snowbird_, a hand held in front of his face to break the wind. When he
turned there was a little frown on his face and he pointed the nose of
the _Boreas_ closer into the wind. For a while she seemed to be holding
her own. Then the _Snowbird_ went about again, this time on a mile-long
reach made possible by a bend in the river. The _Boreas_ was almost
half a minute behind now and Dick was growling things to himself that
Chub couldn’t catch. The wind seemed to be growing stronger, though
perhaps it was merely that it had a broader sweep here where the stream
turned toward the east.
“How fast?” asked Chub, his hand to his mouth.
“Twenty-five, I guess,” Dick shouted back.
Chub tried to whistle, but couldn’t. Beside them the ice was only
a blurred surface that rushed by without form or substance, a
grayish-green nothing, as it seemed, above which they were speeding
with a rapidity that almost took the breath away. The wind shrieked
and roared and strove to blow them from the box to which they were
clinging. A sudden flurry of snow rushed down upon them, hiding the
shore and the other boat from their sight, and blinding them so that
for a moment they had to close their eyes.
“Look out for the shore!” cried Chub, with a gasp. There was an
unintelligible word from Dick in reply as a gray shape suddenly sprang
out of the snow-mist. “Hold hard!” he shouted. Chub had just time to
obey when over went the tiller, there was a loud _slur--r--r_ as the
runners ground sideways against the ice and the _Boreas_ threw herself
about so suddenly that it was all the boys could do to keep their
places. Then a quick leap forward and the boat was on the other tack
and the snow-squall had passed. They looked eagerly for the _Snowbird_.
She had gained some, but not much. The _Boreas_ with a rush and a roar
swept after her. It was a short tack this time, since Hopple Rock lay
dead ahead off the west shore, and soon they were once more on the port
tack, the windward end of the runner-plank standing high above the ice.
“There’s the Head!” said Dick.
Perhaps two miles up the frozen river a somber rock, tree crowned,
arose from the gray ice like a rugged sugar-loaf. There was no
mistaking it, although neither Dick nor Chub had ever journeyed so far
up-stream. The boats must pass around it before they turned homeward.
Dick, as best he could, shading his eyes with one mittened hand,
studied the river. Then he moved the tiller slowly and cautiously
until the boat was heeled so far over that Chub was forced to cling
frantically to the backbone to keep from rolling off onto the ice. But
the boat responded with increased speed. Chub, with the tears streaming
from his eyes, held on, at once fearful and fascinated. Surely they
were flying through air and that grayness flowing swiftly beneath them
was cloud! It was hard to believe that they were on solid ice!
“Hold tight!” cried Dick.
Chub wondered how he could hold any tighter with his numbed and aching
fingers. Then the windward runner dropped quickly to the ice, the
_Boreas_ swung about on her heel and Chub found himself rolling over
against the backbone as the new tack began. Half a mile ahead the
_Snowbird_, a low streak of red topped with a snowy spread of sail, was
crossing in the opposite direction, the cherry-and-black flag at the
masthead standing out as stiff as though starched.
“She’s got us beaten!” said Chub.
But Dick made no answer. He was calculating his chances. It was evident
that the _Snowbird_ was going to round the rock on the starboard tack.
That meant, as Dick figured it out, that she would make two more
reaches first. But to Dick it seemed that perhaps something was to be
gained by hauling closer to the wind at the next turn and making a long
tack to port until a point was reached near the east shore and slightly
below the rock. From there he could round the mark with a short tack
to starboard and start home on a long course with the wind abeam. It
meant allowing the _Snowbird_ to gain now in the hope of cutting down
her lead later. So when the _Boreas_ again came about Chub found that
it was not necessary to hold on for dear life. The boat was headed
closer into the wind and the steering-box was no longer canted at an
alarming angle. The speed was less, but the boat demonstrated the fact
that she could do fast work when close-hauled. The _Snowbird_ crossed
twice ahead of them during the next few minutes and finally, just as
the _Boreas_ was nearing the end of her final reach to port, she shot
from around the island and turned homeward. Chub looked anxious and
perplexed. Then over went the helm once more, there was a sharp swirl
as the _Boreas_ swung about and the black rock rushed toward them. As
they skirted it the starboard runner was scarcely more than six yards
from the gray boulders that lay about it. Then the wind was behind
them and with a rush and a bound the _Boreas_ started toward home. The
_Snowbird_ was, as Dick estimated, three quarters of a mile ahead,
running fleetly on the opposite tack.
A stern chase is a long chase, they say, and the crew of the _Boreas_
found it so. And yet, before half the distance to the finish had been
reeled off, they knew that they were gaining slowly but consistently
on their opponent. Joe Thurston was making the mistake of sailing too
closely before the wind. Dick, on the other hand, strove to keep the
wind well on his beam, and while, in order to do this, it was necessary
to put the _Boreas_ on shorter tacks, the result was warranting it.
Little by little the green boat cut down the distance that separated
her from the red. But with three miles still to run it seemed that the
handicap was too large. The _Snowbird_ looked then very much like a
winner to Chub and he wondered how Harry would reconcile the defeat of
the _Boreas_ with the fact that her lucky Ferry Hill banner was flying
from the masthead. If the boats had made speed going up the river they
were simply flying now, although as the wind was behind them the
difference was not very appreciable to the boys. Thirty miles an hour
when you are scarcely a foot above the surface seems a terrific pace.
Two miles above Ferry Hill the _Snowbird_ was scarcely a quarter of a
mile ahead. She was starting on a long reach which, if all went well
with her, would be the last but one to bring her to the line. The
_Boreas_ was on the opposite side of the river and as she swung across
on a new tack it was evident that Dick was ready for any hazard. Chub
found himself in danger of rolling off onto the ice, while Dick seemed
every moment about to topple down upon him. The _Boreas_ was like
a boy standing on one leg and kicking the other into the air. Then
another change of course and it was Chub’s turn to go up. There were
moments when he vowed that if he reached home safely he would never
trust himself again on an ice-boat with Dick Somes. But they were
gaining every moment now and the quarter-mile lead was down to an
eighth. Suddenly Chub, who was peering ahead at the _Snowbird_, gave
an exclamation of surprise. The _Snowbird_, then in mid-stream, had
suddenly left her tack and had headed again toward the east shore.
“Ice-crack!” shouted Dick in explanation. “I saw it when we came up.”
“Better change your course then,” said Chub anxiously. But Dick only
shook his head. That the _Snowbird_ had decided to go around it and so
give him a good chance of winning was no reason why he should follow
suit. The _Boreas_ held her course. Chub glanced in alarm at the calm,
set face beside him and something he saw there quieted his fears. He
looked forward. Ahead, rushing toward them, was a black fissure, an
ice-crack which extended for over a hundred yards almost directly
across the ice. How wide it was Chub had no idea. Nor did he have time
for much speculation, for:
“_Hold for all you’re worth, Chub!_” cried Dick.
[Illustration: “A half-mile away was the finish line”]
Then a twelve-foot expanse of water and broken ice swept up to them,
Dick eased the helm until the boat was at right angles to the crack
and the fore runners struck the slightly raised edge of the fissure
at the same instant. Chub closed his eyes and held on convulsively.
The _Boreas_ rose bodily in the air, there was a momentary sensation
of being swept through space, and then the runners clanged down upon
the ice with a soft jar and the _Boreas_ was tearing along toward the
finish, having taken the gap with a twenty-foot leap as a hunter takes
a fence!
Chub opened his eyes. The crack was just a dark thread behind them.
Near at hand the _Snowbird_ was charging along with them neck and neck.
A half-mile away was the finish line and the groups of dark figures.
“Hold on!” cried Dick again. And this time there was exultation in
his voice. The _Boreas_ heeled to the blast and drew away from the
red boat, foot by foot, yard by yard. Twenty seconds--and there was
a gap between them! Thirty seconds--and there stretched the length of
a boat between! Forty seconds--and the _Boreas_ was charging past the
waving figures at the finish, the brown-and-white flag at the masthead
flapping in triumph. Dick had won by a scant ten yards!