THE PLANS
“Lemme get out and find a club, Dan!” begged Billy, as the gray car
continued to approach the red one at a swift pace.
“What could you do with a club?” demanded the older lad.
“I’d bust it over that beast’s head!” declared his brother, excitedly.
“Stop the car!”
The occupants of the red car had all crouched down in the bottom, hoping
the bull would not see them. They might have been ostriches hiding their
heads from pursuit in the desert sand.
The beast charged again, and this time he smashed the windshield and got
his forehoofs into the front of the car. Barry Spink vaulted over the
back of the seat and left Lettie Parker (who had sat with him) to her
fate.
“We’re coming, Let!” roared Billy, standing up and fairly dancing in the
onrushing gray racer.
The next instant the bull backed away and got right into the path of the
Speedwells’ car. Dan had intended to run her alongside of the red
automobile and give the frightened passengers a chance to escape.
But the bull got in the way. There was a heavy thud, and Mr. Bull
flopped over on his side, bellowing in pain and surprise, while the gray
car rebounded from his carcass as though it were made of India rubber.
“Goody-good!” shrieked Lettie Parker. “Bump the mean old thing again,
Dan! Bump it!”
But Dan shut off the power quickly. He was afraid the collision had done
the racer no good, as it was.
However, he had no intention of seeing the bull do any further harm to
the crowd in Burton Poole’s car. With Billy, he ran at the beast, that
had now staggered to his feet. Dan had seized a long-handled wrench from
the tool box, and before the bull could lower his head to charge, he hit
the tender nose a hard clip.
How the creature roared! He hated to give up the fight and it was not
until Dan had struck another blow that the bull backed into the ditch
and cleared the road for the passage of the two cars.
“For pity’s sake get under the wheel yourself, Burton!” exclaimed Dan.
“Get those girls out of here.”
“I’m going to get into your car, Billy,” declared Lettie Parker.
“And I, too!” gasped Mildred.
“Why, it wasn’t my fault the old bull charged us,” whined Barrington
Spink.
“You give me a pain!” growled Burton, who was a big, rather slow-witted
fellow, but sound of heart. “You jumped over the seat and left Let to be
gored to death by that beast—as far as _you_ cared!”
“I—I thought she was coming, too,” gasped Spink.
“See if you can get any action in your engine, Burton,” advised Dan. “If
that other fellow had had any sense at all he wouldn’t have rushed right
down upon the bull in the way he did.”
“I—I didn’t suppose it would dare face the car,” continued the
explanatory Spink.
“Rats!” snapped Billy, in disgust. “The car’s red enough to give
anything the blind staggers! No wonder that old bull went for it.”
Burton tried to turn his engine; but he couldn’t get a bit of action out
of it. Fortunately the bull was whipped, and the Speedwells turned their
own machine about, hitched on to the red car, and towed it back to
Riverdale, unmolested.
Later in the week, after the boys had tried the racer out to their
complete satisfaction, Dan remained up one evening long after his
brother had gone to bed. Billy fell asleep seeing Dan bent over certain
drawings he had made, and it must have been midnight when the younger
boy was startled out of his sound sleep by a sudden sound.
There was Dan hopping about the room in a grotesque, stocking-footed
dance.
“What under the sun’s the matter with you, Dan?” gasped the younger boy.
“I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” ejaculated his brother, snapping his fingers
and continuing the dance.
“Stop it! stop it, I say!” commanded Billy. “You’ll have mother in here.
My goodness! can’t you break out with the measles—or whatever you’ve
got—at a decent hour?”
“It’s something bigger than the measles, Billy,” chuckled Dan, falling
into his chair before the table again. “Look here.”
“Those old plans——” began Billy, sleepily.
“These _new_ plans, you mean,” responded his brother, vigorously. “I
tell you I’ve struck pay dirt.”
The words stung Billy into a keener appreciation of his brother’s
excitement. Awakened from a sound sleep, he had been rather dazed at
first. Now he knew what Dan meant.
“You—got—it?” he gasped, stifling a mighty yawn. “Figured it all out?”
“I’m going to rig a motor-driven sprocket wheel arrangement that will
push a car over the ice at good speed—yes, sir!”
“Going to hitch it to the _Fly-up-the-Creek_?” demanded Billy, eagerly,
bending over the papers Dan had prepared.
“No. That’s where I was wrong. We’ll build an entirely new iceboat. See
here?” and he at once began explaining to his brother the idea that
developed—as it seemed—almost of itself since Billy had gone to sleep
three hours before.
“It sure looks good!” exclaimed the younger boy, admiringly, when Dan
had concluded. “You _have_ got it, Dan! And the boys will be crazy over
it.”
“We’ll just keep it to ourselves, you know,” warned Dan. “Mr. Robert
Darringford is going to offer a handsome prize for the fastest iceboat
at the regatta we’re going to hold. Don’t you know that?”
“Well—er—yes.”
“Then we’ll just keep still about this scheme. Some of the parts will
have to be made in the machine shops, you know. And some parts we’ll get
old Troutman, at Compton, to make. You remember him?”
“Sure! the pattern maker who worked for Mr. Asa Craig when Mr. Craig was
building his submarine.”
“The same. We won’t let anybody but father see the plans as completed.
No use in letting ’em in on the scheme.”
“Crickey, Dan!” exclaimed Billy. “If we build a racer that wipes up the
whole river, Barry Spink will turn green with envy. I heard him blowing
the other day that he was going to have some kind of a mechanical
contrivance built for his _White Albatross_ that would make her the
fastest thing on the ice.”
“That’s all right. Maybe he’s got something good up his sleeve,” laughed
Dan. “But I believe that we have something just a little better here,”
and he tapped the plans on the table.
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