"It's the nearest thing to flying, as far as the sensation goes, that there is, I guess," Luke Shepard put in.

"I used to have a scooter when we were in winter quarters," said Neale O'Neil to Agnes. "Don't be afraid, Aggie."

"Oh, I won't be afraid if you are along, Neale," promptly declared the little beauty. "I know you will take care of me."

"You bet!" responded Neale, his eyes shining.

As they came down to the big wharf the party got a better view of the lake front. There were at least a dozen ice-boats, large and small, in motion. Those farthest out from the sh.o.r.e had caught the full sweep of the wind and were darting about, as Mrs. MacCall said, like water-bugs on the surface of a pond.

Ruth looked around keenly as they came out on the wharf.

"Why!" she said to Mr. Howbridge, "this is the lumber company's wharf.

The company you said had bought the timber on the Birdsall Estate."

"It is the Neven Lumber Company, as you can see by the sign over the offices yonder," agreed their guardian. "And here comes Neven himself."

A red-faced man with a red vest on which were small yellow dots and some grease spots, and who chewed a big and black cigar and wore his hard hat on one side of his head, approached the group as Mr.

Howbridge spoke. He hailed the latter jovially.

"Hey, Howbridge! Glad to see you. So these are your folks, are they?

Hope you'll have a merry Christmas up there in the woods. Nice place, Birdsall's Lodge."

"Thank you," said the lawyer quietly.

"Which of 'em's Birdsall's young ones?" continued the lumber dealer, staring about with very bold eyes, and especially at Ruth Kenway and Cecile Shepard.

"I am sorry to say, Mr. Neven," said the lawyer, "that the Birdsall twins are not with us. The children have run away from their home--a home with people who have known them since they were born. It is a very strange affair, and is causing me much worry."

"You don't say!" exclaimed Neven. "Too bad! Too bad! But they'll turn up. Young 'uns always do. I ran away myself when I was a kid; and look at me now," and the lumberman puffed out his chest proudly, as though satisfied that Lem Neven was a good deal of a man.

"I reckon," pursued the lumberman, "that you think it's your duty to go up to the Birdsall place and look over the piece I've got stumpage on. But you don't re'lly need to. My men are scientific, I tell you. I don't hire no old has-beens like Ike M'Graw. Those old timber cruisers are a hundred years behind the times."

"They have one very good attribute. At least, Ike has," Mr. Howbridge said quietly.

"What's that?" asked Neven.

"He is perfectly honest," was the dry response. "I shall base my demands for the Birdsall estate on Ike's report. I a.s.sure you of that now, Mr. Neven, so that you need build no false hopes upon the reports of your own cruisers. As the contract stands we can close it out and deal with another company if it seems best to do so. And some company--either yours or another----will go in there right after New Year's and begin to cut."

He turned promptly away from the red-faced man and followed his party along the wharf to its end. Here lay two large ice-boats. There was a boxlike c.o.c.kpit on each that would hold four pa.s.sengers comfortably, besides the tiller men and the boy who "trimmed ship." A crew of two went with each boat.

"How will the other two of our party travel?" asked Ruth, when these arrangements were explained.

Already Neale O'Neil had beckoned Agnes to one side. There lay behind the two big boats a skeleton-like arrangement, with a seat at the stern no wider than a bobsled, and another on the "outrigger," or crossbeam. This scooter carried a huge boom for a leg-o'-mutton sail, and it was a type of the very fastest ice-boats on the lake.

Neale helped the eager Agnes down a rude ladder to the ice. She was just reckless enough to desire to try the new means of locomotion. Her exclamations of delight drew Ruth to the edge of the wharf over their heads.

"What are you two doing down there?" asked the older girl.

"Oh, now, Ruthie!" murmured Agnes, "do let me go with Neale in this pretty boat. There isn't room for us in the bigger boats. Do!"

Ruth knew very little about racing ice-boats. The scooter looked no more dangerous to her than did the lumbering craft that Hedden had engaged for the rest of the party.

These bigger boats, furnished with square sails rather than the leg-o'-muttons they now flaunted, were commonly used to transfer merchandise, or even logs up and down the lake. They were lumbering and slow.

"Well, if Mr. Howbridge says you can," the oldest Corner House girl agreed, still somewhat doubtful.

Neale had already begged permission of Mr. Howbridge. The lawyer was quite as ignorant regarding ice-boating as Ruth herself. Neither of them considered that any real harm could come to Neale and Agnes in the smaller craft.

The crews of the larger ice-boats were experienced boatmen. They got their lumbering craft under way just as soon as the pa.s.sengers were settled with their light baggage in the c.o.c.kpits. There were bear robes and blankets in profusion. Although the wind was keen, the party did not expect that Jack Frost would trouble them.

"Isn't this great?" cried Cecile, who was in one of the boats with Ruth, her brother, and Sammy Pinkney. "My! we always manage to have such very nice times when we are with you Corner House girls, Ruthie."

"This is all new to me," admitted her friend. "I hope nothing will happen to wreck us."

"Wreck us! Fancy!" laughed Cecile.

"This wind is very strong, just the same," said Ruth.

"Hold hard!" cried Luke, laughing. "Low bridge!"

The boom swung over, and they all stooped quickly to avoid it. The next moment the big sail filled, bulging with the force of the wind.

The heavy runners began to whine over the powdered ice, and they went swiftly onward toward the middle of the lake.

"On the wings of the wind! How delightful!" cried Cecile. Then she said again: "Isn't this great?"

CHAPTER VII

THE SCOOTER

Sammy Pinkney had desired greatly to go with Neale and Agnes on the smaller ice-boat; but they would not hear to the proposal. He struck up an acquaintance with the "crew" of the big boat to which he was a.s.signed, and gave Ruth and Luke Shepard no trouble.

In the other large boat Mr. Howbridge, Mrs. MacCall and the two smallest Corner House girls, as well as Tom Jonah, were very cozily ensconced. Dot clutched the Alice-doll very tightly and Tom Jonah barked loudly when the barge slithered out upon the lake and began to gather speed as the fresh wind filled the big sail.

Mrs. MacCall continued to have her doubts regarding the safety of this strange means of locomotion.

"There's one good thing about it," she chattered, as the sledge jarred over a few hummocks. "There's nae so far to fall if we do fall out."

"It's perfectly safe, they tell me," Mr. Howbridge a.s.sured her.

"Aye. It may look so," the good woman admitted. "But 'tis like Tam Taggart goin' to London."

"How was that?" the lawyer asked, smiling.

"Tam was one o' these canny Highlanders, and he made up his mind after muckle thought to spend a week in London. He went to 'broaden his mind,' as they call it. Truly, to prove to himself that London and the English were quite as bad as he'd believed all his life.