rivate icehouse. The
men had cut out a roughly outlined square of the thick ice, sawed it
into cakes, and poled it to shore and so to the sleds and the manager's
icehouse.

It was not a large opening in the ice; but even if the frost continued,
it would be several days before the new ice would form thickly enough to
bear again over that spot.

Elsewhere, however, the ice was strong, for all the cutting for the
big icehouses had been done long before near the Landing. The lights of
Powerton Landing were twinkling ahead of them as the two friends swept
on up the long lake. The wind was in their faces, such wind as there
was, and the air was keen and nippy.

The action of skating, however, kept Nan and Bess warm. Bess in her furs
and Nan in her warm tam-o'-shanter and the muffler Momsey had knitted
with her own hands, did not mind the cold.

The evening train shrieked out of the gap and across the long trestle
just beyond the landing, where it halted for a few seconds for
passengers to embark or to leave the cars. This train was from Chicago,
and on Monday Papa Sherwood expected to go to that big city to work.

The thought gave Nan a feeling of depression. The little family in the
Amity street cottage had never been separated for more than a day
since she could remember. It was going to be hard on Momsey, with Papa
Sherwood away and Nan in school all day. How were they going to get
along without Papa Sherwood coming home to supper, and doing the hard
chores?

Bess awoke her chum from these dreams. "Dear me, Nan! Have you lost your
tongue all of a sudden? Do say something, or do something."

"Let's race the train down the pond to Tillbury," proposed Nan
instantly.

The lights of the long coaches were just moving out of the station at
the Landing. The two girls came about in a graceful curve and struck
out for home at a pace that even the train could not equal. The rails
followed the shore of the pond on the narrow strip of lowland at the
foot of the bluffs. They could see the lights shining through the car
windows all the way.

The fireman threw open the door of his firebox to feed the furnace and
a great glare of light, and a shower of sparks, spouted from the
smokestack. The rumble of the wheels from across the ice seemed louder
than usual.

"Come on, Bess!" gasped Nan, quite excited. "We can do better than this!
Why, that old train will beat us!"

For they were falling behind. The train hooted its defiance