plan was to
SKATE, not to be carried like little children."

"Tuyfels!" retorted Jacob. "Dat ish no little--no papies--to go for
poat!"

The boys laughed but exchanged uneasy glances. It would be great fun to
jump on an iceboat, if they had a chance, but to abandon so shamefully
their grand undertaking--who could think of such a thing?

An animated discussion arose at once.

Captain Peter brought his party to a halt.

"Boys," said he, "it strikes me that we should consult Jacob's wishes in
this matter. He started the excursion, you know."

"Pooh!" sneered Carl, throwing a contemptuous glance at Jacob. "Who's
tired? We can rest all night in Leyden."

Ludwig and Lambert looked anxious and disappointed. It was no slight
thing to lose the credit of having skated all the way from Broek to
the Hague and back again, but both agreed that Jacob should decide the
question.

Good-natured, tired Jacob! He read the popular sentiment at a glance.

"Oh, no," he said in Dutch. "I was joking. We will skate, of course."

The boys gave a delighted shout and started on again with renewed vigor.

All but Jacob. He tried his best not to seem fatigued and, by not saying
a word, saved his breath and energy for the great business of skating.
But in vain. Before long, the stout body grew heavier and heavier--the
tottering limbs weaker and weaker. Worse than all, the blood, anxious to
get as far as possible from the ice, mounted to the puffy, good-natured
cheeks, and made the roots of his thin yellow hair glow into a fiery
red.

This kind of work is apt to summon vertigo, of whom good Hans Anderson
writes--the same who hurls daring young hunters from the mountains or
spins them from the sharpest heights of the glaciers or catches them as
they tread the stepping-stones of the mountain torrent.

Vertigo came, unseen, to Jacob. After tormenting him awhile, with one
touch sending a chill from head to foot, with the next scorching every
vein with fever, she made the canal rock and tremble beneath him, the
white sails bow and spin as they passed, then cast him heavily upon the
ice.

"Halloo!" cried Van Mounen. "There goes Poot!"

Ben sprang hastily forward.

"Jacob! Jacob, are you hurt?"

Peter and Carl were lifting him. The face was white enough now. It
seemed like a dead face--even the good-natured look was gone.

A crowd collected. Peter unbuttoned the poor boy's jacket, loosened his
red tippet, and blew between the parted lip