Dutchy, however, seemed to be in a surprisingly good humor, and kept up
a lively chatter about things that the club had made in our absence. The
skis, which have already been described on page 42, had been built under
Reddy's guidance, and they had already used them on Willard's Hill,
coasting down like a streak and shooting way up into the air off a hump
at the bottom. Then there was the toboggan slide down Randall's Hill,
and way across the river on the ice.

OUR CRAFT STRIKES THE ICE.

Dutchy talked so incessantly that we hadn't noticed the field of ice
which we were nearing. Just at this point Bill turned around with an
exclamation.

"Here, Dutchy, you crazy fellow, where are you going to? Hard to port,
man--hard aport--or you will crash into the ice!"

But Dutchy only grinned nervously.

"I tell you, you will smash the boat!" Bill cried again, making a dive
for the steering oar; but just then the boat struck the ice, and both
Bill and I were thrown backward into the bottom of the boat. But the
boat didn't smash.

[Illustration: A Sail on the Scooter Scow.]

There was a momentary grinding and crunching noise, and, much to my
surprise, I found that the old scow had lifted itself clean out of the
water, and was skating right along on the ice. Then Dutchy could control
himself no longer. He laughed, and laughed, as if he never would stop.
He laughed until the steering oar dropped from his hands, and the old
scow, with the head free, swung around and plunged off the ice ledge
with a heavy splash into the open water again. Then Reddy, who was
almost equally convulsed, came to his senses. "Now you've done it,
Dutchy; you're a fine skipper, you are! How do you expect to get us back
to shore again?" The steering oar was left behind us on the ice, and
there we were drifting on the open water, with no rudder and no oar to
bring us back.

THE SCOOTER SCOW.

[Illustration: Fig. 191. Scow with Runners nailed on.]

The only thing we could do was to wait until the wind or current carried
us to the ice or land. In the meantime Dutchy, who had suddenly sobered
down when we took our water plunge, explained how he had rigged up the
scow to travel both on ice and on water. He called the rig a sled boat,
but the name by which such a rig is now known is a "scooter." It was
Dutchy's idea primarily, but Reddy had engineered the work. Along the
bottom of the scow two strips of hickory had been nailed to serve as
runners. T