nces of the summer before and
all our plans for the future. Then we did a good turn for Dutchy, too.
Mr. Van Syckel had always considered his boy a "know-nothing," and was
very much surprised to find that he had invented the scooter scow. Why,
he actually seemed proud of his son, much to Dutchy's embarrassment.
After that there was no trouble about getting the sleigh runners, and
Mr. Van Syckel forgot the objections he had offered at first.

THE SCOOTER CANOE.

[Illustration: Fig. 195. Runners of Scooter Canoe.]

Naturally we were very much elated at our success, and straightway made
for the barn, where we began operations on the scooter canoe. The sleigh
was an old-fashioned affair, with rather broad wooden runners. First we
removed the body of the sleigh, and then the runners were cut down to a
height of about 15 inches. We spaced them apart about 28 inches, and
connected them with four crosspieces at the top. The runners were now
placed over our larger canoe, with forward ends about on a line with the
mast, and the crosspieces were fastened with screws to the gunwales. As
an additional security, a pair of crosspieces were now run under the
canoe at each end and fastened with screws to the keel. At the bow the
keel was shod with a strip of brass. The rudder was taken off the boat,
and an oar lock was fastened to the stern to hold the steering oar. In
place of lee boards we nailed a couple of thin boards over each runner,
as shown in the drawing. We were in a hurry to finish this, as our
vacation was short, so we used on the scooter canoe the sails that we
had made for our ice boat. This required a bowsprit, but as we had
little time to spare we used the jib-boom of the ice boat, nailing it to
the deck beam of the canoe. We decided that the jib-sail could be used
without a boom, as we had done with the scow. The mast was braced by
stays attached to the ends of the runners and bowsprit. This spread of
canvas was far greater than that originally provided for sailing the
canoe, but the heavy runners on each side helped to keep the boat on
even keel, and then to further balance the sail a board was nailed
across the aft end of the boat. This overhung the runners about 18
inches each side, and in a strong wind we could sit out on the windward
end of this board, thus preventing the scooter from heeling over too
far.

[Illustration: Fig. 196. The Scooter Canoe.]

CHAPTER XVII.

AN ARCTIC EXPEDITION.

As soo