e and bang it down again with a stomach-turning thud.

In fact, the wind began to batter the boat about so much that B.J.
decided he must have some weight upon the windward runner, or it would
be unmanageable. He told Reddy that he must make his way out to the
end of the see-saw.

Reddy gave B.J. one suspicious look, and then yelled at the top of his
voice:

"No, thank you!"

The calm and joyful B.J. now proceeded to grow very much excited,
and to insist. He told Reddy that he must go out upon the end of
the runner, or the boat would be wrecked, and both of them possibly
killed. After many blood-curdling warnings of this sort, the disgusted
Reddy set forth upon his most unpleasant voyage.

He crept tremblingly along the narrow backbone until he reached the
crossing-point of the runner; there he grasped a hand-rope, and made
his way, step by step, along the jouncing plank to the end, where he
wrapped his legs around the wire stay, and held on for dear life.

Reddy's weight gave the runner steadiness enough to reassure B.J.,
though poor Reddy thought it was the most unstable platform he had
stood upon, as it flung and bucked and shook him hither and yon with
a violence that knew no rest or regularity. But, uncomfortable as he
was, and much as he felt like a seasick balloonist, he did not know in
what a lucky position he was, nor how happy he should have been that
it was not even riskier.

There is some comfort, or there ought to be, in the fact that a
situation is never so bad that it might not be worse.

B.J. was now so well satisfied with his live ballast that he began
once more to sing and make a mad hullabaloo of pure enjoyment. He
finally grew careless, and forgot himself and the eternal alertness
that is necessary for a good skipper. Just one moment he let his mind
wander, and that moment was enough. The boat, without warning to
either B.J. or Reddy, jibed!

Reddy, now more than ever astounded, suddenly found himself pitching
forward in the air and slamming on the ice. He slid along it for a
hundred feet or more on his stomach, like a rocket with a wake of
spray and slush for a tail. Reddy was soaked as completely as if
he had fallen into a bath-tub, and his face and hands were cut and
bruised in the bargain.

But his feelings, his mental feelings, were hurt even worse than his
flesh.

As for the reckless B.J., though he was not so badly bruised as his
unfortunate and unwilling guest, he was to suffer