“I was thinking of that,” Frank replied. “After breakfast we had better go down and see that they’re all right.”
The meal over, the boys donned their outdoor clothes and set out from the cabin. The snow had drifted over the path and they were obliged to break a new trail down the slope toward the little cove in which the iceboats were left.
“What a dirty day!” exclaimed Chet. “I think we’re just as well off indoors in weather like this.”
“I should say so,” agreed the others.
They found that the iceboats were weathering the gale well. No damage had been done, but the boys took all possible precautions in making the boats secure. While they were doing this, Joe gazed out into the storm.
“I must be dreaming,” he said at last.
“Why?” asked Frank.
“It hardly seems possible, but I’m sure I saw an iceboat go speeding past, out in the bay. It was just a shadow in the snow.”
“What would an iceboat be doing out here on a day like this?” scoffed Chet. “You certainly must have been dreaming.”
The boys gazed out into the blinding wall of snow. They saw nothing, and they were just about to turn away, branding Joe’s statement as a false alarm, when they heard a loud crash.
“What’s that?”
The noise came from somewhere out in the storm, but it was so loud that the lads knew it had been caused by something not far from shore.
“There is something out there!” cried Joe.
“If it was an iceboat it must have been wrecked,” Frank declared. “I guess we had better investigate.”
They went on down the shore a short distance, still gazing out into the driving snow, but there was no solution to the mystery. They could see nothing, and they heard nothing but the howl of the wind. Frank turned up his coat collar.
“I don’t care to venture very far away from the island,” he said doubtfully. “It would be mighty easy to get lost out there.”
“I wonder what caused that crash!”
They were just about to give up the search when they heard a faint cry.
“Help! Help!”
It was a man’s voice.
“That settles it,” declared Frank. “There has been an accident out there and someone is hurt. He’ll freeze to death if we leave him out there.”
“We’ll get him. Listen again, fellows, and see where the sound is coming from.”
The cry was repeated. They judged that the man, whoever he was, was out in the blizzard, almost immediately in front of the place where they were now standing.
“Let’s go,” said Frank.
He took the lead, left the island, and plunged out into the snowy waste. The others followed. Once beyond shelter of the island they caught the full force of the wind. It came howling down on them, flinging snow about them in clouds. They could scarcely see one another, so furious was the blizzard.
“Help!”
“We’re coming!” shouted Frank.
In a few moments they could see a dark mass ahead.
“Iceboat,” grunted Joe. “I told you so. All smashed up.”
The iceboat lay on its side, its mast broken in two, its sails torn to ribbons, its understructure smashed. It had evidently been going at a good rate of speed and had overturned when it swung too far over in the wind. They could see the figure of a man pinned beneath the wreckage.
Hastily, the boys knelt down to extricate the victim. When Frank saw who the man was, he gave a shout of surprise.
“Hanleigh!”
“Get me out of here,” snarled Hanleigh. “My leg is broken.”
The lads wasted no time in dragging their enemy from beneath the wreckage of the iceboat. He was groaning with pain.
“I can’t walk!” he moaned. “You’ll have to carry me. My leg is broken.”
The boys raised Hanleigh on their shoulders. There was no use trying to save the iceboat. It was wrecked beyond all chance of repair.
“How did you come to be out here on a day like this?” demanded Frank, as they started the journey back to Cabin Island.
Hanleigh made no reply. He was moaning with pain. His right leg hung limply, but Frank’s practiced eye saw at a glance that it was not broken.
“Sprained his ankle, most likely,” he said to Joe.
“Lucky I wasn’t killed,” groaned Hanleigh. “I was going at terrific speed, and I couldn’t get the boat stopped. I tried to lower sail and the wind turned the whole boat over on top of me.”
“Anybody who goes iceboating in a storm like this deserves whatever happens to him,” observed Chet unsympathetically.
Hanleigh was a heavy man, and by the time the boys reached the island they were forced to stop and rest. Then, puffing from their labors, they raised the injured man to their shoulders again and began to climb up the slope.
“I’m glad you heard me shouting,” muttered Hanleigh. “I would have frozen to death out there.”
“A lucky chance for you that we heard you at all,” Joe said. “If we had been up in the cabin we would never have heard a whisper.”
Frank nudged his brother.
“Lucky for us, too,” he said. “Now we’ll be able to make him talk.”
At last they reached the cabin. They put Hanleigh on one of the beds, and then Frank examined the injured leg. As he had suspected, it was not broken, although the ankle was badly sprained. Having bathed it and put liniment and a bandage on the injured limb, Frank looked down at Hanleigh.
“You’re all right. Don’t make such a fuss. It’s only a sprain.”
“Lucky it wasn’t worse. My, I’m glad you boys heard me calling.”
“Pretty nice to have friends near at hand, isn’t it?” said Frank. “Now that you’re here, Hanleigh, I think you’d better tell us why you were snooping around the island in the first place.”
“I wasn’t coming to the island,” returned Hanleigh lamely.
“As if we’ll believe that!”
“Now, boys,” said Hanleigh placatingly, “let’s forget all our little differences and let bygones be bygones. You have saved my life and I’m very grateful to you. I didn’t mean you any harm.”
“Why were you
