“I’ll say it can. If he doesn’t change his course that chap will travel right into us.”
As the big boat drew nearer the boys saw that there were two men on board. Frank mentally checked over the various iceboats he had seen on the bay and thought he recognized the approaching boat as belonging to Tad Carson and Ike Nash, two young men of unsavory repute in the city. They were loud-mouthed, insolent fellows who had never been known to do a day’s work, and it was a mystery how they had managed to raise sufficient money to buy the iceboat in which they were now amusing themselves.
“He’d better change his course,” said Joe nervously. “He’s heading right toward us.”
“Not if I know it,” said Frank. “If he won’t change, then I will.”
He bore down on the tiller and their iceboat swung around out of the path of the other.
Then, to their amazement and consternation, the lads saw that the big craft had also swung around and that it was still hurtling forward at terrific speed.
“They’re going to run us down!” shouted Chet, in alarm.
The big boat was only fifty yards away. The lads could see Ike Nash at the tiller, his mouth open in an ugly grin.
In another moment, the big craft would crash broadside into the small boat, and so great was its speed that the Hardy boys’ boat would certainly be wrecked beyond repair and it was possible that the boys themselves might be seriously injured.
Then they saw Ike bear down on the tiller again, evidently trying to avert the catastrophe at the last minute. It had been a crude practical joke on his part, to frighten the lads.
Then he looked up, his face frightened, and shouted.
The tiller had not responded!
The big iceboat did not change course. It was booming down on the smaller craft at terrific speed!
III
A Strange Note
Had it not been for Frank Hardy’s coolness and presence of mind, there would have been a disastrous collision.
His quick hand at the tiller averted the crash by a hairbreadth. How he did it, he could not later explain. At the time, Chet and Joe could see no possible chance of escape. But, just as the collision seemed imminent, their craft veered off to one side and the other boat went booming past at terrific speed, the two iceboats so close together that their sides almost touched.
It was a narrow escape. Frank had swung the nose of his boat around just in the nick of time.
He brought the craft around in a circle, for the boys were in no mind to let the affront pass. Then they saw that the other boat had overturned. The boy at the helm, frightened by the imminence of peril, had lost his nerve, had swung the boat too far over, and it had gone on its side. The mast had snapped. The boat was wrecked.
The Hardy boys and Chet Morton went back to the scene. Tad Carson and Ike Nash were just crawling out from under their capsized craft.
“What’s the big idea?” roared Nash, in an ugly humor. “Now see what you’ve done. You might have killed us!”
“Take some of that for yourself,” rejoined Frank, walking over. “It was your own fault. You tried to run us down.”
“Run you down! I like that! You head straight for us and then say we tried to run you down. You’ve smashed our boat, so you have, and you’ll pay for it.”
“Try to collect!” advised Chet airily. “By rights, we ought to have you up in court. Trying to be smart, weren’t you?”
Both the other boys were bigger than Chet, but this never bothered that boy—as long as someone was with him.
“Absolutely deliberate, wasn’t it, Tad?”
“You bet!” said Carson. “The young brats drove right at us. If they had hit us we might have been killed.”
Their cool effrontery amazed the Hardy boys.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” snapped Joe. “Trying to lay the blame on us. It serves you right to have your boat smashed up. You would have smashed ours if we hadn’t been lucky. After this, watch where you’re going.”
“Look here!” said Ike Nash truculently, doubling his fists and stepping forward. “I won’t stand talk like that from you.”
“No?” said Frank, edging over to Joe’s side, and doubling his fists as well. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Yes,” added Chet, trying to achieve a threatening expression, “what are you going to do about it?”
Ike and Tad surveyed the three lads who stood facing them, with fists ready. Like most bullies, they were cowards, and now that their bluff had been called they were not anxious to risk a battle that might prove the worse for them.
“You’ll find out what we’ll do about it,” growled Ike. “As for me, I wouldn’t waste my time thrashing you, although you need it mighty bad—”
“Sure,” agreed Tad Carson quickly. “I wouldn’t lower myself to lick you. Just a pack of babies, that’s all. You oughtn’t to be allowed out on the bay when you can’t handle a boat.”
“It’s your boat that got smashed,” Chet reminded them cheerfully. “How was that for handling?”
“Come on,” said Ike. “Don’t talk to the brats, Tad. What’s the use wasting time on them?”
“That’s what I say,” agreed his companion, and they returned loftily to their smashed boat, trying to conceal their chagrin.
“Want a ride back?” chirped Chet.
“You clear out of here, or we’ll smash your boat too.”
“Let’s go,” advised Frank. “They’re in a bad humor. It wasn’t our fault. I think we were lucky to escape so easily. If our boat had been smashed they would have just laughed at us.”
The lads scrambled back into their iceboat and in a few minutes they were sailing up the bay again, past the wreckage of the other craft. Ike Nash and Tad Carson were clumsily trying to put it to rights.
“That’ll teach ’em to go around scaring people,” observed Chet Morton virtuously, as they flashed
