The Girls of Central High on the Stage: or, The Play That Took The Prize

Jess did not answer. She was naturally as frivolous of mind as any other girl of her age, only the happenings in their domestic life of the last few weeks had made her far more thoughtful.

And really, the little dove-cote, as Mrs. Prentice had called their new home, was a veritable love of a place! Mrs. Morse had to admit herself that it was a great improvement over the house where they had lived so long.

As it was vacation week, she let Jess go right ahead to settle things while she stuck to the typewriter. And Jess was glad to have plenty to occupy her mind. The suspense of waiting for the committee to decide upon the winner of the prize was hard to endure indeed.

One evening, however, Chet came after her, for there was a big moonlight skating party on Lake Luna. By this time people who had horses and sleighs had made quite a trotting course from Centerport to Keyport in one direction, and from Centerport to Lumberport at the other end of the lake.

There were certain motor enthusiasts, too, who had rigged their cars so that they would travel on the ice; but Chet Belding and Lance Darby had beaten them all. The trotting course hugged the shore, the skaters followed the same course, but farther out on the ice, and beyond, toward the middle of the lake, the iceboats had free swing. And there were several very fast “scooters” and the like upon Lake Luna.

But Laura’s brother and his chum declared that “they’d got ’em all beat to a stiff froth!” And on this night they produced the finished product of their joint work for the last several weeks.

“What do we call it? The Blue Streak!” declared Chet. “And that’s the way she travels. We tried her out this morning and – Well, you girls will admit that you never traveled fast before.”

“My goodness me, Laura! Do you think it is safe for us to venture with them?” demanded Jess.

“If Chet brings me home in pieces he knows what mother will do to him,” returned her chum, laughing.

The novel boat certainly attracted considerable attention when the boys ran it out of the old boathouse and pushed it far away from the skating course. It combined the principles of an aircraft with runners of the familiar iceboat.

“Just call it an aero-iceyacht, and let it go at that,” said Chet. “That hits it near enough.”

“And it really can sail in the air or on the ice – like a hydroplane?” demanded Jess.

“You’ll think so,” Chet assured her.

The boat was driven by a propeller similar to those on aeroplanes; and this propeller was fastened to the crossbeam on which were the two forward runners – somewhat similar to the mast on the ordinary lake iceboat. The body and rudder plank, at right angles to this crossbeam, supported the two-cylinder gasoline engine, which Chet bought at the motor repair shop of Mr. Purcell.

It was a fourteen-horse-power engine, water-cooled, and geared with a chain to the propeller.

“We tried a belt first,” said Lance; “but the blamed thing slipped so that old Chet evolved the chain-gear idea. Great, eh?”

“How can we tell till we see it work?” demanded Laura.

“And you don’t have to lie down for ‘low bridge’ when the boom goes over on this iceyacht!” cried Jess, enthusiastically. “We can sit up.”

“All the time,” agreed Lance.

“I think it’s simply great!” declared Laura.

“All because you, Mother Wit, suggested using the kite for motive power that day,” said her brother, admiringly. “That gave us the idea. If a kite would give motive power to a man skating, why not use a more up-to-date air-power scheme on the ice?”

“And it worked!” shouted Lance.

“Oh, hurry!” cried Jess. “I’m crazy to see how it sails.”

The boys placed the girls amidships, and showed them how to cling to the straps on either side. Lance took his place on the crossbeam – to act as weight on either end if such balance was needed; Chet took the tiller.

“Open her up!” the latter commanded his chum. “Only quarter round with the switch when the engine gets her stroke. Now, careful! Hang on, girls!”

The next moment the engine began to throb regularly, and the blades of the propeller whirled. In half a minute they had gained such momentum that the eye could not distinguish the blades themselves – they simply made a blur in the moonlight.

The craft lunged ahead.

CHAPTER XV – A MILE A MINUTE

The moon, hanging low upon the horizon, was young but brilliant. The air was so keen and clear that without the help of the moonlight it seemed as though the stars must have flooded the lake with white light.

Nearer the southern shore the jingle of sleigh-bells and the laughter and shouting of the skaters marked the revelers who gave a free course to the iceboats out here nearer the open water. For both east and west of Cavern Island, which lay in the middle of Lake Luna, opposite Centerport, the ice was either unsafe, or there were long stretches of open water. The freight boats up and down the lake kept this channel open.

But there was a wide and safer course before the flying aero-iceboat. And soon she was moving so fast that the girls heard nothing but the shriek of the wind rushing by.

Here and there before them lanterns glowed like huge fireflies. These lights were in the rigging of several ice-yachts. Chet and Lance had a pair of automobile searchlights rigged forward on their own boat.

Another yacht had started from the old boathouse at about the time our friends and their new-fangled craft got under way. There were girls aboard it, too; but at first the Beldings and Jess and Lance did not recognize the other party.

The strange yacht was distinguished, however, by a red and green lamp. As Chet had been slow in starting, the other boat got ahead. But now, although the wind was fair and the other yacht traveled splendidly, the aero-iceboat bore down upon it, beating it out and leaving it behind like an express train going by a freight.

However, Chet would not allow Lance to throw on all speed. There were too many other craft on the ice before them – and it was night.

The lights of the City of Centerport soon fell behind them; then, almost at once, they picked up the lights of Keyport at the extreme end of the lake. They were traveling some!

Chet had strapped on a megaphone, which he had borrowed from Short and Long, who was coxswain of the boys’ Central High eight-oared shell, and through this he shouted his orders to Lance. They ran down within a mile of Keyport, and then shut off the engine and circled about on the momentum they had gained. There were too many skaters and sleighs on the ice down here to make iceboating either safe or pleasurable.

“My goodness me! Wasn’t that fun?” gasped Jess.

“Felt like you was traveling some, eh?”

“Oh, Chet! it was great!”

“It certainly is a fine boat, Bobby,” agreed Laura. “You and Launcelot have done well.”

“Wait!” said Lance, warningly.

“Wait for what?” demanded Laura.

“We didn’t travel that time. We were only preparing you – warming her up, as it were. Wait till we let her out.”

“My goodness!” cried Jess. “Can you go faster?”

“We’ll show you, going home,” said Chet.

Just then the boat with the green and red light swooped down upon them and a voice shouted:

“What kind of a contraption is that you’ve got there, Belding?”

“Hullo!” exclaimed Chet. “That’s Ira Sobel’s yacht. Ira is Purt Sweet’s cousin.” Then he answered: “Oh, this is a little rigging of my own, Mr. Sobel. But she can travel. Rather beat’s your Nightkawk, eh?”

“Well, she did that time,” admitted Sobel, doubtfully.