The Wolf's Long Howl - Stanley Waterloo (book series for 10 year olds TXT) 📗

the monster. Then Jack said quietly, "Look out, Billy!" Billy looked across at him and grinned, but uttered never a word nor made a move as they tore along. But there was a sudden movement on Jack's part, and his stake bore down hardly through the hole in the runner. The flying jumper trembled and swayed, and then like a flash left the roadway and darted down upon and away across the ice.

There was one shriek from the girls, and then all was quiet. "Whish!" That was all as the jumper shot out over the glass-like surface. The ice bent into a valley, but the Red Revenger was away before the break came. It seemed as if the wild, fierce flight would never cease. But there is an end to all things, and at last came a diminution of the jumper's speed. Slower and slower moved the thing, then came a pause and sudden quivering, and then a crash beneath and all about, and the jumper, with its living load, dropped to the bottom! There was no tragedy complete. The water came up just to the side rails and no further.

For fifteen or twenty feet on every side the ice bobbed up and down in floating fragments, and beyond that, where it still remained intact, it would support no one stepping out upon it from the water. It was "India-rubber ice" no longer; it was cracked and brittle to the very shore. That the jumper had careered out so far into the flats was because of its velocity alone. There it stood, an island in a sea of ice water; not a desert island, exactly, either. It was populated--very densely populated. It was populated several deep, and now from its inhabitants went up a dreadful howl.

There was no visible means of escape from the surface of the Red Revenger. The boys who had been "corded" managed to change their positions somehow, and stood where they had got upon their feet, holding themselves together, and the girls and younger children sat stupefied in the positions they had held when coming down the hill, from the throats of the latter going up the lively wail referred to. Billy looked across at Jack and grinned again, this time with great solemnity, and Jack himself looked just a trifle grave.

"Bang! rat-tat-tat! whack!" sounded from the schoolhouse, and the faces of the younger children paled. The noon hour had reached its end, and the schoolmaster was sounding his usual call. No bells summoned the pupils at this rural place of learning, but instead, at recess and at noon time the pedagogue came to the door and hammered loudly with his ruler upon the clapboards there beside him. Very grim was this same schoolmaster, and unfortunate was the pupil who came into the room a laggard after that harsh summons had rung out across the fields and flats. There stood the schoolmaster--he could be seen from the Red Revenger--and it was not difficult even at that distance to imagine the ominous look upon his face. Again and again came forth the wooden call, and then the schoolmaster stepped out into the roadway. He looked about inquiringly. He came to the top of the hill, from whence, off in the flats, the jumper and its load were plainly seen, and then he paused. It was clear that he was puzzled and was meditating. He called out hoarsely:

"What do you mean? What are you doing? Come in, and come now!"

There was no mistaking the quality of that sharp summons. It meant business, and in all probability it meant trouble, too, for somebody; trouble of strictly personal, as well as of a physical character. There was no reply for a moment, and then Billy, the reprobate, grinning again at Jack, and giving to his voice a tone intended to be a compound of profound respect and something like unlimited despair, bawled out:

"We can't!"

The teacher descended the hill with all firmness and sedateness; he looked like a ramrod, or a poker, or anything stiff and straight, and suggestive of unpleasantness. He followed the roadway until just opposite the jumper, and then surveying the scene with an angry eye, commanded all to return to the schoolhouse on the moment. Here the situation became acute. It was Jack's turn now to make things clear. That villain rose to the occasion gallantly. He shouted out an explanation of how the jumper had happened, by the merest accident in the world, to leave the roadway, and had gone out so far upon the India-rubber ice; how the final catastrophe had taken place, and how helpless they all were in their present condition. The road could be reached only by a wade of a hundred yards through two feet deep of ice water--more in places--breaking the ice as an advance was made. It would be an awful undertaking, the death almost of the little children, and dangerous to all. What should they do? And the rascal's voice grew full of trouble and apprehension. Fortunately for him, the teacher was too far off to note the expression on his face.

The czar of winter did not wait long. He started off, and was over the hill again and out of sight within the next three minutes, and it was clear that he was going somewhere for assistance. Then some of the other boys wanted to know what was to be done, and Billy looked at Jack inquiringly.

"Well, on account of the fix we're in, what's going to happen next!"

Jack, somehow, did not seem undetermined. He answered promptly: "What is going to happen is this: The teacher has gone over to Mapleson's for help. He might as well have stayed in the schoolhouse. They can't drive a wagon in here, and the ice is so thin, and is cracked so, they can't even put planks out upon it. They can't help us in any way. What shall we do? Why, we can't stay here all night and freeze. Somebody's got to break a path to the shore, that's all, and then we've got to wade out, and the sooner we do it the better."

The smaller children began to cry; the older boys growled; the big girls shuddered; Billy grinned.

"There's no reason why everybody should get wet," broke out Jack, suddenly. "Here! I'll break a way to the road myself, and carry one of the youngsters. We'll see how it goes."

He caught up one of the little children and stepped off into the ice-packed water. Ugh! but it was cold, and he set his teeth hard. He floundered over to where the unbroken ice began, and then raising his feet alternately above its edge, he crushed it downward. It was not physically a great task for this strong fellow, but it was not a swift one, and the water was deadly cold. His blood was chilling, but the roadway was reached at last. He set the child down quickly, told it to run to the schoolhouse and stand beside the stove, and then himself began running up and down the road to get his blood in fuller circulation. Into the water he plunged again and reached the Red Revenger. "Here," he said, "each one of you big fellows carry some one ashore. Jump in, quick!"

The boys hesitated, and went into the water in a gingerly way, but did very well, the plunge once taken, and Jack apportioned to each of them his burden. The procession waded off boisterously but shudderingly. As for Jack himself, he got one youngster clinging about his neck and another perched upon each hip, and then waded off with the rest. There were left on the jumper but two more of the small children, and Jennie. That was Jack's shrewdness. He was well spent and shaky when he reached the shore this time.

He put the children down and turned to Billy. "B-b-illy," he chattered, "will you go back with me, and will you bring ashore those two kids?"

Billy looked a trifle dismal. He had just set down upon the roadway the girl he liked best, and he wanted to go to the schoolhouse with her. Added to this he was awfully cold. But he was faithful.

"On account of you've done more than your share I'll go you," he decided.

They went out again, out through that dreadful hundred yards of icy flood, and Billy marched off with the children, and then Jack reached out his hands, though hesitatingly. He was bashful still, despite the emergency his villainy had made. As for Jennie, she did not hesitate. She stepped up close to him, was taken in his arms like a baby, and the journey began. What a trip it was for Jack! There she was, clinging fast to him, and he with his arms close about her! Who said that the water was cold? It was just right--never was more delightful water! And she didn't seem to dislike the journey, either. She even seemed to cuddle a little. He wished it were a mile to land. Hooray!

And the road was reached at last, and the blushing and beaming young lady set down upon her feet. She didn't say anything but reached out her hand to Jack, and led him on a run to the schoolhouse. The fire had been kindled into roaring strength by those first to reach the place, and all the soaked ones gathered about the stove and steamed there into relative degrees of dryness. Jack steamed with the rest, but he was in a dream--one of the blissful type.

In time the teacher returned, and with him a farmer and his hired man, and a team and a wagon-load of plank, too late for aid, even had aid been practicable. There was no school that afternoon. The teacher could not accuse any one of fault, nor blame the pupils that they had hesitated when he called them; while, on the other hand, he was deterred from saying anything commendatory of the waders. He suspected something, he couldn't tell exactly what, and he didn't propose to commit himself. The most he could do was to recognize the fact that the big boys should get to their homes as soon as possible and dry their boots and stockings. He dismissed the pupils, and so that eventful day was ended. Jack's boots were full of dampness still, and his feet were chilly, but as he walked home he walked on air.

The succeeding night was one of bitter cold, and the morning saw the ice upon the flats no longer yielding, but so thick and solid that wagons might be driven upon it anywhere without a risk. Even the lately opened space about the partly submerged jumper was frozen over, and the top of the Red Revenger showed where that interesting but ill-fated craft was fixed for some time to come. "On account of she's frozen in so deep, we'd better let 'er stay there," commented Billy; and so coasting, save upon ordinary sleds, was discontinued for the season. It was pretty near spring, anyhow.

The frost-decorated windows of the schoolhouse blazed in the morning sun, and was a glory on the heads of the girls. But no head was so bright, in the opinion of Jack Burrows, as that of Jennie Orton. Her brown hair gleamed like gold, and as for the rest of her--well he thought as he looked across the room, there was nothing to improve. It seemed hardly possible that only the afternoon before he had held that creature in his arms and carried her so three hundred feet or more. It was all true, though, and Jennie had smiled across at him just now. He was more deeply in