Most of the skaters had left the ice, in bunches of twos and threes. With the coming of night, a warm supper lured them home. Doubtless many would return again, for these Clifford young folks were almost as devoted to the sports of winter as the people of Holland, and pursued them with astonishing zeal.
Finally a hurrying figure came down the bank from the town where a myriad of lights now shone merrily.
"Hello! Lanky, still on deck, and not frozen? Sorry to keep you waiting so long, but they had a lot of formalities to go through with. And then the acceptance had to be written out, and a copy kept. Everything O. K. here?" asked Frank, as he joined his chum.
"Couldn't be better. Then you've got it along, Frank?" asked Lanky, who had immediately set to work hoisting the sail of the ice-boat, preparatory to starting on the return run down-river.
"Safe in my pocket; so that job's done," laughed the other.
"The worst is yet to come, mister!" remarked an urchin standing by, eager to see how the strange craft was manipulated.
"Well, now, you never spoke truer words, my boy, and we ought to know it. But nothing venture, nothing have; and we're bound to give Clifford a run
