“He wants something of us!” cried Lettie.
Dan swerved the helm and in a moment the iceboat came up into the wind and lost headway. They drifted past the end of the island, which was heavily wooded. And at that moment the _White Albatross_ swooped around the head of the island, aimed directly for the Speedwells’ craft.
“Look out!” yelled Billy, leaping up and waving his hand.
The girls screamed, too. There was not enough headway on the _Fly-up-the-Creek_ for Dan to swerve her out of the track of the other boat.
There was a crash. The bow of the _White Albatross_ struck the other craft a glancing blow and the latter whirled in a complete circle. Fortunately Dan had let go the halyards and the sail came down with a rush. But it went over the side, tangled in the runners, and the iceboat stopped dead, while Barry Spink and his companion, both grinning over their shoulders at their rivals, shot on up the river.
“Guess you know who’ll reach Karnac first this time!” called Spink, waving his hand.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was a mean trick, and one that might have had serious consequences. It was certain that Spink had seen the drifting _Fly-up-the-Creek_ and might have averted the collision.
“If that lad over there had been able to talk plain,” declared Dan, helping the girls out from under the smother of canvas, “we could have gotten out of the way. He tried his best to tell us what was coming.”
Mildred was crying a little, for she was frightened; but Lettie Parker, Billy declared, sputtered like a bottle of soda.
“What a mean, _mean_ thing to do!” she stammered. “I—I could box that Spink boy’s ears myself! Stop crying, Milly—we’re not all dead yet.”
Billy chuckled—he had to. “We’re far from dead; but Dan looks kind of bright-eyed. I wonder what he’d do to Barrington Spink right now?”
“Come on, Mildred,” said the older Speedwell, patting the shoulder of the doctor’s daughter. “Don’t you mind. We’re none of us really hurt, and neither is the boat—much.”
Billy was examining the broken cables. The canvas, too, was badly slit where it had got under the sharp runners.
“We don’t get to Karnac Lake to-day, I reckon,” he said. “Guess you’d better have taken up that fellow’s offer, girls.”