“Sure! the pattern maker who worked for Mr. Asa Craig when Mr. Craig was building his submarine.”
“The same. We won’t let anybody but father see the plans as completed. No use in letting ’em in on the scheme.”
“Crickey, Dan!” exclaimed Billy. “If we build a racer that wipes up the whole river, Barry Spink will turn green with envy. I heard him blowing the other day that he was going to have some kind of a mechanical contrivance built for his _White Albatross_ that would make her the fastest thing on the ice.”
“That’s all right. Maybe he’s got something good up his sleeve,” laughed Dan. “But I believe that we have something just a little better here,” and he tapped the plans on the table.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Speedwells were busy boys these days. The excitable Billy had so many irons in the fire (so he said) that he could barely keep all of them hot.
Then, there was the secret building of the new iceboat. Dan and Billy had said little of their scheme outside the family; but it was known in Riverdale that the Speedwells proposed to rig a “new-fangled” racing machine that would “just burn up the ice” when the midwinter ice races were held.
“What’s she going to be driven by, Billy?” asked Biff Hardy, meeting the Speedwells one afternoon at the edge of the Boat Club Cove. “Steam—gas—or nitroglycerin? Pa says you’ve brought him some patterns for things that he believes belong to a combination aeroplane and motor mowing machine. How about it?”
“Never you mind,” returned Billy, grinning, for Bill Hardy, who worked in the Darringford Machine Shops, was one of the Speedwells’ staunchest friends. “I don’t just understand all about the plans myself. But Dan knows.”
“You bet he does!” rejoined the admiring Biff. “But I’m not going to ask Dan. If it’s a secret I know very well I couldn’t get at it even if I hypnotized him!”
The _Fly-up-the-Creek_ was very popular, whether the boys built a speedier craft, or not. If Mildred and Lettie didn’t care to accompany Dan and Billy whenever they had time to skim the ice in the big craft, there were plenty of their schoolmates ready to enjoy such trips as the Speedwells were willing to give them.