“I’m not afraid!” Rosalind encouraged, feeling also the sting of defeat. “Go as fast as you can!”
Thus urged, Dade swept forward on the home-stretch with all his might. He saw that an advantage could be gained by pressing nearer the dangerous ice, and to get that advantage he swung inward.
“We’re going so fast that there isn’t the least danger!” he told himself. “At this speed, one could safely pass over the thinnest ice.”
Suddenly Starbright, who, taking the safe course, and was losing by this device of his opponent, heard the cracking of ice and a scream. He stopped, turning his skates sidewise, and almost being thrown by the sled, which ran against his heels.
Then he saw a sight that chilled his blood. The ice had given way under Rosalind’s sled, and she had been thrown into a yawning opening.
She was struggling wildly in the icy waters.
The momentum had carried Dade across in safety, and the dropping of Rosalind from the sled had pitched him headlong.
Before he could recover, Starbright had skated back past him, and, without hesitation, seeing that nothing but prompt action could save the imperiled girl, had leaped into the water to Rosalind’s assistance.
The lake was instantly covered with skaters hurrying to the scene of the disaster, among the foremost being Merriwell and Hodge.
Starbright secured a grip on Rosalind’s jacket, and though the icy waters seemed to strike a chill to his bones, he succeeded in holding her head up, and swam slowly with her to the edge of the broken ice.
A half-dozen fellows threw themselves on the ice in a line, with Merriwell in the lead, crawled to the dangerous and crumbling brink, and thus drew Starbright and Rosalind out to safety.
Fortunately, carriages were in waiting, and into these the soaked skater and the equally soaked and half-drowned girl were quickly placed, and the drivers lost no time in getting their charges into the city.
“I’m awfully sorry!” said Inza, as she and Frank returned to town. “It was partly my fault. But I didn’t think Morgan would be such a fool.”
“There is no telling what a fellow will do when he is angry or jealous!”
“Or a girl, either,” said Inza. “I could see that Rosalind was both when she saw me talking with Starbright.”