THE RESCUE, AND A MYSTERY

"Look there, Fred!" cried Bristles, "over nearer the sh.o.r.e, to the left!"

"I see them!" replied the other, almost instantly.

"It's a girl, and she acts as if she might be trying to get at somebody in the water," the skipper of the ice-boat shouted, as he headed the flying craft straight toward the spot.

"Be ready to bring up in the wind, so we can tumble off, Bristles!"

advised Fred, taking in the whole situation at a glance, in his comprehensive way.

Bristles was already so excited that he came near upsetting the ice-boat by being too speedy about making the turn. Both boys scrambled to their feet as soon as they possibly could, and hurried toward the place where a girl of about ten years of age was wringing her poor little hands, and trying to reach a boy who was clinging to the crumbling edge of the ice.

He was up to his neck in the cold water of the river.

"Hold fast, and we'll get you out of that!" cried Fred, as they drew near. His quick eye had already taken note of the fact that a rail fence came down close to the water's edge just beyond, and it was straight toward this that he was now hurrying. Bristles knew what he was going for, and he kept near the heels of his chum.

The frightened girl thought they were deserting her, and redoubled her cries.

"Help! Oh! help us! Please don't go away! My poor brother will be drowned! He can't hold on much longer! Oh! come back and help get him out!"

By that time Fred had reached the end of the fence, which ran into the water so as to keep the cows from straying out of their pasture. He struggled with one of the rails, and managed to break it loose.

"Get another, and chase after me, Bristles!" he shouted, as he once more turned and hastened toward the hole in the rotten ice, where the boy, who could not be more than twelve years of age, was trying as best he could to keep from being drawn under by the sucking force of the strong current.

Once close up, Fred dropped on his knees, shoving the rail ahead of him.

In this fashion he was able to push it directly to the imperiled boy.

Bristles had been so rapid in his actions that he was hardly ten seconds behind the leader. He immediately copied Fred's example, so that there were now two rails reaching out in the direction of the hole, their further ends actually overtopping the gap in the ice.

"Stay here, Bristles, and do whatever I tell you!" Fred told his chum, when, having arranged the rails as he wished, he started out along them.

His weight being now distributed over a wide surface there was no danger of the rotten ice giving way under him. That is the essential point about nearly all rescues on the ice, and what every boy should bear in mind the moment his services are needed in order to save an imperiled companion.

Fred was now enabled to approach the very edge of the hole, so that he could hold out his hand to the boy in the water, who had been constantly telling the girl to keep back lest she too fall in. Between them it was possible to accomplish the rescue, for while Fred pulled, the boy also exerted himself to the utmost, and presently crawled over the edge.

"Keep your weight as much as you can on the rails, because with your clothes soaked, you weigh twice as much as I do," Fred kept telling him; and yard by yard he drew the other along until finally they could get to their feet, and make for the sh.o.r.e.

The girl was crying hysterically now, although she had shown considerable bravery before.

"Oh! Brother Sammy, what if you had let go, and the current had drawn you under the ice! I think I'd have wanted to jump in, too, because I'd have nothing left to live for then!" she kept repeating, as she patted his cold hand tenderly, and tried to warm it.

Fred knew that unless something was done immediately, the boy would be very apt to be taken down sick, after all that nervous exhaustion, and the cold bath he had suffered. The air was chilly, and must strike him keenly.

"Here, you can't go home in that way, no matter how near by you live," he went on to say, in his cheery way.

"Home!" repeated the girl, and her eyes exchanged a strange look with her brother. "But what can we do, for there isn't any farmhouse around here?

We were coming across the river, and Sammy went too near a hole. Then the ice broke, and all I could do was to scream. He wouldn't let me come near him, but kept trying to climb out himself. Every time he got up on the ice it broke again, and he went in. Oh! it was just terrible, terrible! But he'll freeze now, mister, if we don't find a house soon."

"No he won't, not if we know it," said Fred. "Here, slap your arms about you this way as hard as you can, and jump up and down as if you were crazy. Never mind how it looks, if only you get the blood to circulating good. Bristles, it's up to you and me to start a fire booming in a hurry."

"Here's as good a place as any, Fred, for there's plenty of loose wood around."

Fred was already busily engaged in hunting all manner of small bits of dry fuel under the sheltered sides of the logs, and in hollow stumps. As soon as he had gathered a few handfuls of this tinder, he drew out a match, and started it burning.

Fred was a clever hand at making a fire, and this one did not fail him.

Bristles had in the meantime brought an armful of wood, and, selecting the smaller pieces, the two soon had a fine, large blaze going, that began to send out a considerable amount of welcome heat.

"Back up here, and see how this feels, Sammy," Fred told the shivering lad. When the other had done so, he added, "Now, just as soon as you feel warm on one side, change to the other. You know what they say, 'one good turn deserves another,' and here's where it applies. Keep up your exercising, because all that is going to help prevent you from taking cold. If I only had some hot tea or coffee, I'd give you some, but we'll have to do without it, I'm afraid."

He kept talking to the boy and girl as he worked at the fire, and Bristles continued to carry fresh supplies of wood, laboring like a good fellow. In this way Fred managed to learn that the name of the boy they had rescued was Sam Ludson and that he lived with Corny Ludson; though when he asked how far away it was they lived the answer was an evasive one.

"A good distance away," was about all the boy would say, and Fred could not help noticing that he again exchanged uneasy looks with his sister.

There was certainly something very queer about these two, though Fred could not understand why they should feel backward about telling where they lived, and especially to a couple of boys who had just done them a great favor.

Still, Fred was not unduly curious about it. If the brother and sister did not want to take him into their confidence, he was not the one to persist. So far as he could remember, Ludson was a name he had never heard before, so it did not seem as though they could ever have lived around Riverport. Bristles later on also declared that it was strange to him, and he had been born there, while Fred was comparatively a newcomer, having arrived only a couple of years previous to this time.

His particular business, as Fred saw it, was not to poke into other people's private affairs, but to get the clothes of Sam dry as soon as possible. Then he would feel that he and Bristles had finished their duty.

So he continued to keep the fire burning, and have Sam turned around every little while. At first the child steamed at a tremendous rate, but as by degrees the moisture was absorbed by the heat, he began to feel much more comfortable.

"I guess I'll go now, mister," Sammy remarked, finally, as though anxious to get away from these kind friends before they took to asking him any awkward questions.

"Just hold up a little while longer, and then you'll be all right, Sam,"

he was told by Fred, and like a great many other fellows, the boy fell into a habit of observing the wishes of this leader among the scholars at Riverport High.

"Whatever you say, mister, goes," he observed, with humility. "You've sure done me a great service, and I ain't going to forget it, either. I don't reckon it'll happen that I c'n pay you back, but if the chance ever does. .h.i.t me, I'm agoin' to do it, sure thing."

"Are you feeling as good as ever again, Sammy?" asked his sister, who was rather a pretty girl, Bristles thought, as he looked her over, from the wretched little hat she wore on her bonny brown hair, the odd cheap pin at her throat, the faded dress, to the coa.r.s.e shoes that gaped badly at the toes.

"I certainly am," he responded, caressing the hand she had laid on the sleeve of his ragged jacket. Somehow it struck Fred right then and there that mutual suffering must have drawn these two frail looking beings closer together than the average brother and sister.

"Well, then you can make off home if you feel fit," Fred told them, "and let me tell you my friend here and myself both feel mighty glad we happened to be as close by as we were. It taught you a lesson, I expect, Sam, and you'll fight shy of blow-holes in the rotten ice after this, won't you?"

"You bet I will, mister; and say, I guess I'm gladder'n you c'n be about that same thing; because the river is awful swift around here, and I kept getting colder and weaker all the while. Couldn't have held out much longer. I want to thank both of you for what you did. I ain't goin' to ever forget it either, see if I do, though, shucks! I don't 'spect I'll ever have a chance to pay you back."

He shook hands with both Fred and Bristles, as did also the little girl, now looking both grave and pleased. Then they walked away, making for the nearby road that led from Mechanicsburg to some other town many miles away, and leaving the vicinity of the Mohunk.

Fred and Bristles prepared to seek once more the ice-boat, and resume their interrupted cruise, this time heading for home. Both of them were thrilled with a deep satisfaction on account of having been given such a splendid chance to effect a rescue, for nothing pleases the average boy more than to realize that he has been enabled to play the part of a hero.

They were not the ones to boast of such a thing as that. Indeed, neither of them considered that they had been in the slightest danger at any time. Had one of them found it necessary to jump into the cold waters of the Mohunk in order to save the drowning boy, that might have been a different matter.

"This fire does feel pretty fine," Bristles remarked, as they got ready to depart, "and I kind of hate to leave it, because, as you know, Fred, I always worship a camp fire. No need to put this one out, is there?

because it couldn't set these woods afire if it tried its best, while everything's covered with snow.

"Ready to make the start? What'd you think of Sam and his sister, Sadie Ludson, eh? Mysterious sort of pair, weren't they? Didn't want to tell us anything about themselves, at all. I'm trying to knock my head and say where I've heard that name before, but so far it gets me. Well, we never may see them again, so what's it matter? I'm glad, though, you pulled Sam out of the river. He owes his life to you, Fred."

"To us, you mean, Bristles, for you had just as much to do with it as any one," insisted Fred; and afterwards, whenever he told the story, he always maintained that Bristles had stood by him, and done his share of the rescue work.

They managed to make the return trip safely, and Bristles took it upon himself later on to try to find out if anybody knew the Ludsons, but he met with little success, and with Fred was compelled to put the thing down as a mystery that could not be solved.