added.

“What is?” asked his brother, smiling.

“Why—it’s no trouble. Not really. But there is something that is buzzing in my head, Dan.”

“I knew there was a bee in your bonnet,” chuckled his elder.

“Oh, you did? How smart you are! But I don’t believe you can guess what sort of a bee it is?”

“No-o. Some new idea, I reckon?”

“You bet it is, old man!” declared Billy, with enthusiasm. “And a big idea, too.”

“Let’s have it,” urged the older Speedwell.

“Well! you know about this Barry Spink; don’t you?”

“I know he’s not long in Riverdale.”

“Yes. But where he comes from?”

“Up the Hudson somewhere.”

“Crickey! that’s just it,” cried Billy, with rising excitement. “Up where he has lived the winters are long and hard. The rivers and lakes freeze over usually in November, and stay frozen until February or March. And I bet that fellow knows all about iceboating.”

“Don’t you tell him so,” advised Dan, with a grin. “He’s got a swelled head as it is—I can see that.”

“Never mind, Spink. That isn’t exactly what I mean—not what he knows. But he and his busted iceboat have put something into my head, old man.”

“Out with it, boy.”

“It’s just this: Let’s go in for an iceboat ourselves. Let’s get the fellows of the Outing Club interested—and maybe some of the girls, too—Mildred, and Lettie, and some of the others. And we’ll have races, and all that.”

“If the ice gets thick enough and ‘stays put,’” suggested Dan, slowly.

“You said yourself last night,” Billy declared, quickly, “that the almanac man promised a real winter this time.”

“And we’re getting a piece of it right now. Jinks! maybe you’ve got a big idea, Billy.”

“Sure I have. And if that chump, Barry Spink, can build a boat as good as that White Albatross, what’s the matter with us building a better?”

“Now you’re talking,” agreed his brother, with growing enthusiasm. “Hustle now, Billy! there goes the first bell. We’ve only just time to get the truck under the shed and hustle into school. Got my books with yours? Come on, then,” and the Speedwells hurried off to the academy.