and while they held hands, Jack advanced
cautiously. The ice cracked ominously, but step by step he drew closer
to where Ritter was clinging.

"Catch hold!" he cried, as he swung one end of the sweater toward the
unfortunate youth.

"You--you won't let go?" questioned the bully, suspiciously.

"Of course not!" retorted Jack. "Hold tight now, and we'll haul you up."

He gave the signal, and Andy and Pepper pulled back with all their
might, and Jack did the same. Slowly but surely Reff Ritter came up out
of the icy water, his teeth chattering loudly. Soon he was out of
danger.

"Run for the nearest farmhouse!" cried Jack. "Put the sweater on if you
want to," and he tossed the garment over.

"It was Coulter's fault," growled Reff Ritter. "He swung the sail the
wrong way." And then he ran off as advised.

"Such meanness!" snorted Pepper. "And Coulter may be drowned!"

"Ritter was always willing to lay the blame on somebody else," added
Andy.

The chums skated as closely as possible to where the iceboat was
drifting in a sheet of open water--a spot where some days before a
farmer had been cutting ice. To the craft Coulter was clinging and still
crying piteously.

"Help!" came in a chattering tone. "Please help me, somebody, or I'll be
dro--drowned! I can't ho--hold on mu--much lon--ger!"

"We are coming, Coulter!" yelled Pepper.

"I'm nearly fro--frozen to de--death!" chattered the suffering cadet.

"If we only had a line we might throw it to him," said Andy.

"I've got an idea!" exclaimed Pepper. "Come on and get that fallen
tree!"

He pointed to the shore, where a long sapling lay partly uncovered in
the snow. He skated off for this, with Andy at his heels.

While Andy and Pepper were doing their best to get the sapling out of
the snow and drag it over the ice, Jack circled the spot where the
_Rosebud_ was drifting. The iceboat was now within ten feet of the ice,
so he could see Coulter quite plainly. The poor fellow had been ducked
in the water and was shaking from head to feet from cold.

"We'll soon have you ashore, Gus!" he called out. "Keep up your
courage."

"I--I can't hold on much longer!" was the gasped-out reply. "I am
free--freezing to de--death!"

At that moment a blast of air came sweeping across the lake. It caught
the sail of the iceboat and tilted the craft over in the water.

"Oh! oh!" screamed Coulter, and then, as the iceboat whirled around, the
exhausted cadet lost his grip an