heir skates were true and sharp.

"Isn't this grand?" cried Percy, all aglow, as they scudded along, far
outstripping the perplexed Julius. "Better than smoking cigarettes, eh,
old Jeff?"

Jeffreys accepted this characteristic tender of reconciliation with a
thankful smile.

"I was never on such ice!" said he.

"Looks as if it couldn't thaw, doesn't it?" said Percy.

"It's better here in the middle than nearer the shore. I hope those two
won't get too near the river, it looks more shaky there."

"Trust Scarfe! He knows what's what! I say, aren't he and Raby
spoons?"

"Mind that log of wood. It must be pretty shallow here," said Jeffreys,
his face glowing with something more than the exercise.

They made a most successful crossing. Returning, a slight breeze behind
them favoured their progress, and poor Julius had a sterner chase than
ever.

As they neared their starting-point Jeffreys looked about rather
anxiously for Scarfe and Raby, who, tiring of their fancy skating, had
started on a little excursion of their own out into the lake.

"I wish they wouldn't go that way," said he, as he watched them skimming
along hand-in-hand; "it may be all right, but the current is sure to
make the ice weaker than out here."

"Oh, they're all serene," said Percy. "I'll yell to them when we get
near enough."

Presently, as they themselves neared the shore, they noticed Scarfe turn
and make for the land, evidently for something that had been forgotten,
or else to make good some defect in his skates. Raby, while waiting,
amused herself with cutting some graceful figures and curvetting to and
fro, but always, as Jeffreys noted with concern, edging nearer to the
river.

Percy shouted and waved to her to come the other way. She answered the
call gaily and started towards them. Almost as she started there was a
crack, like the report of a gun, followed by a cry from the girl.

Jeffreys, with an exclamation of horror and a call to Julius, dashed in
an instant towards her. The light girlish figure, however, glided
safely over the place of danger. Jeffreys had just time to swerve and
let her pass, and next moment he was struggling heavily twenty yards
beyond in ten feet of icy water.

It all happened in a moment. Percy's shout, the crack, the girl's cry,
and Julius's wild howl, all seemed part of the same noise.

Percy, the first of the spectators to recover his self-possession,
shouted to Scarfe, and started f