un.

"Everybody ashore!" shouted the policeman. "Everybody off!"

A crowd of skaters rushed for the head of the pond. Sunny Boy felt his
hand pulled from Grandpa Horton's and he spun around like a little top.
When he stopped spinning he landed on his hands and knees and several
boys almost skated into him. Grandpa Horton was nowhere to be seen!

CHAPTER II

GRANDPA HORTON IS FOUND

"Look out!" shouted a big boy. "Watch where you're going! Can't you
see the little kid?"

"The ice is cracking!" cried another boy. "Look! There's water on the
top now. Gee, let me get ashore!"

"Well, go on and get ashore," said the big boy, pulling Sunny Boy to
his feet. "Go on ashore! If you're so afraid of drowning you have to
walk on a kid of this size, you'd better go ashore."

The other boy had pushed on toward the shore and he did not hear any of
this talk. The crowd continued to move by, because all the skaters
kept coming. Of course it would have been much wiser if they had gone
ashore at different points of the lake instead of crowding together at
the end where the ice was already cracking. But, somehow, people do
not stop to think when anything happens, and as soon as the boys and
girls--and men and women, too--who were skating on the pond saw that
something was happening at one end of the pond they skated there as
fast as they possibly could.

"You'd get along faster without your skates," said the big boy, "but I
won't try to take 'em off for you. We'd both be walked on while I was
doing it. Come on, we'll see if these folks are in too big a hurry to
let us get ashore with them."

Sunny Boy was not exactly frightened, but he felt rather queer.
Grandpa Horton was gone, a strange boy had him by the hand, and many
people kept shouting and making a loud noise. And now, instead of
clear, smooth ice under his skates, he seemed to be walking through
slushy water.

"Don't you get scared," said the big boy kindly. "We wouldn't drown if
we went right through the ice. It isn't very deep right here. Look
out--here we go!"

Sunny Boy cried out in surprise and a girl ahead of him screamed. The
ice seemed to part and let them down gently into the coldest water
Sunny Boy had ever felt. He had not known that water could be so cold!

"You're all right," the big boy assured him, "Put your arms around my
neck and I'll carry you ashore. The girls make a lot of noise, don't
they? Well, in one way it's a go