up; and we hope you
fellows and Paulding will put in your oars. It will be a great event, if
we can spring it this season."

"Chances look pretty bright up our way," said Wagner, as he and his
friends prepared to start toward their home town; "and after the tip
Bristles was so good as to hand us, I wouldn't be surprised if
Mechanicsburg managed to show you down-river fellows her dust, this time
for keeps. So-long, everybody!"

"Good talk, Wagner; may the best man win, we all say!" called out
generous Bristles.

CHAPTER III

UP THE MOHUNK ON AN ICE-BOAT

As Fred and Bristles, as well as Sid Wells, were all taking a post
graduate course, they got out much earlier than any of the other
scholars. This was how on Monday afternoon Bristles turned up at the
Fenton home close to the river, he having arranged with Fred to have a
last spin on the ice-boat which the Carpenter boy had made himself, and
used with more or less success during the past Winter.

The weather had indeed hardened over Sunday, so that the slush was turned
into ice again. The surface of the river was not as smooth as they could
have wished, but then since it promised to be their very last chance to
make use of the _Meteor_ that year, the boys could not complain, or let
the opportunity pass by.

"We'll have to be careful about some of the blowholes in the ice,"
Bristles was saying, as they headed for the bank where he kept his craft
in a shed he had built for the purpose, and which was close to Fred's
home. "Everybody says the ice seems to be thin around where the water
bubbles up. I'd hate to drop in and have to go home wringing wet, to
scare ma half out of her wits."

"Oh! no need of doing that, even if we should have the hard luck to get
wet," Fred told him. "I always carry a waterproof matchsafe, so we could
go in the woods somewhere, start up a bully hot fire, and dry off. All
the same, here's hoping we don't have to try that stunt out. It sounds
well enough, but in this cold air a fellow'd shiver so he'd think his
teeth were dropping out. We'll keep a bright watch for those same
blow-holes, believe me, Bristles."

Fred was a careful hand at everything he undertook, from driving a horse
or a car, to manipulating an ice-boat. So Bristles, who had the utmost
confidence in his superior merits, did not feel the slightest uneasiness
as he led the way down the bank to the shed that sheltered his home-made
but very satisfactory ic