Chapter XXIV: A Lesson in Life Saving

“Oh! Fred’s broken in!” shouted Peg Fosdick, in alarm.

“And right in the middle of the pond, too!” echoed Leslie.

“Get busy!” roared Dick, who had been holding himself in readiness for just such an emergency from the moment he had heard the reckless skater announce his intention of skimming across the pond from shore to shore.

Dick had his little plan of campaign all mapped out in his mind. He had a happy faculty for this sort of thing. In a flash he could grasp details that would have taken some other fellows a minute or two to figure out.

“Fetch the boards along in a hurry!” he shouted over his shoulder, for by that time he was fully under way.

Straight to the nearest point of the shore line he rushed and dropped his plank. It extended out on the ice in a bee-line for the spot where poor Fred was splashing and scrambling like mad, trying in his excitement to climb up on the ice, only to have it break away, and precipitate him again into the cold water.

Dick took the second board from Leslie, who was the first of the others to arrive.

“Go back and get another!” he told his chum sharply, taking it upon himself to act as the leader. His chums were so accustomed to seeing Dick in the van that no one ever dreamed of questioning his right to act in that capacity. “We’ll need a heap of ’em, I’m afraid,” he added.

So Leslie obediently whirled on his heel and hurried back to the pile. Dick took the plank Elmer offered him, and stepping out to the end of the second one dropped it also in a direct line.

Then came Peg, almost forgetting his usual limp in his anxiety to be of service to the imperiled comrade battling for his life out there in the middle of the deep pond. A fourth board was thrown over the smooth ice so that Dick could reach it without stepping off his safe harbor; for as his weight was now distributed over ten or twelve feet of surface, instead of being concentrated in one spot, there was no danger of his breaking through.

The boys worked like beavers, Dick handling the planks as they came along in a master-workman manner. Gradually but surely the line was being extended out toward the scene of all the commotion, where Fred continued to struggle.

While he worked so heroically, Dick did not forget to keep calling out encouragement to the imperiled boy.

“Don’t tire yourself out so, Fred!” he told the other. “It’s all right, and we’re bound to get you out of there in a jiffy. Just hold on to the ice, and give us a chance to do something. We’re coming as sure as anything. Keep a grip on yourself, and don’t let go the ice for your life, Fred!”

Of course the further Dick got from the shore the more difficult it was to shove each new plank out to him. As no one dared step on the ice itself the boys were compelled to run out over the board line, deliver their burden, and then make back to the safety of the shore before the next one could start.

Two more planks would do the business, the second to be used sideways so as to afford a landing-stage, as Dick would have called it.

“Oh! hurry, Dick!” gasped Fred. “I’m mighty near all in, I tell you!”

“Forget that!” cried Dick, boisterously, and after that he kept on talking in a cheery manner to Fred, his intention being to make the other keep his mind off his condition of utter exhaustion.

The next plank brought him close to the hole which by this time was a pretty big one, as Fred had thrashed around furiously in the endeavor to help himself.

“Steady now, old fellow!” said Dick, as he crept out on his hands and knees, so as to come in touch with the other, and give him renewed confidence. “Peg’s fetching the last plank, and we’ll use it along the edge here, so you can get your knee on the same. Then I’ll drag, and you’ll shove, and out you’re going to come as neat as pie. Hurry, along, Peg, and then stand by to help!”

While saying this, Dick was gripping the chilled hand of Fred, whose eyes, filled with horror, were glued appealingly on his face.

“You won’t let me drop back, will you, Dick?” chattered the other between his rattling teeth, for the tremendous excitement and the cold water combined had taken his courage completely away.

“Not much!” asserted the boy who crouched on the plank. “See, here’s Peg right behind me with that board. Shove it along so I can place it where it’s going to do the most good, Peg. There you are, with a regular landing-stage that won’t break away when you climb up. Now, brace yourself, Fred, for a big effort; and you Peg, grip hold of my coat in the back so as to keep me steady when I pull!”

The boys clustered on the shore watched with their hearts in their throats, so to speak, for they realized that the crisis was at hand.

Dick took a fresh grip on Fred’s hand.

“Up you come, old fellow! Do your level best this time, and it’s going to be all right! That’s the ticket! Whoop! here you are as safe as could be!”

Loud shouts arose from Leslie and the rest of the group when they saw the dripping Fred emerge from the water, and gain a position on the first plank. The treacherous ice did not break under his weight because the fence board covered such a wide section that it was evenly distributed.

“Can you creep along after me, Fred?” demanded Dick.

“Sure thing!” came the reply, though Fred could hardly speak on account of the way his teeth were rattling together.

Of course Dick kept close watch over his shoulder from time to time as he headed for the shore; but Fred managed to get to his feet presently, and hurried along after his rescuer.

He was greeted boisterously by the other fellows. No one chided him on account of his reckless act; they were all too full of gratitude over the rescue to think of “rubbing it in.”

“Now make a bee-line for home as fast as you can run,” advised Dick, after he and Leslie had unfastened the skates from Fred’s shoes. “Keep swinging your arms and coming down hard with your feet as you run. Hurry, the ice is beginning to form on your shoes and clothes!”

With that Fred started off on the run. He was shivering, and still weak from his recent experience, and while knowing what a fright it would give his mother to see him coming home in that condition, he also understood that he must get into dry clothes as soon as possible, or suffer serious results.

“Now, if we’d been away off somewhere, with no house near by,” remarked Leslie, as with the others he stood and watched Fred gallop homeward; “we’d have had to build a couple of fires, and strip Fred so we could rub him down while his duds were getting dry. But his mother’ll fix him all right.”

“Whew! what a splash he did make out there!” exclaimed Peg.

“I’m glad it wasn’t me,” remarked Elmer; “because I’m afraid my father’d take my skates away for the rest of the winter. He doesn’t believe in boys being so reckless.”

“All the same,” Andy Hale went on to say, “I noticed, Elmer, that you ran out there on the planks several times, and if the ice had given way you’d have been as deep in it as Fred.”

“Oh! that was another thing,” replied Elmer. “It was to save life that I took a chance, and my father always told me he’d stand for that every time. I’m not meaning to tell him a word about this, but he’ll hear from other people. I know he’ll ask me if I was in the bunch, and did my little stunt with the rest. I’d hate to tell him I just stood by, and never raised a hand to help poor Fred.”

“All of you deserve the highest praise,” said Dick. “We worked together, and I’m sure I never could have got a plank out to Fred before he gave up the ghost and sank, without your help.”

Of course there was no more temptation for any of them to make use of their skates.

Accordingly, the party wended its way back to town, and the news of Fred’s mishap was soon common talk. Perhaps it might serve to arouse the authorities to some action looking to forbidding skating on the big pond until the ice was considered safe for a crowd.

“How about meeting somewhere this very afternoon,” suggested Leslie, as they stopped on a corner before scattering to their various homes. “Maybe Dick will read his farce to us.”

“A bully idea!” Peg declared, and others immediately echoed his words.

Dick smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

“Seems as if you’re bent on having it,” he said; “and it proves you a bold lot of chums. Well, I’d like to know what you think of it, so let’s get together in the room Leslie has fitted up in their barn, where he’s a stove handy. I’ll be around at two o’clock when my chores are done. But don’t expect too much, please.”