Page:Girls of Central High on the Stage.djvu/132

122 a pair of automobile searchlights rigged forward on their own boat.

Another yacht had started from the old boathouse at about the time our friends and their new-fangled craft got under way. There were girls aboard it, too; but at first the Beldings and Jess and Lance did not recognize the other party.

The strange yacht was distinguished, however, by a red and green lamp. As Chet had been slow in starting, the other boat got ahead. But now, although the wind was fair and the other yacht traveled splendidly, the aero-iceboat bore down upon it, beating it out and leaving it behind like an express train going by a freight.

However, Chet would not allow Lance to throw on all speed. There were too many other craft on the ice before them—and it was night.

The lights of the City of Centerport soon fell behind them; then, almost at once, they picked up the lights of Keyport at the extreme end of the lake. They were traveling some!

Chet had strapped on a megaphone, which he had borrowed from Short and Long, who was coxswain of the boys' Central High eight-oared shell, and through this he shouted his orders to Lance. They ran down within a mile of Keyport, and then shut off the engine and circled about on the momentum they had gained. There