“I’ll see about that.  Just as soon as I have had breakfast, I’ll take Preston and go over and interview this gang of Blent’s henchmen.  I am not at all sure that he has any right to hunt the boy down, warrant or no warrant!”

That was when he looked grim and his eyes flashed.  Ruth felt that her friend’s father was just the man to give Jerry Sheming a fair deal if he had the chance.

When the boys proposed getting out the two iceboats and giving the girls a sail (for the wind was fresh), Ruth was as eager as the others to join in the sport.

Not all the girls would trust themselves to the scooters, but there were enough who went down to the ice to make an exceedingly hilarious party.

Ralph Tingley and Tom Cameron were the best pilots.  The small iceboats were built so that two passengers could ride beside the steersman and sheet tender.  So the girls took turns in racing up and down the smooth ice on the south side of the island.

Ruth and Helen liked to go together with Tom, who had Busy Izzy to tend sheet.  It was “no fair” if one party traveled farther than from the dock to the mouth of the creek and back again.

The four friends—­Ruth and her chum, and Tom and Busy Izzy—­were making their second trip over the smooth course.  Bobbins, with his sister and The Fox, and Ralph Tingley, manned the other boat.

The two swift craft had a splendid race to the mouth of that brook which, because of its swiftness, still remained unshackled by the frost.  The shallow stream of water poured down over the rocks into the lake, but there was only a small open place at the point where the brook emptied into its waters into the larger and more placid body.

When the two iceboats swung about, the one Bobbins manned got away at once and swiftly passed down the lake.  The sheet fouled in Tom’s boat.  Busy Izzy had to drop the sail and the boat was brought to a halt.

“There are Mr. Tingley and Preston going over to talk to the constable and his crowd,” remarked Isadore.  “See yonder?”

“I hope he sends those men off the island.  I don’t see what right they have here, anyway,” Helen exclaimed.

“If only Jerry knows enough to keep under cover while they are here,” said Tom, looking meaningly at Ruth.  They both wondered if the fugitive had ventured out of his cave to find the mattock and box of food they had left for him the evening before.

The craft was under way again in a minute or two, and they swept down the course in the wake of the other boat.  Suddenly the sharp crack of a rifle echoed across the island.  Helen screamed.  Ruth risked the boom and sat up to look behind.

“There’s a fight!” yelled Busy Izzy.  “I believe they’re after Jerry.”

They saw Mr. Tingley and Preston hastening their steps toward the brook.  As the iceboat swept out farther from the shore, the four friends aboard her could see several men running in the same direction.  One bore a smoking gun in his hand.