They arrived none too soon, for the impatient musicians, left in utter darkness and biting cold, were already breathing maledictions against Laughlin, whom they fancied warming himself in the farmer’s kitchen. While Wolcott was hacking off a piece of wire from the fence and breaking it into proper lengths, Laughlin cleared the boys out of the barge, lifted the side of the sled with his lever manned by sceptical but willing volunteers, and shoved the pole into the place of the broken runner so that the end of the crosspiece rested on the top of the opposite runner, where a piece of wire soon secured it. Other pieces of wire served to fasten the pole to the framework of the broken sled. It remained to tie the forward end of the pole to the body of the sleigh with hitching ropes, and to stay the whole after sled with all available straps. “All aboard!” cried Laughlin at last, and the weary boys, raising a feeble shout of joy, settled again into their places. Laughlin did not get in. “I’m going on the seat with Jim,” he said quietly to Mr. Leighton. “I want to see that my work is given a fair show.” “But you’re not dressed for driving,” protested the teacher. “You will freeze stiff.” Laughlin gave a sniff of contempt. “I’m not a baby,” he said. “It’s only my hands that will trouble me, and I guess they’ll stand it for an hour.” Wolcott pulled off the thick fur gloves that he had brought with him from Hamburg. “Take these,” he said. “They’re big enough even for your hands. Take them, I say,” he insisted, as Laughlin hesitated. “I’ll wear yours instead. If my gloves are working, I shall feel as if I were doing something myself.” Laughlin obeyed, and Wolcott, drawing on the thin woollen gloves, plunged his hands into his pockets and wondered how the fellow could think of facing the wind with hands so poorly protected. Long before the carefully driven sleigh reached the edge of the town Wolcott’s fingers were numb. Laughlin’s sled came safely, though belated, to the home stable. The next morning the musicians turned out at an early hour to see what kind of a vehicle it was that had brought them home. And when they had examined it, they brought their friends and explained to them the marvel. Only Marchmont showed no interest; he had had quite enough of sleds the night before. CHAPTER X VICTIMS “Hello!” cried Marchmont, as Lindsay opened his door a few evenings after the Eastham concert. “Thought you were dead.” “I’ve been busy,” replied Wolcott; “I’m on for a debate at the Laurel Leaf Saturday, and I’ve been studying up my side.” “So you belong to that, do you?” commented Marchmont, with good-natured contempt. “I suppose you joined to please the old man.” “Partly,” answered Wolcott; “and partly because I thought I might get some good out of it.” “I was thinking of putting you up for the Omega-Omicron. Like to join?”