Once more he skated up and caught hold. Sully again tried to push him back. Harry grabbed his arm, and an instant later the bully went sliding down on his back on the hard ice. “Oh! oh! my back!” howled Sully, in combined fright and pain. “Serves him right!” returned Harry. “Come on, boys, I’ve got rid of one of them!” he shouted to his companions. To avoid the open flow before mentioned, Dixon and Spencer were now tacking once more. This allowed Harry to reach the iceboat a third time, and now he sprang safely aboard. “Lower the mainsail!” he cried, in a determined voice. “Do you hear, Dixon?” “But--but----” stammered the bully’s toady. “No buts about it; lower the sail, I tell you, unless you want to be pitched off after Sully!” Seeing Sully’s fate, Dixon was thoroughly cowed, and he hastened to do as Harry had ordered. Hardly had the sail come down than Jack and the others swept up and boarded the _Icicle_ in a body. “Don’t--don’t kill us!” cried Spencer, who was even a worse coward than Dixon. “Yo’ is a fine fellah to run off wid other folkeses property!” put in Pickles. “I dun reckon Jack an’ de rest will send yo’ all to prison fo’ ten or twelve yeahs!” “It wasn’t my--my fault!” whined Spencer. “Sully put up the job.” “You get right off the boat!” commanded Jack. “And you, too, Dixon!” “Here, in the middle of the river?” questioned the latter, anxiously. “Yes, right here.” “You don’t mean to leave us way out here, four miles from home, do you?” demanded Sully, as he limped up. “Yes, leave them here,” put in Boxy. “They deserve it.” “It won’t hurt them to walk home,” said Harry. “Dat’s jess right,” added Pickles. “Let dem walk ebery step ub de way.” He and the others sprang on board of the iceboat and began to hoist the mainsail. They had hardly done so when Sully rushed up and tried to hit Jack in the head with his fist. Pickles sprang forward and pushed the bully’s arm aside. Then he let out with his own fist, and down went Sully flat on his back, while the _Icicle_ sailed off, leaving Dixon and Spencer staring at the fate of their leader in dumb amazement. “That’s the time you did it, Pickles!” cried Boxy, approvingly. “My! just look how mad Sully is!” They looked back and saw that the bully had arisen to his feet and was shaking his fist at them in rage. A moment later they swept around Thompson’s Bend, and the trio of defeated ones was lost to view. “I owe you one for your aid, Pickles,” said Jack, with a kindly look at the colored boy, who grinned with pleasure. “I sha’n’t forget you.” Pickles cleared his throat several times and looked down at the ice for a moment in silence. The boys saw at once that something was on his mind.