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Updated: June 5, 2025
Letting the boy glide just ahead of him, Frank caught the meaning of his words, though uttered in broken English: "Some bad hearts change flags to bother Frank. Frank keep near Kepastick. He knows the trail." These friendly words were uttered none too soon, for Frank saw at once that even some of the Indians, trusting to the flags, were perplexed and some had gone hopelessly astray.
When the boys who were well, and unmaimed, observed this there was a short, quiet consultation between them, and then one rose up and, respectfully addressing Mr Mctavish, said that the boys who had two hands, as well as two feet, had more ways of having sport and fun than Kepastick, who had only one hand, and so they asked him to have the judges decide that Kepastick should have the skates.
In the front group was Frank, and closely edging beside him, he noticed with pleasure, was Kepastick, the one-armed lad, with his beautiful new skates, now serving him grandly and well. "Chist!" said the Indian lad quickly, and Frank knew by the way that this word, which means "look," was uttered that there was something meant.
The rocky shores were high and abrupt, and so Kepastick and Frank shot by the trap and into the correct channel, and were hundreds of yards out on the now open lake, with their faces toward home, ere the plotters discovered, to their dismay, how they had been completely foiled.
Most of the Indians for their skates were poor have fallen in the rear. The one white man whom Frank despises is perhaps a hundred yards ahead, and not far behind him are his companions. With intense interest Kepastick is watching them. "Chist!" he cries again, and his dark eyes flashed with excitement; "the trail is ours!"
When the skating matches were called, Frank promptly entered the lists. His appearance was received with applause. Even the quiet Indian lads tried to make a noise to show their pleasure in greeting the handsome, manly fellow whose splendid gift had gone to Kepastick, the one-armed lad.
With a rush and a jeer of triumph a white clerk made an attempt to fly by, for once out of that labyrinth of crooked icy channels the home stretch was as straight as an arrow. Frank was for responding to his spurt with an effort equally desperate, when Kepastick checked him with: "One Indian, good heart, meet clerk's bad heart; all right yet."
Frank, now completely bewildered, yielded himself implicitly to the guidance of Kepastick, who moved on with all confidence and paid not the slightest attention to the flags. Look! Away beyond the islands, in the distance, shining in the sunlight, is the steeple of the mission church. Just a few more windings in these tortuous channels, and then the two miles' dash for home.
As rapidly as possible they turned, but the distance could not be made up, and so to their chagrin they not only found that Frank and Kepastick had tied first, but that six or seven Indians, some with home-made skates, had wholly beaten them.
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