At first the two small twins hardly knew what had happened. They had felt
the ice-boat tilt to one side, they remembered that they had nearly fallen
out, and then they had sailed on again. It was not until Flossie opened
her eyes (she always shut them when anything surprising was happening)
that she saw she and Freddie were alone in the _Bird_.

"Why! Why!" she exclaimed. "Where are Daddy and Mother?"

"Yes, and Bert and Nan?" added Freddie. "Where is everybody?"

Then the two small twins looked back over the icy lake and far behind them
saw their father and mother, with Bert and Nan, standing on the ice and
waving their hands.

"Oh, they've jumped off and left us to sail the boat alone!" cried
Freddie. "Now I can steer! Isn't that good?"

Flossie was not quite sure that this was "good," but, for a few seconds,
she believed what Freddie had said--that the others had jumped off the
ice-boat. She did not know that they had been spilled out, as Bert said
afterward.

"Now watch me steer!" cried Freddie, crawling back toward the tiller,
which was the last thing Bert had let go of, as he shot from the boat.

"Oh, can you?" asked Flossie. "Do you think you can steer?"

"Of course I can," was the answer. "You just watch me. I'll make this boat
go faster!"