The Corner House Girls Snowbound Part 28

Agnes and Neale O'Neil began to bicker.

"I'm no horse," said Neale rather grumpily, when Agnes suggested that the boys could drag the girls on the sled.

"No; your ears are too long," she retorted impishly.

"Now, children!" admonished Ruth, "How is it you two always manage to fight?"

"They're only showing off," chuckled Luke Shepard. "In secret they have a terrible crush on each other."

"Such slang!" groaned his sister.

"Real college brand," said Agnes cheerfully. "I do love slang, Luke.

Tell us some more."

"I object! No, no!" cried Ruth. "She learns quite enough high-school slang. Don't teach her any more of the college brand, Luke."

They puffed up the final rise and arrived at the top of the ascent.

This was the very peak of the ridge on which Red Deer Lodge was built.

Because it was winter and all but the evergreens and oaks were denuded of leaves, they could see much farther over the surrounding landscape than would have been possible in the leafy seasons; however, on all sides the forest was so thick at a distance that a good view of the country was not easily obtained.

The valley toward the north was black with spruce and hemlock. One could not see if there were clearings in the valley. It seemed there to be an unbroken and primeval forest.

This valley was included in the Birdsall estate, and the timber which the Neven Lumber Company wished to cut practically lay entirely in that wild valley.

The hills to the west were plainly visible. Their caps were either bald and snow covered, or crowned with the black-green forest. Toward the lakeside the slopes were alternately tree covered and of raw stumpage where the timber had recently been cut. These "slashes" were ugly looking spots.

"That is what all that part yonder of this estate will look like when the lumbermen get through," said Ruth. "Isn't it a shame?"

"But trees have to be cut down some time. I heard M'Graw say that much of the timber on this place was beginning to deteriorate," Luke said in reply.

"Shucks!" exclaimed Neale O'Neil, "if a tree is beautiful, why not let it stand? Why slaughter it?"

"There speaks the altruistic spirit of the young artist," laughed Luke. "Ask Mr. Howbridge. How about the money value of the tree?"

"Shucks!" Neale repeated, but with his eyes twinkling. "Is money everything?"

"Let me tell you, boy," said Luke a little bitterly; "it buys almost everything that is worth while in this world. I want beautiful things, too; but I know it will cost a slew of money to buy them. I am going to set out and try for money first, then!"

"Hear the practical youth!" said Cecile. "That is what he learns at college. Say! aren't we going to slide downhill? Or did we come up here to discuss political economy?"

Luke, holding up his hand in affirmation, declared: "I vow to discuss neither polit, bugs, pills, psyche, trig--"

"Oh, stop!" commanded Ruth, yet with curiosity. "What are all those horrid sounding things?"

"Pshaw!" cried the collegian's sister, "I know that much of his old slang. 'Trig' is trigonometry, of course; 'psyche' is psychology; 'pills' means physics; 'bugs' is biology; and 'poit,' of course, is political economy. Those college boys are awfully smart, aren't they?"

"I want to sli-i-ide!" wailed Agnes, stamping her feet in the snow. "I am turning into a lump of ice, standing here."

"Get aboard, then," answered Neale.

She plumped herself on the sled. Luke straddled the seat just behind the steering wheel. The other girls took their places in rotation after Agnes, while Neale made ready to push off and then jump on himself at the rear.

"Ready?" he cried.

"Let her go!" responded the steersman.

"Hang on, girls!" commanded Neale, as he started the sled with a mighty shove.

The bobsled moved slowly. The runners grunted and strained over the soft snow that packed under them and, at first, r.e.t.a.r.ded the movement of the sled. But soon the power of gravitation a.s.serted itself. Neale settled himself on the seat. The wind began to whistle past their ears. In front a fine mist of snow particles was thrown up.

Faster and faster they rushed down the descent. The young people had thought this trail very smooth as they climbed it; but now they found there were plenty of "thank-you-ma'ams" in the path. The bobsled b.u.mped over these, gathering speed, and finally began to leave the snow and fairly fly into the air when it struck a ridge.

The girls screamed when these hummocks arrived. But they laughed between them, too! It was a most exciting trip.

Like an arrow the sled shot past the fork in the road, keeping to the left. But it would have been a very easy matter, as Luke Shepard saw, to turn the sled into the steeper descent.

They started up a gray and white rabbit beside the path, and it raced them in desperate fright for several hundred yards, before it knew enough to turn off the road and leap into the brush. Luke's head was down and his eyes half closed as he stared ahead. But Neale gave voice to his delight in reechoed shouts.

There were slides in Milton. The selectmen gave up certain streets to the young folk for coasting. But those streets were nothing like this.

On and on the bobsled flew, its pace increasing with, every length.

Although this woodroad was in no place really steep, the hill was so long, and its slant so continuous that the momentum the sled gathered carried it over any little level that there might be, and at the foot of the decline still shot the merry crew over the snow at a swift pace and for a long distance.

Indeed, when the sled stopped they were almost at the back of the Red Deer Lodge premises. A mellow horn was calling them to lunch when they alighted.

"Oh! wasn't it bully?" gasped the delighted Agnes. "I never did have such a sled-ride!"

"How about your trip up the lake!" Cecile asked.

"Oh! But that scooter was different."

The other girls were quite as pleased with the slide as Agnes; and the three ran into the house to dress for lunch, chattering like magpies, while the boys put the sled away under the shed.

When Luke and Neale went into the house they found Ike M'Graw skinning the fox in the back kitchen, Tom Jonah being a much interested spectator. The woodsman beckoned Neale to him.

"Look here, young feller," he said. "You seen this critter shot last night, you say?"

"Yes," replied the boy.

"Where was it shot from? I'm derned if I can find any place where the feller stood along the edge of the woods to shoot him."

"No. I couldn't find any footprints either," Neale confessed.

"Not knowing from which direction the bullet came--"

"Oh, but I do know that, Mr. M'Graw. I am pretty positive, at least. I have been doubtful whether to say anything about it or not--and that's a fact."