l of them, early in the afternoon, George and
Young Joe Warren driving one of the Warren horses hitched to a sleigh,
and drawing a string of toboggans after. Blanketing the horse some
distance above the Ellison dam, they proceeded up the surface of the
frozen stream to the slide.

It was, as Henry Burns said, enough to make the hair on one's fur cap
stand on end, to look at it. From the summit of what might almost be
termed a small mountain--certainly, a tremendous hill--to the base, down
a precipitous incline, the boys had constructed a chute, by banking the
snow on either side. This chute led down on to the frozen stream, where
a similar chute had been formed for a half-mile or more down stream.

Moreover, a temporary thaw, with a fall of sleet, had coated the bed of
the chute with a glassy surface, like polished steel, or glare ice.
Henry Burns, standing beside the slide, half-way up the mountain, saw a
toboggan with four youths dash down the steep incline, presently. Little
Tim sat in front, yelling like an Indian at a war-dance. They fairly
took Henry Burns's breath away as they shot past him. He looked at
Harvey and shrugged his shoulders.

"Guess that's pretty near as exciting as cruising in Samoset bay, isn't
it?" he remarked. "Well, you hold the tiller, Jack, and I'm game; though
it's new sport to me. I never spent a winter in Maine before."

"Oh, there isn't much steering to do here," replied Harvey; "you only
have to keep her in the chute, and not let her get to swerving. It's
easy. You'll like it."

It certainly did seem a risky undertaking, to a novice, standing at the
very summit of the mountain and looking along down the icy plunge of the
chute, far below to the stream. It took all of Henry Burns's nerve, to
seat himself at the front end of the toboggan, while Jack Harvey gave a
shove off. For the first moment, it was almost like falling off a
steeple. Then he caught the exhilaration of the sport, as the toboggan
gathered speed and shot down the incline at lightning speed.

Henry Burns had hardly time to gather his thoughts, and to glory in the
excitement, when they were at the foot of the descent, and gliding
swiftly along the surface of the stream.

"My, but that's great!" he exclaimed. "It's next to sailing, if it isn't
as good. Come on, let's try it again."

The mountain was admirably situated for such a sport; for it rose up
from the shore where the stream made a sharp bend in its course, for