"Jack," she called, her mouth at the keyhole, "who took 'em? Your
mother? Why? But she can't keep you in that way. Never mind. What _have_
you got on?"

The door was opened an inch or two, and the head started to look out.
But at sight of Split so near it withdrew in such turtle-like alarm that
she laughed aloud.

"What're you laughing at?" growled the boy.

"What's that you got on?" said she.

"My--my mother's wrapper."

A peal of laughter burst from the Indian princess. But it ceased
suddenly. For the door was thrown open with such violence that it made
Jane Cody's wax flowers shake apprehensively under their glass bell, and
a figure stalked out such as might haunt a dream--long, gaunt, awkward,
inescapably boyish, yet absurdly feminine, now that the dark calico
wrapper flapped at its big, awkward heels and bound and hindered its
long legs.

Split looked from the heavily shod feet to the round, short-shaven black
head, and a premonitory giggle shook her.

"Don't you laugh--don't you dare laugh at me! Don't you, Split--will
you?" The phrases burst from him, a threat at the beginning, an appeal
at the end.

"No," said Split, choking a bit; "no, I won't. You don't look very--"
she gulped--"very funny, Jack. And it's getting so dark that nobody'd
know--really they wouldn't."

"Sure?"

Split nodded.

"Get your sled quick, the big, long one, the leg-breaker, and take me
down--I'll tell you where. Get it, won't you?"

"In this, this--like this?" Jack faltered.

"It's so important, Jack. Please! It's always you that asks me,
remember."

The boy threw his hands out with a gesture that strained the narrow
garment he wore almost to bursting. He began to talk, to argue, to
plead; then suddenly he yielded, and turned and ran, a grotesque,
long-legged shape, toward the back of the house.

When he whistled, Split joined him, and together they plowed their way
through the high snow to the beaten-down street beyond. At the top of
the hill, Split sat down well to the front of the low, rakish-looking
leg-breaker. Behind her the boy, hitching up his skirts, threw himself
with one knee bent beneath him, and, with a skilful ruddering of the
other long, untrousered leg, started the sled.

They had coasted only half a block--Virginia City runs downhill--when
they heard the shrill yelp of the Comstock boy on the trail of his prey.
As Jack stopped the sled a swift volley of snowballs from a cross-street
struck the fig