ky that looked, she said to herself, like the lid of a soup kettle.

"Bully coast!" exclaimed Bob with satisfaction, swinging the bodsled into
position. "All ready, Betsey?"

"Just a minute," begged Betty, with a delightful little shiver of
excitement as she tucked in her skirts and pulled her soft hat further
over her eyes. "Ye-s, now I guess I'm fixed."

They started. The wind sang in their ears and sharp particles of snow
flew up to sting their faces. Zip! they had taken one hill, and the
gallant bobsled gathered momentum. Betty clung tightly to Bob.

"All right?" he shouted, without turning his head.

"It's fine!" shrieked Betty. "It takes my breath away, but I love it!"

The bobsled seemed fairly to leap the series of gentle slopes that lay at
the foot of the long hill, and for every rise Betty and Bob received a
bump that would have jarred the bones of less enthusiastic sportsmen.
Then, suddenly, they were in the hollow, and the next thing they knew
Betty lay breathless in a soft snow bank and Bob found himself flat on
his back a few feet away. The sled had overturned with them.

"Betty! are you hurt?" cried Bob, scrambling to his feet. "Here, don't
struggle! I'll have you out in a jiffy."

He pulled her from the bank of snow and helped her shake her garments
free from the white flakes.

"I'm not hurt a bit, not even scratched," she assured him. "Wasn't that a
spill, though? The first thing I knew I was sailing through space, and
I'm thankful I landed in soft snow. Where's the sled? Oh, over there!"

"Want to quit?" asked Bob, as she began to help him right the overturned
sled. "We can walk over to where we left your sled, you know, Betty."

"And miss the coast?" said Betty scornfully. "Well, not much, Bob
Henderson. It takes more than one upset to make me give up coasting."

She seated herself behind Bob again, and with a touch of his foot they
began the descent of the second hill. The snow had melted more here, and
in some spots the covering was very thin. Bob found the task of steering
really difficult.

"I don't think much of this," he began to say, but at the second word the
bobsled struck a huge root, the riders were pitched forward, and for one
desperate moment they clung to the scrubby undergrowth that bordered what
they supposed was the side of the road.

Then their hold loosened and they fell.

Slipping, sliding, tumbling, rolling, a confused sound of Bob's shouts in
her ears, Betty close