r, who was at the tail
end of the first sled. "And we'll beat you, too, Bill Glutts!"

"You will, like fun!" grumbled the cadet addressed, a rather heavy-set
and by-no-means pre-possessing youth. "Come on now, unless you're
afraid."

"We're afraid of nobody!" sang out Andy Rover, and, leaning sideways
from where he sat on the bobsled, he scooped up a handful of loose snow
and threw it playfully at Glutts.

"Hi, you! what do you mean?" roared Bill Glutts in anger, as the snow
landed directly behind his right ear.

"Hello! I guess it must have begun to snow again," cried Randy Rover,
mischievously.

"I'll 'snow' you!" retorted Glutts. "I guess you fellows are afraid to
race. That's why you are cutting up."

"Never mind--race them anyway, Bill," came from a small, pasty-faced
youth, who was usually called Codfish on account of his broad mouth. "Go
ahead and show 'em what your new bobsled can do."

"That's the talk!" cried another cadet, a newcomer at the academy. "Show
'em that the _Yellow Streak_ can lick anything on this hill."

"That's a dream that will never come true!" cried Spouter Powell. "Come
ahead, Jack, let's start this race," he added to the oldest Rover boy.

The scene was Long Hill, a rise of ground located about midway between
Colby Hall Military Academy and the town of Haven Point. There was
something of a wagon road leading up the hill from the main highway
which skirted Clearwater Lake, and this road had been converted by the
cadets of the academy into a slide for their bobsleds.

From the top of the hill the slide ran down and over two smaller hills,
then crossed the main highway and shot down another road onto the lake,
which at this season of the year was covered with ice.

It was a Saturday afternoon, and, as usual, the cadets of the military
academy were making the most of their off time, some with bobsleds and
other with ordinary handsleds and what were locally called "bread
shovels."

For some weeks before this the boys, as well as many other residents in
that vicinity, had enjoyed skating on the lake. But a rather wet snow
had fallen which the wind had been unable to sweep away, and
consequently skating became a thing of the past. Then the lads turned to
their bobsleds, the Rovers getting out one they had used the season
before. This they painted and varnished very carefully and christened
the _Blue Moon_.

"Because, you see," explained Randy, with a wink, "it's only once in a
blu