V

Snow-time set Quiz to wondering what he could do to occupy his spare
moments; for the drifts were too deep for him to continue his beloved
pastime of bicycling, and he had to put his wheel out of commission.
So he went nosing about, trying a little of everything, and being
satisfied with nothing.

The Academy hockey team, of which Jumbo was the leader, was working
out a fine game and making its prowess felt among the rival teams of
the Tri-State Interscholastic League. But hockey did not interest
Quiz; for though he could almost sleep on a bicycle without falling
over, when he put on a pair of skates you might have thought that he
was trying to turn somersaults or describe interrogation-points in the
air.

It was a little cold for rowing,--though Quiz pulled a very decent
oar,--and the shell would hardly go through the ice at an interesting
speed. Indoor work in the gymnasium was also too slow for Quiz, and he
was asking every one what pastime there was to interest a young man
who required speed in anything that was to hold his attention.

At length he bethought him of a sport he had seen practised during
a visit he paid once to some relatives in Minnesota, where the many
Norwegian immigrants practised the art of running upon the skies. At
first sight this statement looks as if it might have come out of the
adventures of that trustworthy historian, Baron Muenchhaeusen. But the
skies you are thinking of are not the skies I mean.

The Scandinavian skies are not blue, and they are not overhead, but
underfoot. Of course you know all about the Norwegian ski, but perhaps
your younger brother does not, so I will say for his benefit that the
ski is a sort of Norwegian snow-shoe, only it is almost as swift as
the seven-league boots. When you put it on you look as if you had a
toboggan on each foot; for it is a strip of ash half an inch thick,
half a dozen inches wide, and some ten feet long; the front end of it
pointed and turned up like that of a toboggan.

When you first get the things on, or, rather, get on them, you learn
that, however pleasant they may grow to be as servants, they are
certainly pretty bad masters; and you will find that the groove which
is run in the bottom of the skies to prevent their spreading is of
very little assistance, for they seem to have a will of their own, and
also a bitter grudge against each other: they step on each other one
moment, and make a wild bolt in opposite directions the