won, and they were proud of it. Then they started another
race.

They were having grand fun, shouting and laughing, when suddenly a
strange dog, which none of the children remembered having seen before,
ran along and began barking at Nicknack.

The goat, who was used to the gentle barking of Skyrocket, did not like
this strange, savage dog, which seemed ready to bite him.

"Baa-a-a-a!" bleated the goat.

"Bow-w-w!" barked the dog, and he snapped at Nicknack's legs.

This was more than the goat could stand. With another frightened leap he
gave a jump that broke the strap by which he was tied to the tree. Then
Nicknack jumped again, and this time, strangely enough, he landed right
inside the sled which, a little while before, he had pulled along the
snow to the hill.

Right into the sled leaped Nicknack, and then another funny thing
happened.

The sled was on the edge of the hill, and when the goat jumped into it
he gave it such a sudden push that it began sliding downhill. Right down
the hill slid the sled and Nicknack was in it.

"Oh, your goat's having a ride! Your goat's having a ride!" cried the
other children to the Curlytops.

CHAPTER XIV

SNOWED IN

Nicknack was indeed having a ride. Whether he knew it or not, or whether
he wanted it or not, he was sliding downhill in the very sled in which
he had pulled the Curlytops a little while before.

"Oh, look!" cried Janet.

"You'd better catch him 'fore he gets hurt!" added Tom.

"I never knew a goat could ride downhill!" laughed Jack Turton, a funny,
fat, little fellow.

"Did you teach him that trick, Curlytop?" asked Ford Henderson, the big
boy who had carried Janet home the day she went through the ice.

"I guess he must have learned it himself," answered Ted.

"That bad dog made him do it," said Janet. "Go on away, you bad dog!"
she cried, stamping her foot.

Then Janet caught up some snow in her hand and threw it at the dog,
which gave a surprised bark and ran away, with his tail between his
legs, the way dogs do when they know they have done something wrong for
which they deserve a whipping.

Perhaps, too, this dog was so surprised at seeing a goat ride downhill
that he ran away on that account, and not because Janet threw a snowball
at him. For a goat riding down a snow hill in a sled is certainly a
funny sight. I never saw one myself, though I have seen a goat in a
circus ride down a wooden hill made of planks and this goat sat on