ed immediately by darkness.

One after another the ski runners at the top of The Slide took off and
shot swiftly down the slope. None of them saw the huddled form at the
foot of the ancient oak and it was only when the four had joined Ted
Norris at the bottom of The Slide that they realized that something must
have happened to Teeny-bits.

"Didn't any of you see him on the way down?" asked Ted Norris. "Maybe he
broke his skis."

"He would have yelled at us, wouldn't he?" said one of the Williams
brothers; "we'd better go back and look around."

It was not a difficult matter even in the indistinct night light to
follow the marks of the skis. From the foot of the slide they mounted
slowly, tracing backward the five double tracks and finally coming to
the sixth, halfway down from the crest.

[Illustration: FROM THE FOOT OF THE SLIDE THEY MOUNTED SLOWLY, TRACING
BACKWARD THE FIVE DOUBLE TRACKS.]

"Here they are," said Norris. "Here's where Teeny-bits swerved over
toward the left."

Almost before the words were out of his mouth he gave a startled
exclamation that brought the other four quickly to the foot of the oak
tree, where, with arms stretched out in front of him, lay Teeny-bits. He
had fallen in such an apparently comfortable position that it seemed to
the five ski runners that he could not be badly injured, but when they
turned him over they saw the dark mark of blood on the snow and became
assailed with a great fear that the worst thing they could imagine had
happened. Ted Norris' voice trembled a little as he said to the others,
"We must get him down to the house as quickly as we can. Here, help me
pick him up."

It was a strange procession which went down the slope of old Whiteface
Mountain on that winter night,--an awkward looking group that made
progress slowly because of the burden which it bore.

"You'd better go ahead to the Emmons place and get Doctor Emmons to come
up to our camp quickly," said Norris to the older of the Williams boys.
"You ought to get there about the time we do, and tell him to bring
stimulants and everything that he may need."

Back in the Norris cabin Neil Durant had found that conversation between
himself and the mining engineer lagged. For half an hour the elder
Norris had sat apparently absorbed in his thoughts, and twice when Neil
had made remarks he had answered in a manner that showed his mind to be
far away. Neil himself was indulging in reveries when the sudden
inter