me," replied the Gnome.

Ned jumped through the window after the little fellow, who ran swiftly
down the walk and across the fields to the forest beyond.

As they neared the brook that ran through the meadow, the Gnome paused.
Taking from his pocket a clay pipe, he stooped over and filled it with
water.

"Did you ever blow soap bubbles?" he asked, taking a piece of soap from
another pocket and rubbing it carefully around the inside of the
pipe-bowl.

"Yes," replied Ned, "lots of times."

"Well, you wait and see what sort of a bubble I'll blow," replied the
Gnome.

It was a bubble! But the strangest part of it all was that Ned found
himself inside of it with his companion.

"How did we get inside, or how did the bubble get around us?" asked Ned,
but before his question was answered away went the bubble up in the air,
across the meadow, above the little brook, yes, over the roof of his own
house, higher and higher, until finally it reached the big high mountain
that he had so often dimly seen from the window of his bedroom at home.

After circling about the highest peak the bubble at length safely
landed on a rocky ledge.

Before Ned could ask how they were ever going to get out the Gnome
opened a little door through which he led him to the outer air.

There was a great change in the temperature, or else the inside of the
bubble was very warm, for Ned began to shiver and shake. "Who-o-!" he
cried; "it's co-old!"

"Of course it is. Look," answered the Gnome, and Ned's eyes, following
the pointing finger of his little friend, fell upon a strange and
terrifying figure.

Behind a bank of icicles stood a giant, with an immense helmet upon his
head, from which hung long sharp pieces of ice. The top part was covered
with snow which slipped off at intervals like a small avalanche to the
ground below. His beard and mustache were festooned with thin slivers
of ice, and his shoulders bore epaulets of frosted snow. The cuffs of
his greatcoat were fringed with snowflakes, and altogether he was a
startling and frigid looking individual. In his hands he held a
monstrous bellows, from which he forced out a blast of icy air which,
scattering the snow in whirling clouds, went howling down the rocky
ravines.

"He's the Wind Man of the Mountain," explained the Gnome, turning to
shivering Ned, whose toes and fingers by this time were quite numb with
the cold.

"Well, I'd like to meet a Hot Air Man," said Ned, blowing on hi