"Well, you won't be alone now," said Hippy Wingate. "There are four to a sled, and we'll put you in the middle to keep you from getting lost in the snow." "Look out, here comes some one!" called Grace, just as a small sled shot past them like a flash, with a laugh and a cheer from its occupants, Miriam and Reddy Brooks. "They ought not to have done that," exclaimed David. "We couldn't see them over the knob of the hill and they might have run us down." By this time they had reached the top of the hill, and Anne's heart bounded at the sight of the long, white track made by the sled which had just passed them and disappeared far below across a flat meadow now smooth and hard as a table top. "Don't be frightened, Anne," said David, who sat behind her on the sled. He pinioned her arms with his own and with a wild whoop the four young people skimmed down the hill. There was no time to be frightened, no time even to think, as they shot through the fine bracing air like a ball from a cannon. Before they knew it, they were landed at the bottom. "O Hippy," cried Grace, her cheeks glowing like winter berries, "I feel as if I were riding the comet. But look out for the others," for the remaining sleds followed in quick succession and the air resounded with the whoops of the boys and girls as they shot past. "Is there any sport in the world that can touch it?" she demanded of the world in general. Three or four more such rides, and Anne felt an exhilaration she had never before known. She was climbing the hill for a final trip before the party returned to Nora's for hot chocolate and sandwiches, when she heard some one cry out just behind her. She had lingered a little to watch the sleds pass, and had failed to notice a small sled with a single occupant come over the brow of the hill well out of the beaten path and make straight for her. It was Miriam Nesbit, riding flat on her stomach and going like the wind. "Jump to the left, Anne," cried Grace's voice, "or you'll be hurt!" Anne looked up and saw the sled. It all happened in a flash, and how David managed to get there first she never knew; but the next instant the two were rolling over and over in the snow with Miriam on top of them and a broken sled skidding on its back down the hillside. "It was Miss Pierson's fault," exclaimed Miriam as she pulled herself out of the snow, and the others came running to the scene of the accident. "Why didn't she get out of the way? Inexperienced people ought not to come to bobbing parties. They always get hurt." David was binding up a cut in his wrist, which was sprinkling the snow with blood. He was too angry to trust himself to answer his sister before the others just then. They had pulled Anne out of a snowdrift and she was leaning limply against Jessica, trying to collect her senses. It seemed to her that she had been walking well out of the sled track, out of everybody's way; but it didn't make any difference since nobody was killed.