"Isn't it beautiful here?" said Jimmieboy, as he looked about him and saw superb tall trees, their leaves white and glistening in the moonlight, bound in an icy covering that kept them always as he saw them then. "And look at the flowers," he added, joyously, as he caught sight of a bed of rose-bushes, only the flowers were lustrous as silver and of the same dazzling whiteness. "Yes," said the Gas Stove, sadly. "Every time Jack Frost withers a flower or a plant he brings it here, and it remains forever as you see them now; he has had the choice of the most beautiful things in the world. But come, we must hurry. Put on these skates." Jimmieboy did as he was told, and then the Stove lit a row of small jets of gas along the steel runners of the skates, and they grew warm to Jimmieboy's feet, and in a moment little puffs of steam issued forth from them, and Jimmieboy began to move, slowly at first, and then more and more quickly, until he was racing at breakneck speed. "Hi, Stovey!" he cried, very much alarmed to find himself speeding off through this strange country all alone. "Hurry up and catch me, or I'll be out of sight." "Keep on," hallooed the Stove in return. "Don't bother about me. I've got four feet to your two, and I can go twice as fast as you do. Keep on straight ahead, and I'll be up with you in a minute--just as soon as I can get the ammunition and my hose out." "I wonder what he's going to do with the hose?" Jimmieboy asked himself. The Stove was too far behind him for the little skater to ask him. [Illustration: "HALT!" CRIED A VOICE IN FRONT.] "Halt!" cried a voice in front of Jimmieboy. "I can't," gasped the little fellow, very much frightened, for as he gazed through the darkness to see who it was that addressed him, he perceived a huge snow man standing directly in his path. "You must," cried the Snow Man, opening his mouth and breathing forth an icy blast that nearly froze the water in Jimmieboy's eyes. "You shall!" he added, opening his arms wide, so that before he knew it Jimmieboy was precipitated into them. "See?" said the Snow Man. "I can compel y--" [Illustration: THE SNOW MAN.] The Snow Man never got any further with this remark, for in a moment Jimmieboy passed straight through him. The heat of Jimmieboy's clothes had melted a hole through the Snow Man, and as the small skater turned to look at his adversary he saw him standing there, his head, his sides, and legs still intact, but from his waist down all the middle part of him had disappeared. "Dear me! How sad," Jimmieboy said. "Not at all," responded a voice beside him. "It serves him right; he's the meanest Snow Man that ever lived. If you hadn't melted him he'd have turned himself into an avalanche, and then you'd have been buried so deep in snow and ice you'd never have got out." "Who are you?" queried Jimmieboy, with a startled glance in the direction whence the voice seemed to come.