“He’s down at the lower end--along with those kids.” “Oh!” Step was grinning. “Oh, he tried to butt into the hockey game, but the fellows gave him the cold shoulder. So he had to flock by himself till he saw the young ’uns. He’s with ’em now, teasing and tormenting ’em, I reckon.” Sam struck out with the experimental feeling of one on runners for the first time in months; made a wide circle, and came back to Step. “Bit rusty, but I’ll get the swing all right in an hour or so,” he reported. Step brought him back to the previous question, so to speak. “What do you want? Don’t mean to fight him on skates, do you?” “Certainly not,” said Sam testily. “What put such a notion in your head?” “Well, what are you here for?” demanded Step pointedly. “Don’t expect to have a fight before all this crowd, do you?” “Seems to me you’re getting awful fussy.” “I am, if ‘fussy’ consists in objecting to scrapping with half the town rubbering.” Step looked hurt. “Don’t you want anybody but yourself to have any fun?” “I don’t intend to entertain Plainville in a body.” Step’s expression was bewildered. “Say--say, you ain’t crawling, are you?” he queried. The suspicion stung Sam’s pride. “Crawling? Not on your life! I’m looking for Tom Orkney, and when I find him I’ll ask him to walk back in the woods with me--he’ll know what for. And you can come along, and one or two of the others, but----” The cloud vanished from Step’s brow. “Oh, that’s all right!” he said heartily. “Can’t have a mob trailing along, of course. But I say! There’s Orkney now--just shooting out from behind the point. He’s chasing one of the kids.” Sam’s glance followed the direction of Step’s extended arm. “Yes, that’s Orkney, fast enough. But what’s he doing?” “Pestering the youngster!” snapped Step. “Can’t you see? And I declare, if it isn’t Little Perrine he’s worrying!” Sam watched the swiftly moving figures, one short and slender, the other tall and stout. Little Perrine, barely in the lead, seemed to be hard pressed, for he dodged frequently without being able to throw off his pursuer. Suddenly Step cried out sharply: “The miserable bully! Look, Sam! he’s driving the kid right down to the dam, where the ice won’t hold him for a minute!” “Confound it all!” fumed Sam. “Why won’t people think of Safety First? Why won’t----” There he broke off, aghast at the catastrophe he beheld, but Step’s voice rose shrilly: “Great Scott! it’s happened! They’re in--both in!” With appalling swiftness the ice had yielded beneath the weight of the two, and Little Perrine, vanishing as if through a trap-door in a stage, had been followed almost instantly by Orkney.