Billie reached the top of the hill first and with dancing eyes she looked down at the long, steep, ice-covered incline. The slight thaw of the day before had been the one thing needed to perfect the sledding. For the surface of the snow had melted, then frozen over again, forming a solid coat of ice. As she took this all in gleefully, the first of the boys emerged from the trees at the foot of the hill and an impish impulse seized her. With a shout of warning she pulled up her sled, flung herself upon it, gave a little push, and was off! Down the hill she hurtled at a terrific rate of speed, the glaze of ice forming almost no resistance to her flight. Taken by surprise, the boys had no more than time to get out of the way before she literally dropped among them. She swung off to the right, where an abrupt rise of ice-covered ground checked her speed, and, after almost reaching the top of this small hill, the back runners of the sled were caught in the ice and she was tumbled head over heels, to land in an undignified heap at the boys’ feet. Then she sat up, rubbed her head and smiled at them gleefully. “I went some that time, didn’t I?” she said. “Yes, and you might have broken your neck, too,” said Teddy, in an awfully gruff voice, as he took both her hands and pulled her to her feet. The other boys were looking on in admiration at Billie’s feat. “Don’t you know you should never have taken that turn to the right? That hill’s too steep.” “I know it is—_now_,” said Billie ruefully, feeling, for the first time the horrible suspicion that she had skinned her knee. “You should have taken one of these paths,” spoke up Chet, pushing his way through the crowd of boys and regarding Billie sternly, as an older brother should. “I thought you knew that.” “Of course I know that,” returned Billie, mimicking Chet’s tone to perfection. “But will you please tell me how I could take either one of the paths when both of them were chock full of boys?” The paths about which they spoke branched off from the foot of the hill. One had been an old wagon road which had become overgrown with bushes and stubble and the other was only a foot path. Nevertheless, either one was wide enough to permit easily a sled to pass through and the ground was level for a long enough distance to allow the sleds to come to an easy standstill. From the top of the hill the girls had been watching Billie’s escapade, and now as she started with the boys up the long slope they looked at one another, smiling. “Goodness, there she goes again!” sighed Connie plaintively. “She isn’t satisfied with two of the boys any more. Now she has the whole crowd of them!” CHAPTER IX—INTO SPACE