For a glorious hour the girls and boys enjoyed what was to them the best sledding of their lives. They coasted down the hill and dragged their sleds up again, shouting and calling to each other while their cheeks and, it must be admitted, sometimes their noses, too, glowed with the sting of the sharp wind and they had to stamp hard on the frozen ground to keep their toes from freezing. “The best sport ever!” cried Paul. “All to the merry,” came from Chet. “What do you say, girls?” and he turned to Billie and her classmates. What did they say? All shouted at once that such fine sport couldn’t possibly be beaten. “Can’t be beat!” sang out Chet gaily. “Just like old Ma Jackson’s rag carpet.” “Ma Jackson’s rag carpet? What do you mean?” asked Laura. “She couldn’t beat it for fear it would fall apart,” was the sly reply. And then the merry lad had to dodge a hard chunk of snow Laura threw at him. “Burr-r! isn’t it cold?” cried Billie, taking a mitten from one of her hands and blowing on her numbed fingers. “I’d never know what it was to feel cold if it weren’t for my fingers and toes. Teddy! Stop your pushing! What do you want now?” For Teddy had seized her by the shoulders and had sat her firmly down upon his big bobsled. “You’ve let Paul Martinson take you down three times to my once,” he accused her, while he settled himself comfortably behind her on the sled. “And now it’s my turn. Hey, look out there, you fellows—we’re off!” And before the astonished Billie could do more than utter a giggling protest, they were indeed “off,” flying down the ice-glazed hill at a rate that took her breath away. “Some speed, eh?” chortled Teddy in her ear. “This old boat of mine has got ’em all beat. I bet we could race them all to a standstill.” “Why don’t we try?” Billie yelled back at him. “It would be lots of fun. Oh, Teddy, look out!” she shrieked, for they had reached the foot of the hill and Teddy had skimmed so close to the trunk of a tree that Billie afterward declared they had scraped off a piece of bark. “Don’t worry,” Teddy said, reassuringly. “Nothing’s going to happen to you when you’re with your uncle Ted.” At which remark Billie could not help giggling to herself. “Boys did think they were so awfully much!” Then suddenly she cried out: “Teddy, that’s the wrong path! We have never been down it before.” “That’s why I’m trying it,” said Teddy recklessly, as he swung down the strange path that ran at right angles to the one they were on. “The ground slopes, too, so we ought to have some more fun.” Billie said nothing. She would not for the life of her have Teddy guess that she was afraid. They had never been down that path before, because never before had a sled had momentum enough to carry it that far.