CHAPTER IX--INTO SPACE
For a glorious hour the girls and boys enjoyed what was to them the bestsledding of their lives. They coasted down the hill and dragged theirsleds up again, shouting and calling to each other while their cheeksand, it must be admitted, sometimes their noses, too, glowed with thesting of the sharp wind and they had to stamp hard on the frozen groundto keep their toes from freezing.
"The best sport ever!" cried Paul.
"All to the merry," came from Chet. "What do you say, girls?" and heturned to Billie and her classmates.
What did they say? All shouted at once that such fine sport couldn'tpossibly be beaten.
"Can't be beat!" sang out Chet gaily. "Just like old Ma Jackson's ragcarpet."
"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 athim.
"Burr-r! isn't it cold?" cried Billie, taking a mitten from one of herhands and blowing on her numbed fingers. "I'd never know what it was tofeel cold if it weren't for my fingers and toes. Teddy! Stop yourpushing! What do you want now?"
For Teddy had seized her by the shoulders and had sat her firmly downupon his big bobsled.
"You've let Paul Martinson take you down three times to my once," heaccused her, while he settled himself comfortably behind her on thesled. "And now it's my turn. Hey, look out there, you fellows--we'reoff!"
And before the astonished Billie could do more than utter a gigglingprotest, they were indeed "off," flying down the ice-glazed hill at arate that took her breath away.
"Some speed, eh?" chortled Teddy in her ear. "This old boat of mine hasgot '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 thehill and Teddy had skimmed so close to the trunk of a tree that Billieafterward declared they had scraped off a piece of bark.
"Don't worry," Teddy said, reassuringly. "Nothing's going to happen toyou when you're with your uncle Ted."
At which remark Billie could not help giggling to herself. "Boys didthink 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 thestrange path that ran at right angles to the one they were on. "Theground slopes, too, so we ought to have some more fun."
Billie said nothing. She would not for the life of her have Teddy guessthat she was afraid. They had never been down that path before, becausenever before had a sled had momentum enough to carry it that far.
And the ground was sloping more and more and the sled was going fasterand faster with each second. The path was by no means straight, either,and if Teddy had not been pretty good at keeping his head they wouldmost surely have run into something and have had a nasty spill.
"Oh, Teddy, can't we stop?" asked Billie at last, unable to keep herfright all to herself. "We don't know where this leads to. Can't youstop, Teddy?"
"Not very well," answered the boy uneasily. "We will surely run on tolevel ground in a minute. Don't worry."
But even as he spoke he jerked the sled around a sudden turn in the pathand they came, apparently, to the end of the world. With a nasty littlescraping sound the sled dived off into nothingness!
It all happened so suddenly that Billie did not have even time enough toscream. She had a sickening feeling of falling through space, and thenshe struck something--something that yielded, luckily, under her weight,and she sank, down, down, down, coming to rest at last in a world whereeverything was white and slippery and cold--oh, _so_ cold.
She must have lost consciousness for a minute, for when she came toherself again in this strange new world she heard somebody calling hername wildly and a moment later Santa Claus poked his head over asnowbank and peered down at her.
At least, she thought at first it was Santa Claus, because his face wasso very red and the snow was clinging to his fuzzy cap in such a funnymanner.
But in a moment more she realized her mistake, for the red face and thefunny hat disappeared and in their place were shoved two legs that shewas very sure belonged to Teddy. And in a moment more Teddy himself sliddown beside her.
"Hello," she greeted him with a smile. "I thought you were Santa Claus.Why weren't you?"
Teddy stared at her for a minute, anxiously.
"I say," he cried, taking one of her hands and rubbing it gently. "Iguess that loop the loop of ours knocked you silly."
"I'm always silly," was Billie's amazing reply, as she sat up and beganfeeling herself all over carefully. "But it certainly did knock me!"
"Are you all right?" demanded Teddy, watching her as she stretched outfirst one leg and then the other. "You didn't break anything, did you?"
"Nothing but my dignity," she answered, with a giggle that brought ananswering grin from the boy. "Teddy," she demanded, turning to himsuddenly, "what did happen, anyway?"
"I'm sure I don't know, except that we came to the end of that path andjumped off," answered Teddy, feeling gingerly of his forehead on whichBillie could see that a large purple lump was beginning to swell. "If Ihad had a chance to see what was coming I could have rolled off the sledand pulled you with me. But that turn in the road brought us right ontop of it. It's a sort of precipice, I guess," he went on to explain,while Billie eyed with sympathy the swelling lump on his forehead. "It'sabout fifteen feet high, I think, and if there hadn't been snow on theground we surely would have got hurt."
"If there hadn't been snow on the ground, we wouldn't have beensledding," Billie pointed out, adding, so unexpectedly as to make Teddyjump: "Who hit you?"
"Wh--what?" he gasped. Then seeing that her eyes were fixed on the bumpthat he was still fingering gingerly, Teddy's face grew redder than italready was, if such a thing were possible, and his hand fell quickly tohis side. "Oh, that!" he said, loftily, as if it were nothing at all. "Iguess the runner of the sled gave me a whack just as we dumped over. Itdoesn't hurt, though. Not a bit."
"I bet it does, too," said Billie, as the boy pulled his cap down tightover the tell-tale spot. "Where is the sled, Teddy?" she added.
"Out there, somewhere, sticking in a drift," answered the boy. "I didn'thave time to pull it out because I thought you had been killed orsomething and I had to come to look for you."
"Thanks," she laughed at him. Then her face became suddenly serious, andshe struggled to her feet, trying to brush off the snow that seemed tocover her from head to foot. "How are we going to get out of this,Teddy?" she asked, looking at him seriously.
"Ask me an easy one," he returned, his good-looking face extremelyanxious and puzzled. "The snow is awfully deep, and I don't believe wecould ever get up to that path again. It would take us a couple of hoursto go around, and besides, I'm not sure just how to go."
"In other words," said Billie, trying her best to speak gayly while herheart sank at this unusually long speech of Teddy's, "we're lost, aren'twe?"
"I guess it amounts to that," Teddy answered soberly, and for a longminute they just stood staring at each other.
Then Billie gave herself an impatient little shake.
"Help me out of this," she said, as she tried to push through the heavysnow that seemed to press in upon her from every side. "I'd like to havea look around, anyway."
She found that even with Teddy's help it was no easy task to clamber outof the snowdrift that she had fallen into, and both she and the boy werepanting with exertion when they had finally managed to get out into theopen.
Even there they stood up to their waists in the clinging snow, andBillie, looking desolately out over the white expanse, began to realizethat she was very, very cold.
"There's the sled," said Teddy, pointing to two runners sticking out ofthe snow and marking the spot where the sled had
struck. "Wait here andI'll get it."
Billie watched him as he struggled through the drifts, and suddenly shewas aware of an overwhelming desire to sit down where she was and cry.
"But that wouldn't do any good," she told herself sharply, "even if thisplace does look more lonely than a desert. If we don't get where it'swarm pretty soon we'll turn into icicles ourselves, I guess."
The wind had become stronger and more biting, and Billie's teeth hadbegun to chatter. She was glad when Teddy floundered back to her, therope of his sled looped over one arm. He slipped the other arm throughhers protectingly.
"We'll find a way out of this soon," he said, comfortingly. "You justwatch your uncle Teddy."
Billie tried to laugh but she could not, her teeth were chattering so.
"You said that before," she told him hysterically. "And we--we--wentover the cliff!"