PERIL--AND A TAFFY PULL
It seemed to Ruth Fielding, as the toboggan dashed down the chute
toward that strange object in their course, as though her lips were
glued together. She could not speak--she could not utter a sound.
And yet this inaction--this dumbness--lasted but a very few seconds.
The thing upon the slide lay more than half way down the hill--a
quarter of a mile ahead when her stinging eyes first saw it.
Toward it the sled rushed, gathering speed every moment, and the
object on the track grew in her eyes apace. When her lips parted she
screamed so that Isadore heard her words distinctly:
"Stop, Izzy! There's something ahead! Look!"
Of course it was foolish to beg of the boy to stop. Nothing could
halt them once they had started upon the icy incline. But her cry
warned Isadore of the peril ahead.
He echoed her cry, and was as panic-stricken as the girl herself. At
first, the thing looked like somebody lying across the slide. Had one
of their friends fallen off either of the other toboggans, and been
too hurt to rise? Then, the next instant, both Isadore and Ruth knew
that the thing was too small for that.
It was really a jacket that Bob Steele had tied about his neck by
the arms. On the way down the sleeves had become untied and the
jacket had spread itself out upon the slide to its full breadth.
It didn't seem as though such a thing could do the coming toboggan
any harm; but Ruth and Isadore Phelps knew well that if it went upon
the outspread coat there would be a spill. It would act like a brake
to the sled, and that frail vehicle on which the three young folk
rode would stop so abruptly that they would be flung off upon the icy
course.
Ruth at least understood this peril only too well; but she made no
further outcry. Jennie Stone's eyes were still tight shut.
One moment the outspread jacket lay far before them, across the
path. The next instant--or so it seemed--they were right upon it.
"Hang on!" yelled Isadore, and shot his boot-heel into the icy
surface of the slide.
The toboggan swerved. Jennie uttered a cry. The sled went up the
left hand dyke like a bolting horse climbing a roadside wall or a
side hill.
In Ruth's ears rang the shouts of their friends, who were coming
hastily up the hillside. They could do nothing to help the endangered
crew, nor could the latter help themselves.
Up the toboggan shot into the air. It leaped the shoulder of the
dyke and--crew and all--darted out into space.
That was certainly an awful moment for Ruth Fielding and her two
companions. Jennie's intermittent squeal turned into a sudden shriek--
as keen and nerve-racking as the whistle of a locomotive. Isadore
Phelps "blew up" with a muffled roar as he turned half a somersault
in the air and landed headfirst in a huge snowdrift.
That is how the girls landed, too. At least, if they didn't dive
headfirst into the drift, they were pretty well swallowed up in it.
And it was providential that they all did find such a soft cushion
when they landed.
Their individual shrieks were broken off suddenly by the smothering
snow. Their friends, on the other side of the slide, came plunging
across the course, and Bob Steele, slipping on the smooth surface,
kicked up both feet high in the air, landed with a crash on the small
of his back, and finished the slide to the very bottom of the chute
in that most undignified position.
Bob's accident turned the whole affair into a most ludicrous scene.
Tom Cameron laughed so hard that he scarcely had the strength to help
the girls out of the snowdrift. As for Isadore, he had to scramble
out by himself--and the soft snow had got down his neck, and he had
lost his hat, his ears were full of snow, and altogether he was in
what Madge Steele called "a state of mind."
"Huh!" Izzy growled, "you all can laugh. Wait! I'll get square with
you girls, now, you better believe that."
And he actually started off for the camp in a most abused state. The
others could not help their laughter--the more so that what seemed
for a few seconds to promise disaster had turned out to be nothing
but a most amusing catastrophe.
This ended the coasting for this particular evening, however. Jennie
Stone was pried out of the snowdrift last of all, and they all went
to the bottom of the hill where Bob Steele sat with his back against
a tree trunk, waiting, as he said, for the "world to stop turning
around so fast." His swift descent had made him dizzy.
They all ran back to Snow Camp, catching up with Isadore before he
got there with his grouch, and Tom and Bob fell upon the grouch and
dumped it into another snowbank--boy and all--and managed in the
scuffle to bring Busy Izzy into a better state of mind.
"Just the same," he declared, "I'll get square with those girls for
laughing at me--you see if I don't!"
"A lot of good that'll do you," returned Tom Cameron. "And why
shouldn't they laugh? Do you suppose that the sight of you on your
head in a snowbank with your legs waving in the wind was something to
make them _weep_? Huh!"
But when they got inside the big hall, where the two fires burned,
Izzy forgot his grouch. There was a basket of popcorn and several
"poppers" and the crowd of young folk were soon shelling corn and
popping it, turning the fluffy, snow-white kernels into big bowls,
over which thick cream was poured, and, as Jennie declared, "they ate
till they couldn't eat another crumb!"
"Isn't it just grand?" cried Belle Tingley, when the girls had
retired to the big room in which Ruth Fielding had slept alone the
night before. "I never did know you could have so much fun in the
woods in the dead of winter. Helen! your father is just the dearest
man to bring us up here! We'll none of us forget this vacation."
But in the morning there were new things to go and learn. The
resources of Snow Camp seemed unending. As soon as breakfast was over
there was Long Jerry ready with snowshoes for all. Tom and Helen, as
well as Bob Steele, were somewhat familiar with these implements. And
Ruth had had one unforgettable experience with them.
But at first there were a good many tumbles, and none of the party
went far from the big lodge on this occasion. They came into the mid-day
dinner pretty well tired, but oh, how hungry!
"I declare, eating never seemed so good before," Bob Steele
murmured. "I really wish I could eat more; but room I have not!"
Heavy went to sleep before the fire directly after the meal, but was
awakened when the girls all trooped out to the kitchen to make
molasses taffy. The boys had gone with Long Jerry to try to shoot
squirrels; but they came back without having any luck before the
girls were fairly in possession of Janey's kitchen.
"Let us help--aw, do!" cried Tom, smelling the molasses boiling on
the range and leading the way into the kitchen.
"You can't cook anything good to eat when there are boys within a
mile, and they not know it," sighed Jennie Stone.
"Or be able to keep them out of it," declared Madge Steele. "I
suppose we shall have to let them hang around, Helen."
"I tell you!" cried Helen, who never would go back upon her twin,
and who liked to have him around, "we'll make some nut candy. There's
nuts--half a bushel of them. The boys must crack and pick the nuts
and we'll make some walnut taffy--it will be lots nicer than plain
taffy."
"Oh, well, that _does_ put another face upon the matter,"
laughed Lluella Fairfax.
"But they must all three whistle while they're picking out the
nuts," cried Heavy. "I know them! The nut meats will never go into
the taffy pan if they don't whistle."
Tom and his chums agreed to this and in a few minutes they were all
three sitting gravely on the big settee by the fire, a flatiron in
each boy's lap, each with a hammer and the basket of nuts in reach,
and all dolefully whistling--with as much discord as possible. The
whistling did certainly try the girls' nerves; but the boys were not
to be trusted under any other conditions.
Busy Izzy, however--that arch schemer--had not forgiven the girls
for laughing at his overset on the toboggan slide the night before.
And as he sat whistling "Good Night, Ladies" in a dreadful minor, he
evolved such a plan for reprisal in his fertile mind that his eyes
began to snap and he could hardly whistle for the grin that wreathed
his lips.
"Keep at it, Mr. Isadore Phelps!" cried Ruth, first to detect Izzy's
defection. "We're watching you."
"Come! aren't we going to have a chance to eat a single kernel?"
Izzy growled.
"Not one," said Helen, stoutly. "After you have the nuts cracked and
picked out, we'll spread the kernels in the dripping pans, the taffy
will then be ready, we'll pour it over, and then set the candy out to
cool in the snow. After that we'll give you some--if you're good."
"Huh!" grunted Isadore. "I guess I know a trick worth two of that.
We'll get our share, fellows," and he winked at Tom and Bob.