At dinner, one Saturday, Quiz had broken out in exclamations of
delight over his pet skies, and had begun to complain about the time
when spring should drive away the blessed winter.
"I can't get enough of the snow," he exclaimed.
"Oh, can't you?" said Jumbo, ominously.
Quiz could hardly finish his dinner, so impatient was he to be up and
off again, over the hills and far away. When he had gone, Jumbo asked
the other Lakerimmers if they had not noticed how exclusive Quiz was
becoming, and how little they saw of him. He said, also, that he did
not approve of Quiz' rushing all over the country alone and taking
foolish risks for the sake of a little solitary fun.
The Lakerimmers agreed that something should be done; and Jumbo
reminded them of Quiz' remark that he could not get enough snow, and
suggested a plan that, he thought, might work as a good medicine on
him.
That afternoon Quiz seemed to have quite lost his head over his
ski-running. He felt that there were signs of a thaw in the air, and
he proposed that this snow should not fade away before he had indulged
in one grand, farewell voyage. He struck off into the country by a
new road, and at such a speed that he was soon among unfamiliar
surroundings.
As the day began to droop toward twilight he decided that it was high
time to be turning back toward Kingston. He looked about for one last
embankment to shoot before he retraced his course.
Far in the distance he thought he saw a fine, high bluff, and he
hurried toward it with delicious expectation. When he had reached the
brink he looked down and saw that the bluff ended in a little body of
water hardly big enough to be called a lake. After measuring the drop
with his eye, and deciding that while it was higher than anything he
had ever shot before, it was just risky enough to be exciting, he went
back several steps, came forward with a good impetus, and launched
himself fearlessly into the air like the aëronaughty Darius Green.
He launched himself fearlessly enough, but he was no sooner in mid-air
than he began to regret his rashness. It was rather late now, though,
to be thinking of that, and he realized that nothing could save him
from having a sudden meeting with the bottom of the hill.
He lost his nerve in his excitement, and crossed his skies, so that
when he struck, instead of sailing forward like the wind, he stuck and
went headforemost. Fortunately, one of his skies broke--instead of
most of his bones; and a very kind-hearted snow-bank appeared like a
feather-bed, and somewhat checked the force of his fall. But, for all
that, he was soon rolling over and over down the hill, and he landed
finally on a thin spot in the ice of the lake, and crashed through
into the water up to his waist.
Now he was so panic-stricken that he scrambled frantically out. He
cast one sorry glance up the hill, and saw there the pieces into which
his ski had cracked, as well as the pathway he himself had cleared in
the snow as he came tumbling down. Then he looked for the other ski,
and realised that it was far away under the ice.
He was now so cold, that, dripping as he was, he would not have waded
into the lake again to grope around for the other ski if that ski had
been solid gold studded with diamonds.
Plainly, the only thing to do was to make for home, and that right
quickly, before night came on and he lost his way, and the pneumonia
got him.
It was a very different story, trudging back through the snow-drifts
in the twilight, from flitting like a butterfly on the ski. He
realized now that his legs were tired from the long run he had enjoyed
so much. He lost his way, too, time and again; and when he came to a
cross-roads and had to guess for himself which path to take, somehow
or other he seemed always to take the wrong one, and to plod along it
until he met some farmer to put him on the right path to Kingston. But
though he met many a farmer, he seemed to find never a wagon going his
way, or even a hospitable-looking farm-house.
He was still miles away from Kingston when lamp-lighting time came. A
little gleam came cheerfully toward him out of the dark. He hurried
to it, thinking of the fine supper the kind-hearted farmers would
doubtless give him, when, just as he reached the gate of the
door-yard, there was a most blood-curdling uproar, and two or three
furious dogs came bounding shadowily toward him.
He lost no time in deciding that supper, after all, was a rather
useless invention, and Kingston much preferable.
Previously to this, Quiz had always understood that the dog was the
most kind-hearted of animals, but it was months after that night
before he could hear the mere name of a canine without shuddering.
Well, a boy can cover any distance imaginable,--even the path to the
moon,--if he only has the strength and the time. So Quiz finally
reached the outskirts of Kingston.
His long walk had dried and warmed him somewhat; but he was miserably
tired, and he felt that his stomach was as empty as the Desert of
Sahara. At last, though, he reached the campus, and dragged heavily
along the path to his dormitory.
He stopped at Tug's to see if Tug had any remains left of the latest
box of good things from home; but no answer came to his knock, and he
went sadly up to the next Lakerim room. But that was empty too, and
all of the others of the Dozen were away.
For they had become alarmed at Quiz' absence, and started out in
search of him, as they had once before set forth on the trail of Tug
and History.
[Illustration: "Jumbo saw a pair of flashing eyes glaring at him over
the coverlet."]
By the time Quiz reached his room he was too tired to be very hungry,
and he decided that his bed would be Paradise enough. So, all cold and
weary as he was, he hastily peeled off his clothes, and blew out the
light. He shivered at the very thought of the coldness of the sheets,
but he fairly flung himself between them.
Just one-tenth of a second he spent in his downy couch, and then
leaped out on the floor with a howl. He remembered suddenly the look
Jumbo had given him at dinner when he had said he could not get snow
enough.
Jumbo and the other fiends from Lakerim had filled the lower half of
his bed with it!
* * * * *
Late that night, when the eleven Lakerimmers came back, weary from
their long search, and frightened at not finding Quiz, Jumbo went
to his room with a sad heart. When he lighted his lamp and looked
longingly toward his downy bed, he saw a pair of flashing eyes glaring
at him over the coverlet. They were the eyes of Quiz; and within easy
reach lay a baseball bat and several large lumps of coal. But all Quiz
said was:
"Excuse me for getting into your bed, Jumbo. You are perfectly welcome
to mine."