“Don’t be afraid,” answered Sahwah.  “I won’t get sick.  But if I don’t get my Physics notebook finished by the First of February I’ll not be eligible for the game, and that’s no joke.  Fizzy said nobody would get a passing grade this month who didn’t have that old notebook finished, and you know what that means.”

“There really isn’t any danger of your not getting it in, is there?” asked Dick breathlessly.

“Not if I keep at it,” answered Sahwah, and Dick breathed easy again.  To allow yourself to be declared ineligible for a game on account of studies when the school was depending on you to win that game would have been a crime too awful to contemplate.

The snow on the hills in the park had a hard crust, which made it just right for skiing.  Sahwah and Dick made one descent after another, sometimes tripping over the point of a ski and landing in a sprawling heap, but more often sailing down in perfect form with a breathless rush.  “That last leap of yours was a beauty,” said Sahwah admiringly.

“I think I’m learning,” said Dick modestly.

“I ‘stump’ you to go down the big hill on the lake front,” said Sahwah, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

Dick knew what that particular hill was like, but, boylike, he could not refuse a dare given by a girl.  “Do you want to see me do it?” he said stoutly.  “All right, I will.”

“Don’t” said Sahwah, frightened at what she had driven him to do; “you’ll break your neck.  I didn’t really mean to dare you to do it.”  But Dick had made up his mind to go down that cliff hill just to show Sahwah that he could, and nothing could turn him aside now.

“Come along,” he said; “I can make it.”  And he started off toward the lake front at a brisk pace.

But when he had reached the top of the hill in question he stood still and stared out over the lake.  “Hello,” he said in surprise, “there’s somebody having trouble out there on the ice.”  Sahwah came and stood beside him, shading her eyes with her hand to see what was happening.  At that distance she did not recognize Migwan.  “The ice is breaking!” cried Dick, who was far-sighted and saw the girl on the floating ice cake.  Like a whirlwind he sped down the hillside, dropped over the edge of the cliff like a plummet and shot nearly a hundred feet out over the glassy surface of the lake.  Without pausing an instant Sahwah was after him.  She had a dizzy sensation of falling off the earth when she made the jump from the hillside, which was a greater distance than she had ever dropped before, but it was over so quickly that she had no time to lose her breath before she was on solid ground again and taking the long slide over the lake.  In a short time they reached the edge of the broken ice.

“Migwan!” gasped Sahwah when she saw who the girl on the floating cake was.  They could not get very near her, as the edge of the solid mass was continually breaking away, and there was a strip of moving pieces between them and her.  “Fasten the skis together and make a long pole,” said Sahwah, “and then she can take hold of one end of it and we can pull her toward us,” said Sahwah.