“Come on!” cried Tommy, who had kicked his own snowshoes off at the top of the slide.  “Give us your hand, Bobby.  We’ll make it somehow.”

But they did not “make it” easily.  It seemed as though they could climb only so high and then slide back again.  Under the shallow top snow the frozen crust was like pebbled glass.  Tommy could barely kick the toes of his boots into it to make steps, and just as he had secured a footing in a particularly slippery place, Bobby would utter a shriek and slide to the bottom again.

Even Betty was almost ill with laughter as this occurred over and over again.  But the Tucker twin finally proved himself to be master of the situation.  He was determined to get Bobby to the top of the hill, and he succeeded.

Tom Tucker was a strong lad.  Stooping, he commanded the girl to put her arms over his shoulders so that he could seize both wrists with one hand.  Then he bent forward, carrying Bobby on his back and her weight upon his aided in breaking through the snow-crust and getting a footing.

He plodded up the slope, a little at a time, and after a while Betty and Bob helped them to the level brink of the hill.  Tommy fell to the snow panting, and Bobby was inclined to scold for a minute.  Then she gave Tommy one of her rare smiles and helped him up.  She was not often so kind to him.

“You are a good child, Tommy Tucker,” she proclaimed saucily, as she beat the loose snow off his coat.  “In time you may be quite nice.”

Betty and Ida Bellethorne praised him too; but Bob continued to laugh and when the party started on again the others learned why he was so amused.

The way to Candace Farm lay right down that slope to the bottom of which Bobby had tumbled, and all the exertion Tommy had put forth to save her was unnecessary.  Bob led them along a lane right past the spot where Tommy had pulled the girl out of the snowbank!

“That’s the meanest trick that was ever played on me!” declared Bobby, in high wrath at first.  Then she began to appreciate the joke and laughed with the others.  “I was going to tell the folks at home how Tommy saved me from the peril of being buried in the snowbank; but I guess I’d better not,” she observed.  “Don’t blame me, Tommy.  Give it to Bob.”

“Ill get square with Bob,” grumbled the Tucker twin.  “No fear of that.”

Bobby remained kind to him however; and as Tommy frankly admired her he was repaid for his effort.  But every time Bob looked at Tom he burst out laughing.

They had struck into a straight trough in the snow, with maples on either side standing gaunt and strong, and a windrow of drifted snow where the fences were supposed to be—­a road which Bob said the man at Mountain Camp had told him led straight to Candace Farm.

“Wish we had brought a sled with us,” Tommy said.  “We could have ridden the girls on it.  Aren’t you tired, Bobby?”

“Not as tired as you are, I warrant,” she said, laughing at him.  “Poor Tommy!”