“When you come to think of it, Jack,” Uncle Dick said to Mr. Canary, “it is not very different from our toboggan chute yonder.  Only it is longer.”

“A good bit longer,” said Mr. Canary, shaking his head.

However, it was plain that the idea interested Uncle Dick.  He hastened out to look at the pung.  Bob followed him, and they were gone half an hour or more.  When they returned Bob was grinning broadly.

“Get ready for the time of your lives, girls,” he whispered to Betty and Bobby.  “The thing is going to work.  You wait and see!”

Uncle Dick called them all into the living room and told them to pack at once and prepare for a cold ride.  There was plenty of time, for the train they had to catch did not reach the station until noon.

“If our trip is successful—­and it will be, I feel sure—­it will not take an hour to reach the station.  But we shall give ourselves plenty of time.  Now off with you!  I guess Mrs. Canary will be glad to see the last of us.”

But their hostess denied this.  The delight of having young people at the lonely camp in the hills quite counterbalanced the disturbance they made.  But she bustled about somewhat anxiously, aiding the girls and the boys to make ready for departure.  The Canarys, being unused to roughing it, even if they did live in the Big Woods, were much more afraid of the possibility of an accident arising out of this scheme Betty had conceived than was Uncle Dick.

A little after ten o’clock they all piled out of the bungalow with their baggage.  The two men working at the camp had filled the box of the pung with straw and had drawn it out to the brow of the hill where the road began.  The tongue was raised at a slant, as high as it would go, and half of it had been sawed off.  Ropes were fastened from this stub of the tongue to ringbolts on either side of the pung-box.

“It will take two of us to steer,” said Uncle Dick, “and we must work together.  Get in here, Bob, and I’ll show you how it works.”

It worked easily.  The girls and the baggage were piled into the pung.  The Tucker twins were each handed an iron-shod woodsman’s peavey and were shown how the speed of the pung might be retarded by dragging them in the crust on either side.

“You boys are the brakes,” sang out Uncle Dick, almost as excited as the young people themselves.  “When we shout for ‘Brakes!’ it is up to you twins to do your part.”

“We will, sir!” cried Tommy and Teddy in unison.

“And don’t hang your arms or legs over the sides,” advised Uncle Dick.  “Farewell, Jack!  Take care of him, Mrs. Canary.  And many, many thanks for a jolly time.”

The boys and girls chorused their gratitude to the owner of Mountain Camp and his wife.  The men behind gave the pung just the tiniest push.  The runners creaked over the ice, and the forward end pitched down the slope.  They had started.

And what a ride that was!  It is not likely that any of them will ever forget it.  Yet, as it proved, the danger was slight.  They coasted the entire down-grade to the little railroad station where Fred Jaroth was telegraph operator with scarcely more peril than as though they had been riding behind the Jaroth horses.