“You don’t know what fun is.  Here—­” The speaker stooped and detached her feet from the straps.  “Just have a go at it.”  Pierce protested, but she insisted in a business-like way.  “They’re long ones—­too long for me.  They’ll just suit you.”

“Really, I don’t care to—­”

“Oh yes, you do.  You must.”

“You’ll be sorry,” Pierce solemnly warned her.  “When my feet glance off and leave me sticking up in the snow to starve, you’ll--Say!  I can think of a lot of things I want to do, but I don’t seem to find skee-jumping on the list.”

“You needn’t jump right away.”  Determination was in the girl’s tone; there was a dancing light of malice in her eyes.  “You can practise a bit.  Remember, you laughed at me.”

“Nothing of the sort.  I was amazed, not amused.  I thought I’d flushed a very magnificent pheasant with blue-and-white stripes, and I was afraid it was going to fly away before I got a good look at it.  Now, then—­“He slowly finished buckling the runners to his feet and looked up interrogatively.  “What are your Majesty’s orders?”

“Walk around.  Slide down the hill.”

“What on?”

The girl smothered a laugh and waved him away.  She looked on while he set off with more or less caution.  When he managed to maintain an upright position despite the antics of his skees her face expressed genuine disappointment.

“It’s not so hard as I thought it would be,” he soon announced, triumphantly.  “A little awkward at first, but—­” he cast an eye up at the bank.  “You never know what you can do until you try.”

“You’ve been skeeing before,” she accused him, reproachfully.

“Never.”

“Then you pick it up wonderfully.  Try a jump.”

Her mocking invitation spurred him to make the effort, so he removed the skees and waded a short distance up the hill.  When he had secured his feet in position for a second time he called down: 

“I’m going to let go and trust to Providence.  Look out.”

“The same to you,” she cried.  “You’re wonderful, but—­men can do anything, can’t they?”

There was nothing graceful, nothing of the free abandon of the practised skee-runner in Pierce’s attitude; he crouched apelike, with his muscles set to maintain an equilibrium, and this much he succeeded in doing—­until he reached the jumping, off place.  At that point, however, gravity, which he had successfully defied, wreaked vengeance upon him; it suddenly reached forth and made him its vindictive toy.  He pawed, he fought, he appeared to be climbing an invisible rope.  With a mighty flop he landed flat upon his back, uttering a loud and dismayed grunt as his breath left him.  When he had dug himself out he found that the girl, too, was breathless.  She was rocking in silent ecstasy, she hugged herself gleefully, and there were tears in her eyes.

“I’m—­so—­sorry!” she exclaimed, in a thin, small voice.  “Did you--trip over something?”