CHAPTER I.

ON THE TOBOGGAN-SLIDE.

“All ready?”

“All ready!”

“Then here we go! Hold on, everybody, unless you want to be sent flying when we reach the curve!”

As Harry Webb uttered the last words he gave his long toboggan, the _Buster_, a final shove, and hopped on behind his three companions, and away they started on the trip down Doublehead Hill.

It was a stirring scene. The upper and lower hills, although light in the full moon, were made doubly bright by the scores of bonfires and pine torches which blazed on either side of the narrow toboggan-slide.

Scores of boys and girls were out, and not a few ladies and gentlemen also, and all looked warm and happy in their gayly-colored toboggan suits.

The long, low sleds were out by the dozens, and Jack Bascoe, who was steering the _Buster_ as best he could, had a difficult time of it, keeping clear of dangerous collisions.

“By jingo! but this is fine!” cried Andy Bascoe, Jack’s younger brother. “Who would want better sport than this?”

“You’re right, it’s fine!” returned Boxy Woodruff, the most light-hearted boy in Rudskill. “A fellow would like to keep sailing like this forever, eh? Just spread out your arms and--wow!”

Boxy’s imitation of flying came to a sudden stop as the toboggan shot over a little hill and came down with a thump on the other side. He was thrown a bit to one side, and only saved himself by grasping Jack Bascoe around the middle with both arms.

“Hold on, Boxy!” cried Jack, a little alarmed.

“That’s what I’m doing,” returned Boxy.

“I feel you,” said Jack, grimly. “But don’t pull me off, please. I’ve got to keep my eyes open for the other toboggans and sleds, you know.”

“I’m all right now, and I’ll do my flying act some other time,” returned Boxy.

“Here comes the _Whistler_!” cried Harry. “We ought to be able to beat Pete Sully’s toboggan.”

“Of course!” added Andy.

“Everybody push!” put in Boxy, in a dry way that made them all laugh. “Maybe you would like me to get off and help pull,” he added, in mock seriousness.

As they were going at a speed little less than a mile a minute down the long hill, the others laughed louder than ever.

The _Whistler_, with Pete Sully, the bully of the town, and several of his chums, was creeping up by their side. It was a brand-new toboggan, and slid along as though greased.

“You fellows ain’t in it any more!” shouted Sully to Harry, as he came within speaking distance. “Here’s where we leave you away behind!”

“You’ve got more weight!” returned Harry. “Give me the same weight, and the _Buster_ will walk away from you with ease.”

“I’ll bet you a dollar you can’t!” shouted Sully.

“I haven’t got a dollar to bet, Pete,” replied Harry, and he told the truth, for, although he owned the _Buster_, Harry Webb was poor, and had not known what it was to own a dollar for several years, ever since his father had lost his money in an unfortunate real estate speculation.

“Oh, you’re afraid to bet,” cried Sully, mockingly. “Good-by, slow boots!”

“I’ll bet my pocket-knife against yours we can beat you!” said Harry, considerably nettled by Sully’s taunts. “We will take the same number aboard and try our skill.”

“Done!” yelled Sully, for he was now several rods ahead.

Down the last of the second hill and along the level road shot the _Buster_, and presently came to a standstill just where the Rudskill turnpike branched off across the railroad tracks. The _Whistler_ had gone on a couple of hundred feet farther up the side of the tracks.

“Told you we’d beat you!” exclaimed Pete Sully, as he and his chums joined Harry and his friends. “You had better not bet your pocket-knife unless you want to lose it.”

“I am not afraid to try against you, Sully, and perhaps it will be you who will lose his pocket-knife.”

“Humph!” sneered Sully. “No fear. And if I did, I guess I could buy another easy enough, even if somebody else couldn’t.”

This was a direct shot at Harry’s poverty, and made the ears of the poor boy tingle, while his handsome face flushed.

“Come on and try your skill and quit your talking,” exclaimed Jack Bascoe, rather sharply, and he faced Sully as he spoke. “There is no use in wasting time here.”

Had it been any one else than Jack Bascoe who had spoken thus suggestively to him, Pete Sully might have picked a quarrel then and there. He was a very overbearing boy, and never allowed a chance of whipping some other boy go by him.

But the truth of the matter was, that he had once run up against Jack’s fist in a most surprising fashion. Blood had flowed freely, and from that time on the bully of Rudskill knew there were two boys in the town he dare not molest, Jack and his younger brother, Andy.

So, muttering something under his breath which Harry and his friends could not hear, Sully and his cohorts began to drag their toboggan up the long hillside. They were followed by the other boys, with the _Buster_. The walk was a tedious one, especially so to the two sides that wished to race each other.

“Whom shall we get to add weight?” asked Harry, as they at last gained the starting-place. “I don’t see any of our crowd here; do you?”

“I don’t,” returned Jack.

“What’s the matter with Pickles Johnsing?” put in Boxy. “He’s got enough weight for two.”

Pickles Johnsing was a stout, round-faced colored boy, with big red lips, and teeth which reminded one very forcibly of double-blank dominoes set in twin rows. He was a very willing and decent sort of a young darky, and had many friends in the little river town in which my story for the present is located.

“He’ll do first-rate,” said Harry. “Hello, Pickles!” he shouted.

“Hullo, dar, Harry!” returned the colored boy. “Got yo’ tobog out ag’in, I see.”

“Yes, Pickles, and we want you to ride down with us this trip. Put your bread-shovel out of the way.”

“T’anks, Harry, I’se like to ride down on de _Buster_ fust-rate,” grinned Pickles. “Wot yo’ gwine ter do, race Pete Sully?”

“Yes, Pickles, and we must beat him,” replied Andy. “You know just how to help us along.”

“Humph! if he ain’t going to take that coon on the trip!” sneered Pete Sully.

“You ain’t racing niggers, are you, Pete?” questioned one of his followers.

“I don’t know as I am,” returned Pete Sully, slowly.

He walked over to where Harry sat on his toboggan.

“I expected to race white fellows,” he remarked, sourly.

“Pickles is all right,” said Jack Bascoe. “He’s the dark horse to win. If you are going to race, get ready, for Harry isn’t going to wait all night for you.”

“Where’s that knife!” demanded Sully, thus changing the subject.

“Here it is,” replied Harry, producing it. “Four blades, and every one in good condition. Where is yours?”

“It’s just as good as that,” retorted Sully, bringing forth his pocket-knife. “Four blades and a corkscrew.”

“Who’s going to hold them as stakes?” questioned Bill Dixon, Sully’s most intimate chum.

The matter was talked over for several minutes, and finally a gentleman who had come to the hill to look at the sport agreed to become stakeholder.

Before the matter was decided, however, Sully did a good deal of whispering to Bill Dixon, who immediately left the crowd, which had moved over to the largest of the nearby campfires.

At last all was in readiness for the start. Hearing of the race, many on the course left their toboggans and sleds to witness the contest.

“Now, remember, the first to reach the railroad track switch wins the race,” shouted the stakeholder. “Are you ready?”

“We are,” said Sully.

“Then--go!”

With a great push, Sully sent the _Whistler_ on the downward course in fine style. Harry likewise gave the _Buster_ a good shove, and his toboggan also started. But he was a rod behind the other sled in the fraction of a second.

“Something is dragging under us!” cried Andy, quickly. “I can feel it plainly.”

“What can it be?” exclaimed Harry, in alarm. “Anybody’s clothing caught?”

“My clo’ all hunky,” replied Pickles. “Dat feels like it was a rope under dar. Did yo’ tie a rope to de tobog, Harry?”

“I took the rope off and left it with Mr. Bruley when we started,” returned the owner of the _Buster_. “It’s no use,” he groaned. “They’ll reach the tracks before we are half-way down!”

In the meanwhile Boxy Woodruff was feeling along the side of the toboggan. It was not long before his hand came in contact with an end of wash-line.

“Here it is, tied around the toboggan!” he cried. “I’ll bet this is some of Pete Sully’s underhanded work!”

“Yank it loose, can’t you?” exclaimed Harry, anxiously. “Cut it or break it--something.”

Boxy pulled with all of his strength, and the wash-line, which, luckily, was old and rotten, parted. An instant later it was clear of the toboggan bottom, and streaming along behind like the thin tail of a kite.

Freed from this hindrance, the _Buster_ shot forward on its course. Like a comet it passed over the brow of the second hill, with the _Whistler_ over a hundred feet ahead. Could they regain the ground they had lost?