elf fearlessly enough, but he was no sooner in mid-air
than he began to regret his rashness. It was rather late now, though,
to be thinking of that, and he realized that nothing could save him
from having a sudden meeting with the bottom of the hill.

He lost his nerve in his excitement, and crossed his skies, so that
when he struck, instead of sailing forward like the wind, he stuck and
went headforemost. Fortunately, one of his skies broke--instead of
most of his bones; and a very kind-hearted snow-bank appeared like a
feather-bed, and somewhat checked the force of his fall. But, for all
that, he was soon rolling over and over down the hill, and he landed
finally on a thin spot in the ice of the lake, and crashed through
into the water up to his waist.

Now he was so panic-stricken that he scrambled frantically out. He
cast one sorry glance up the hill, and saw there the pieces into which
his ski had cracked, as well as the pathway he himself had cleared in
the snow as he came tumbling down. Then he looked for the other ski,
and realised that it was far away under the ice.

He was now so cold, that, dripping as he was, he would not have waded
into the lake again to grope around for the other ski if that ski had
been solid gold studded with diamonds.

Plainly, the only thing to do was to make for home, and that right
quickly, before night came on and he lost his way, and the pneumonia
got him.

It was a very different story, trudging back through the snow-drifts
in the twilight, from flitting like a butterfly on the ski. He
realized now that his legs were tired from the long run he had enjoyed
so much. He lost his way, too, time and again; and when he came to a
cross-roads and had to guess for himself which path to take, somehow
or other he seemed always to take the wrong one, and to plod along it
until he met some farmer to put him on the right path to Kingston. But
though he met many a farmer, he seemed to find never a wagon going his
way, or even a hospitable-looking farm-house.

He was still miles away from Kingston when lamp-lighting time came. A
little gleam came cheerfully toward him out of the dark. He hurried
to it, thinking of the fine supper the kind-hearted farmers would
doubtless give him, when, just as he reached the gate of the
door-yard, there was a most blood-curdling uproar, and two or three
furious dogs came bounding shadowily toward him.

He lost no time in deciding that supper, after all, w