suddenly the silence was shattered and a cry rang out over
the snow.

"Hey! You there! Stop!"

"Tumble for your life!" cried George, and he fell down at once, because
it is the only way to stop. Jane fell on top of him--and then they
crawled on hands and knees to the snow at the edge of the slide--and
there was a sportsman, dressed in a peaked cap and a frozen moustache,
like the one you see in the pictures about Ice-Peter, and he had a gun
in his hand.

"You don't happen to have any bullets about you?" said he.

"No," George said, truthfully. "I had five of father's revolver
cartridges, but they were taken away the day Nurse turned out my pockets
to see if I had taken the knob of the bathroom door by mistake."

"Quite so," said the sportsman, "these accidents will occur. You don't
carry firearms, then, I presume?"

"I haven't any fire_arms_," said George, "but I have a fire_work_. It's
only a squib one of the boys gave me, if that's any good." And he began
to feel among the string and peppermints, and buttons and tops and nibs
and chalk and foreign postage stamps in his knickerbocker pockets.

"One could but try," the sportsman replied, and he held out his hand.

But Jane pulled at her brother's jacket-tail and whispered, "Ask him
what he wants it for."

So then the sportsman had to confess that he wanted the firework to kill
the white grouse with; and, when they came to look, there was the white
grouse himself, sitting in the snow, looking quite pale and careworn,
and waiting anxiously for the matter to be decided one way or the other.

George put all the things back in his pockets, and said, "No, I shan't.
The reason for shooting him stopped yesterday--I heard Father say so--so
it wouldn't be fair, anyhow. I'm very sorry; but I can't--so there!"

The sportsman said nothing, only he shook his fist at Jane, and then he
got on the slide and tried to go toward the Crystal Palace--which was
not easy, because that way is uphill. So they left him trying, and went
on.

Before they started, the white grouse thanked them in a few pleasant,
well-chosen words, and then they took a sideways slanting run and
started off again on the great slide, and so away toward the North Pole
and the twinkling, beautiful lights.

The great slide went on and on, and the lights did not seem to come much
nearer, and the white silence wrapped around them as they slid along the
wide, icy path. Then once again the silence was broken to