Snow-time set Quiz to wondering what he could do to occupy his spare moments; for the drifts were too deep for him to continue his beloved pastime of bicycling, and he had to put his wheel out of commission. So he went nosing about, trying a little of everything, and being satisfied with nothing.

The Academy hockey team, of which Jumbo was the leader, was working out a fine game and making its prowess felt among the rival teams of the Tri-State Interscholastic League. But hockey did not interest Quiz; for though he could almost sleep on a bicycle without falling over, when he put on a pair of skates you might have thought that he was trying to turn somersaults or describe interrogation-points in the air.

It was a little cold for rowing,—though Quiz pulled a very decent oar,—and the shell would hardly go through the ice at an interesting speed. Indoor work in the gymnasium was also too slow for Quiz, and he was asking every one what pastime there was to interest a young man who required speed in anything that was to hold his attention.

At length he bethought him of a sport he had seen practised during a visit he paid once to some relatives in Minnesota, where the many Norwegian immigrants practised the art of running upon the skies. At first sight this statement looks as if it might have come out of the adventures of that trustworthy historian, Baron MÜnchhÄusen. But the skies you are thinking of are not the skies I mean.

The Scandinavian skies are not blue, and they are not overhead, but underfoot. Of course you know all about the Norwegian ski, but perhaps your younger brother does not, so I will say for his benefit that the ski is a sort of Norwegian snow-shoe, only it is almost as swift as the seven-league boots. When you put it on you look as if you had a toboggan on each foot; for it is a strip of ash half an inch thick, half a dozen inches wide, and some ten feet long; the front end of it pointed and turned up like that of a toboggan.

When you first get the things on, or, rather, get on them, you learn that, however pleasant they may grow to be as servants, they are certainly pretty bad masters; and you will find that the groove which is run in the bottom of the skies to prevent their spreading is of very little assistance, for they seem to have a will of their own, and also a bitter grudge against each other: they step on each other one moment, and make a wild bolt in opposite directions the next, and behave generally like a pair of unbroken colts.

Quiz had once learned to walk on snow-shoes. He grew to be quite an adept, indeed, and could take a two-foot hurdle with little difficulty. But he soon found that so far from being a help, his familiarity with the snow-shoe was a great hindrance.

The mode of walking on a Canadian snow-shoe, which he had learned with such difficulty, had to be completely unlearned before he could begin to make progress with the Scandinavian footgear. For in snow-shoe walking the feet must be lifted straight up and then carried forward before they are planted, and any attempt to slide them forward makes a woeful tangle; to try to lift the ski off the ground, however, is to invite ridiculous distress, and the whole art of scooting on the ski is in the long, sliding motion. It is a sort of skating on incredibly long skates that must not be lifted from the snow.

Quiz had the skies made by a Kingston carpenter; and he was so proud of them that, when a crowd gathered to see what he was going to do with the mysterious slats, he proceeded to make his first attempt in an open space in the Academy campus. He put the skies down on the snow, slipped his toes into the straps, and, sweeping a proud glance around among the wondering Kingstonians, dashed forward in his old snow-shoe fashion.

It took the Kingstonians some seconds to decide which was Quiz and which was ski. For the skittish skies skewed and skedaddled and skulked and skipped and scrubbed and screwed and screamed and scrawled and scooped and scrabbled and scrambled and scambled and scumbled and scraped and scrunched and scudded and scuttled and scuffled and skimped and scattered in such scandalous scampishness that the scornful scholars scoffed.

Quiz quit.

The poor boy was so laughed at for days by the whole Academy that his spunk was finally aroused. He got out again the skies he had hidden away in disgust, and practised upon them in the fields, at a distance from the campus, until he had finally broken the broncos and made a swift and delightful team of them. He soon grew strong enough to glide for hours at a high rate of speed without weariness, and the ski became a serious rival to the bicycle in his affections.

He learned to shoot the hills at a breathless rate, climbing up swiftly to the top; then, with feet apart, but even, zipping like an express-train down the steep incline and far along the level below.

He even risked his bones by attempting the rash deeds of old ski-runners. Reaching an embankment, he would retire a little distance, and then rush forward to the brink and leap over into the air, lighting on the ground below far out, steadying himself quickly, and shooting on at terrific pace.

But this rashness brought its own punishment—as fool-hardiness usually does.

[Illustration: "QUIZ LEARNED TO SHOOT THE HILLS AT A BREATHLESS
RATE."]