“Oh! oh!” shrieked Jennie. “Nancy’s been thrown!”
But her friend picked herself up at once, and with a laugh skated on after the other contestants. One of the first-class girls won.
“How did you come to fall?” demanded Jennie, with lively interest.
“Oh, it must have been a twig sticking up in the ice,” declared Cora, before Nancy could reply. “You can’t see them at night.”
“Was that it, Nance?” demanded Jennie, suspiciously.
“It—it must have been,” admitted Nancy. But in her heart of hearts Nancy knew that she had stumbled over the toe of Cora Rathmore’s skate. The girl had deliberately thrown her.
It made no difference in the result of the race. Nancy could not have won, she knew. But it warned her to look out for Cora Rathmore if she raced again with her.
Nancy rested after that, refusing to enter any of the minor contests until the long race—the pièce de résistance of the evening—was called.
This was the endurance test that Miss Etching was anxious to have go off well. The physical instructor of Pinewood Hall had an object in putting her girls against a two-mile skate. More than Jennie Bruce had noted the fact that many of the best skaters among the juniors and seniors lacked “wind.”
It was hard for the instructor to watch all the girls closely enough to be sure that they dressed properly even in the gym work. She had warned them to dress loosely under their warm sweaters for the ice, too; for in skating every muscle in the body needs free play.