“What’s the matter now?” inquired Jack. “You’re not going to back out, are you?”
“No, but it just occurred to me that we’d better have some sort of a brake on this thing. If we get going down that mountain we might not be able to stop.”
“We don’t want to, until we get to the camp.”
“But s’pose we get to a ravine, or something like that?”
“Well, I guess it would be better to have a brake or drag,” admitted Jack. “I’ll tell you how we can make one. Get a long sapling, sharpen one end, and put it down through a hole in the back of the sled. When you want to stop, just jab it into the ground, and it will scrape along.”
“Better have two, while you’re at it,” said Sam. “Then we can steer with them by jabbing first one, then the other down. They will slew us around whichever way we want to go.”
“Fine!” cried Jack, always willing to give any of his chums the credit for a good invention. “We’ll do it.”
With a small hatchet, which they had brought with them, two stout saplings were cut, trimmed of their branches and sharpened to points. Then they were thrust down holes in the rear of the sled, near where the wooden runners came to an end.
“Now I guess we’re all ready,” remarked Jack as he surveyed the work. “Get aboard, fellows, for the Snow Sled Limited. No stops this side of Chicago.”