“I think perhaps if you boys will help me, I shall be able to walk down.”
“But that will only make your ankle worse, Miss Darrow,” declared Harry. “I have it. We’ll take a big pile of the brush and you and Miss Masterson can sit on it and we will pull you down the river.”
“The very thing!” cried the other boys, and without more ado, they returned to the heap of dried branches, picked out several big ones, which they placed on the ice, heaping smaller ones across them, until they had made a rustic nest into which the girls climbed, while the boys, with pieces of rope which they had found and with their skate straps, bound the heavy limbs together and made a leash by which they could pull the improvised sled.
But not without difficulty did the strange method of transportation advance. First some of the heavy limbs spread, letting the twigs and girls down onto the ice and frequently were they spilled from their nest, but all enjoyed it and with much laughter and merry chatter they approached the spot where the others were stacking the brush which was to be set on fire in the evening.
“My eye! Look what’s coming!” shouted Misery Jones, as he espied Viola and the others.
At his cry the rest of the boys and girls followed the direction of his gaze, and when they beheld the moving brush-heap with its two passengers, they shouted and laughed as they skated up to meet them.
“Ach! die liebliche Schnee-fogeln!” exclaimed Prof. Schmidt, laughing as he caught sight of the two pretty girls on the brush-pile. “Too bad it iss dat wir de coronation not now can have?”
As he heard the words, Longback took a hasty glance over the crowd assembled near the brush-pile, and not seeing Annabel, exclaimed:
“That’s a good idea, Professor. It’s getting so dark that we can have the bonfire now just as well as later.”
“Oh, no you don’t!” cried Misery. “You can’t get out of the formal ceremony by one got up on the spur of the moment. The real queen who won the race, you know, might object and cause you domestic unhappiness. Even kings are allowed only one queen.”