“Hoorup, Hooreeup, Hooree—e?” screams Joe. Crack, crack, crack goes the whip.
Higher and wilder rises Paddy’s song and chorus. Never before were the echoes of the mountains awakened by such boisterous mirth. Even bears asleep in their dens and caves hear and arouse themselves to listen.
“Hoorup, Hooreeup, Hooree—ee—e?”
The sledge goes over a rough bank, and Tom Tatters tumbles out. Boy Bounce waves his cap and laughs at him, but on goes the sledge, over the hills and round the hills and across some frozen streams, and at last straight up the side of the tobogganing hill, and two more men fall out here, and all the rest are thrown on their backs with their heels in the air—what sailors call catching crabs.
“We—e, wee—e, woh—ip!”
The sledge comes to a standstill on the flat top of the mountain, and the dogs stand still also, their tongues lolling out, and panting.
The other sledge is coming up fast and furious, and soon is on the ground.
Then the fun begins.
Four men seat themselves on a tobogganing sledge, and others start them,—with a will too. Down they shoot, the others watching.
The sensation is like that of descending from a balloon with a sense of pleasure substituted for that of danger. The moon and stars are hardly seen by those bold tobogganers. Faster and faster, they can hardly believe they have fairly started till they are at the bottom, and—buried in the wreath of snow.