“We got to whip up the horses like mad!” cried Sammy, beating a fallen log with the stick he had used to search the fallen leaves for chestnuts. “See ’em come! They’ll get us——”
“Oh, Sammy,” cried Dot all in a quiver, “don’t let ’em quite get us.”
“Only one way to save our lives!” gasped the almost breathless Sammy, glaring all about him.
“How? How?” cried Dot, in pretended alarm.
Tess Kenway remained rather unmoved by all this. She was getting older, and the stimulant of Sammy’s eager imagination had small effect upon her mind. Besides, she took the attitude of her eldest sister, Ruth, that most boys were a trial.
“You’re mussing that fresh dress of your Alice-doll, grabbing her that way,” Tess said reprovingly to Dot.
But Dot was still enthralled. She saw the flying sledge and the leaping wolves, and she hugged Alice tighter than ever.
“O-oo!” she moaned.
“Only one way to save our lives!” repeated Sammy, beating off imaginary wolves over the back of the imaginary sledge. “Give me that baby!”
“Wha-a-at?” shrieked Dot, in real alarm now, her voice mounting to a higher pitch. “My Alice-doll?”