“When you think you’re good,” Sam continued, “come over on the slide some night and I’ll give you a few lessons on ski jumping.”
The fellows winked at one another. If they could ever get Reed Markham on the slide it would be the greatest sport ever. There was no doubt about it—he would be a riot. They could just see him now, his first time down the snow chute, speeding up the incline and floundering off into space! What a howl!
“Yes,” urged Tom Carrow, one of Sam’s friends and closest rival in the ski jump. “Or, better yet—perhaps you can show us something?”
“I doubt that,” said Reed, bitingly, “you fellows know all that’s to be known!”
And when he walked off, it was Sam who, looking after him, remarked: “There goes the queerest duck I’ve ever met. He’s got spunk, though. Now what the deuce do you suppose he’s taking up skiing for? With that superior attitude of his, I should think he’d consider skiing beneath him just because we go in for it!”
Efforts to discover Reed’s possible intentions from Coach Turner proved unavailing.
“Reed is preparing for a climactic change which he expects is going to effect Georgia in the next half century,” the recreational director explained, in all apparent seriousness. “When Georgia’s first big snow comes, Reed hopes to lead his oppressed people from the wilderness...!”
“Applesauce!” branded the inquisitive group about the Coach.
“What if it is?” grinned the director. “I like applesauce.”