"Dear me!" exclaimed Aunt Sallie, with a frightened look over her shoulder.
"Don't be afraid!" laughed Uncle Toby. "Nothing will happen. But I don't want the children's fun spoiled. So let them think Skyrocket just wandered away and will come back again."
But Skyrocket did not come back that day nor the next nor the next. Back home in Cresco he had often stayed away a week at a time, Jan said, so after she and her brother had gotten used to the idea that the dog was off on one of his wandering trips, they no longer worried.
Uncle Toby got some of the lumbermen and went to the cabin, but though they found the footprints of men and dogs in the snow, no one was now in the old shack, and there was no way of telling whether the dog's footprints were those of Skyrocket.
"Well, I guess that tramp cleared out," said Uncle Toby to Aunt Sallie. "And he may have taken Skyrocket with him. But don't say anything to the Curlytops. Christmas is coming, and we want them to have a good time. And Skyrocket may come back."
But the dog did not. Two weeks went by and he had not returned. By this time Ted and Janet had rather gotten accustomed to missing him, and though they felt very sorry, they were having so much fun that they thought of little else. For surely there were good times at Uncle Toby's!
The plan of the boys to put up a little carpet house on the big toboggan coaster did not work. They tried it, without telling Uncle Toby anything about it, and this is what happened.
First Tom, Ted, and Harry fastened some beanpoles upright on the toboggan. They tied them tightly with cords so they were fairly solid. In the barn they found some pieces of carpet and a few old feed bags, left from the time that Uncle Toby kept a horse out at Crystal Lake, and by tying these bags together, after ripping them open, they made a large piece of cloth, big enough for a tent. This they fastened on the beanpoles that were tied to the toboggan, also using some carpet strips.
"Now we've got a regular little house on it, and we can sit inside and coast downhill and be nice and warm!" exclaimed Ted.
That was his idea and that of the other boys. Three of them could get inside the toboggan-tent at a time, and the rear lad could stick his foot out through a hole in the bag covering a steer.