Thus encouraged Billy proceeded. As he went on he noticed that the snow mountain had ceased to melt. Indeed, it was beginning slowly to rise in the air again, thanks to the influence of Jack Frost, who was freezing the water far faster than the Equator could melt it.
Up, up it went, its peak narrowing to a needle point. Above it the Equator, unused to the cold, shriveled and shrank. Now he was the size of a hoop, now of a doughnut, presently he was scarcely larger than a ring.
“Slide!” shouted a familiar voice behind Billy. “Slide, Evening Star, slide for your life!”
The Evening Star heard the voice, and she, as well as Billy, recognized it as the voice of Nimbus.
“The snow mountain is the North Pole!” cried Nimbus. “I just asked an Eskimo where it was and he pointed it out. I came just in time, didn’t I?”
The last question was addressed to the Evening Star, who had followed his advice and slid right into his arms.
“I jumped the gully,” said Nimbus, pointing to the abyss. “There wasn’t time to come over the bridge. And now I think we’ve got the Equator where we want him.”
“Where do you want me?” snarled the Equator.
“Over this Pole,” said Nimbus, and as he spoke he slid up the North Pole as a sailor slides down a rope, grasped the Equator and impaled him upon it.
He rolled him down and down until Jack Frost could reach him and help hold him, and the Equator, feeling himself stretched like an elastic over the conical snow peak, saw that he was doomed to be rolled back around the earth and resume his post of duty in the center.