That is what he did. Ned swooped and grabbed Joe. Nat seized upon the shrieking and surprised Roger. The sled darted out from beneath the two boys and shot over the verge of the bank, landing below in the gully with a crash among the icy branches of a tree.
“Wha—what did you do that for?” Roger demanded of Nat, as the latter set him firmly on his feet.
“Just for instance, kid,” growled Nat. “We ought to have let you both go.”
“And I guess we would if it hadn’t been for Dorothy,” added Ned, rising from where he had fallen with Joe on top of him.
“Cracky!” gasped Joe. “We’d have gone straight over that bank that time, wouldn’t we? Gee, Roger! we’d have broken our necks!”
Even Roger was impressed by this stated fact. “Oh, Dorothy!” he cried, “isn’t it lucky you happened along, so’s to tell Ned and Nat what to do? I wouldn’t care to have a broken neck.”
“You are very right, kid,” growled Nat. “It’s Dorothy ‘as does it’—always. She is the observant little lady who puts us wise to every danger. ‘Who ran to catch me when I fell?’ My cousin!”
“Hold your horses, son,” advised his brother, with seriousness. “It was Dorothy who smelled out the danger all right.”
“I do delight in the metaphors you boys use,” broke in Dorothy. “I might be a beagle-hound, according to Ned. ‘Smelled out,’ indeed!”
“Aren’t you horrid?” sighed Jennie, for they were all toiling up the hill again.