ROUND THE CAMP-FIRE.
By Harold Ericson.
VI.—HOW WE LEARNT SKI-RUNNING.
'I don't know whether any of you fellows have tried snowshoeing,' began Bobby on the following evening, when it was his turn to spin a yarn, 'ski-running, as they call it in Norway?'
'Yes,' said Ralph, 'I have. Why?'
'Well, I was thinking of telling you how I and another fellow, Billy Onslow, took it up one winter when I was in Russia. We—at least, I—had read about the competitions at Holmen Kollen, near Christiania, when the Norsemen have their annual fling for the great "ski-hop." Reading of this had caused me to have a great ambition to be able to shoot hills and precipices upon snowshoes as the Norse fellows do, and I persuaded Billy to be ambitious also, and to practise the things with me near St. Petersburg, where they use the same kind of snowshoes or ski' (pronounced shee).
My cousin Tom, being an expert snowshoe-runner, accompanied us to the country place where we should find slopes of every grade of difficulty, in order to show and explain how the thing was done.
'You may fall about a bit,' he said, 'at first, but you will soon learn to glide down a moderately steep hill-side safely enough. You won't be qualified to compete at Christiania this year though, Bobby, for it's an art that requires much practice before perfection is attained. One cannot do anything well that is worth doing,' added Tom, 'without a lot of trouble; that is a lesson one is constantly learning through life!'