THE FAT MAN WITH HIS GROUCH


Nan Sherwood had steered this big bobsled down Pendragon Hill many times.
She had no fear of an accident when they started, although the rush of
wind past them seemed to stop her breath and made her eyes water.

There really was not a dangerous spot on the whole slide. It crossed but
one road and that the path leading down to Professor Krenner's cabin. At
this intersection of the slide and the driveway, Walter Mason had erected
a sign-board on which had been rudely printed:

STOP! LOOK! LISTEN!

Few people traversed this way in any case; and it did seem as though
those who did would obey the injunction of the sign. Not so a heavy-set,
burly looking man who was tramping along the half-beaten path just as Nan
and her chums dashed down the hill on the bobsled. This big man, whose
broad face showed no sign of cheerfulness, but exactly the opposite,
tramped on without a glance at the sign-board. He started across the
slide as the prow of the _Sky-rocket_, with Nan clinging to the wheel,
shot into view.

The girls shrieked in chorus--all but Nan herself. The stubborn, fat man,
at last awakened to his danger, plunged ahead. There was a mighty
collision!

The fat man dived head-first into a soft snow bank on one side of the
slide; the bobsled plunged into another soft bank on the other side, and
all the girls were buried, some of them over their heads, in the snow.