"Hang on!" yelled Isadore, and shot his boot-heel into the icy
surface of the slide.

The toboggan swerved. Jennie uttered a cry. The sled went up the
left hand dyke like a bolting horse climbing a roadside wall or a
side hill.

In Ruth's ears rang the shouts of their friends, who were coming
hastily up the hillside. They could do nothing to help the endangered
crew, nor could the latter help themselves.

Up the toboggan shot into the air. It leaped the shoulder of the
dyke and--crew and all--darted out into space.

That was certainly an awful moment for Ruth Fielding and her two
companions. Jennie's intermittent squeal turned into a sudden shriek--
as keen and nerve-racking as the whistle of a locomotive. Isadore
Phelps "blew up" with a muffled roar as he turned half a somersault
in the air and landed headfirst in a huge snowdrift.

That is how the girls landed, too. At least, if they didn't dive
headfirst into the drift, they were pretty well swallowed up in it.
And it was providential that they all did find such a soft cushion
when they landed.

Their individual shrieks were broken off suddenly by the smothering
snow. Their friends, on the other side of the slide, came plunging
across the course, and Bob Steele, slipping on the smooth surface,
kicked up both feet high in the air, landed with a crash on the small
of his back, and finished the slide to the very bottom of the chute