the sleds, being unused to the motion, clung together like so many
awkward white bears taking a ride in the circus. Their friends stood
about the ill-omened sacrificial altar, waving their long arms, while
their huge eyes goggled in the starlight.

Jack, in a burst of enthusiasm, fired four or five parting shots from his
pistol. As the reports crashed through the heavy air, you should have
seen the crowd vanish down the hole! The sight made me wince, for they
must have gone down like a cataract, all heaped together. But they were
tough, and I trust no heads were broken. The effect on the eight fellows
on the sleds came near being disastrous. I expected to see them leap off
and run, which no doubt they would have done if Edmund had not taken, for
other reasons, the precaution to tie them fast. But they strained at
their bonds, and squealed in terror.

"Give me your pistol!" commanded Edmund, in a voice of thunder, and with
blazing eyes.

Jack was almost twice his size, but he handed over the pistol with the
air of a rebuked schoolboy.

"When you learn how to use it, I'll give it back to you," said Edmund
sternly, and that closed the incident.

Then we began gradually to put on speed, and as the ground was icy smooth
and entirely unobstructed, we were soon traveling at the rate of sixty
miles an hour. The plan of the sleds worked like magic, and after their
first terror had passed away it was plain to be seen that the natives
enjoyed the new sensation immensely. And, indeed, it was a glorious spin!