Next day Roy and Nelly rose with the sun, and spent the forenoon in skinning and cutting up the bear, for they intended to dry part of the meat, and use it on their journey. The afternoon was spent in dragging the various parts to the hut. In the evening Roy proposed that they should go and have a shoosk. Nelly agreed, so they sallied forth to a neighbouring slope with their sledge.
Shoosking, good reader, is a game which is played not only by children but by men and women; it is also played in various parts of the world, such as Canada and Russia, and goes by various names; but we shall adopt the name used by our hero and heroine, namely “shoosking.” It is very simple, but uncommonly violent, and consists in hauling a sledge to the top of a snow-hill or slope, getting upon it, and sliding down to the bottom. Of course, the extent of violence depends on the steepness of the slope, the interruptions that occur in it, and the nature of the ground at the bottom. We once shoosked with an Indian down a wood-cutter’s track, on the side of a steep hill, which had a sharp turn in it, with a pile of firewood at the turn, and a hole in the snow at the bottom, in which were a number of old empty casks. Our great difficulties in this place were to take the turn without grazing the firewood, and to stop our sledges before reaching the hole. We each had separate sledges. For some time we got on famously, but at last we ran into the pile of firewood, and tore all the buttons off our coat, and the Indian went down into the hole with a hideous crash among the empty casks; yet, strange to say, neither of us came by any serious damage!
“There’s a splendid slope,” said Roy, as they walked briskly along the shores of Silver Lake, dragging the sledge after them, “just beyond the big cliff, but I’m afraid it’s too much for you.”
“Oh, I can go if you can,” said Nell, promptly.
“You’ve a good opinion of yourself. I guess I could make you sing small if I were to try.”
“Then don’t try,” said Nelly, with a laugh.
“See,” continued Roy, “there’s the slope; you see it is very steep; we’d go down it like a streak of greased lightnin’; but I don’t like to try it.”
“Why not? It seems easy enough to me. I’m sure we have gone down as steep places before at home.”
“Ay, lass, but not with a round-backed drift like that at the bottom. It has got such a curve that I think it would make us fly right up into the air.”
Nelly admitted that it looked dangerous, but suggested that they might make a trial.
“Well, so we will, but I’ll go down by myself first,” said Roy, arranging the sledge at the summit of a slope, which was full fifty feet high.
“Now, then, pick up the bits tenderly, Nell, if I’m knocked to pieces; here goes, hurrah!”
Roy had seated himself on the sledge, with his feet resting on the head of it, and holding on to the side-lines with both hands firmly. He pushed off as he cheered, and the next moment was flying down the hill at railway speed, with a cloud of snow-drift rolling like steam behind him. He reached the foot, and the impetus sent him up and over the snow-drift or wave, and far out upon the surface of the lake. It is true he made one or two violent swerves in this wild descent, owing to inequalities in the hill, but by a touch of his hands in the snow on either side, he guided the sledge, as with a rudder, and reached............