A RIPPER.

BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD.

"It's nothing on earth but a pair of bobs. We've rigged that kind of thing lots of times over on our hill. All you need is a couple of sleds and a plank."

"Yes, Rod, and when you've done it, they won't steer worth a cent."

"Yes, they do. Dig your heels in."

"Stop your sled just so much every time you dig. A rudder's just as bad. We've tried 'em."

"So've we, Court Hoffman. I guess there wasn't ever anything much started on your hill till after we'd showed you how, over on ours."

"You never showed anybody how to make a ripper like this."

"Ripper? We'll see about that."

There they stood looking at Courtland Hoffman's new coasting machine. He was the undoubted leader of the West Hill coasters, as Rodney Sanderson was of the East Hill boys.

The new ripper was a beauty, and had cost some money. It was, as Rod said, a pair of bobs, with a plank on top to hold them together. There was room on it for half a dozen boys, and more if they packed, and it was handsomely finished. The one thing about it that no boy in Cuzco Centre really believed in, except Court Hoffman, was the steering gear.

This was a half-wheel, as wide as the sled, mounted on the front bob, on an axle that went down through the plank; and the idea that when you turned that wheel the front bob would turn too, and the ripper be steered by it, was too much for anything. Some of the oldest men in the village had shaken their heads at that sled, and Squire Sanderson himself had remarked to Deacon Rogers, "They didn't spile the boys with any sech nonsense in our day, Deacon."

Cuzco Centre had two hills, one on each side, and they were tremendous affairs. The older people believed they were put there so as to have a valley between them for the village to stand in, but the boys knew exactly what they were really for, especially in winter, and when the coasting was good.

The main street ran through the middle of the valley and the village; but it failed to make a fair division of things, for the river ran a crooked parallel with it a short distance eastward. It was the glory of the East Side boys that the river ran through their ground—fish, swimming-hole, ponds, skating, old bridge, and all—but it cut off the lower end of their long coast from the hill road. No sled in Cuzco had ever reached the bridge, however, so it was just as well; but the West Side boys told wonderful stories of the distances they had buzzed over on the half-mile level at the bottom of their hill. That was what Court Hoffman meant, too, when he said:

"You wouldn't have room for a ripper on your hill. If you want to see how one works, you'll have to come over and look on. Give you a ride, too, if you think you wouldn't be afraid. They go just like lightning."

Rod Sanderson did not say anything, but he looked up the road toward the East Hill, and the high, white, snow-covered ridge seemed to say:

"Look up here. There is as much of me as ever there was. You do your share, and we'll beat 'em."

Court Hoffman made two boys happy by letting them drag his ripper home for him, and Rod Sanderson walked off with an idea in his head.

"There'll be a moon to-night. Never was better coasting. I'll just try it on."

Part of that idea was now lying over in his father's barn-yard, in the shape of an old weather-beaten, worn-out double-seated sleigh, with a goose-neck front. It had been a handsome affair in its day, but it had not had any day to speak of since Rodney could remember. It was drifted under now, and it took a good hour to get it out, even with the help of Put Willoughby.

"Going to make a ripper of it?" said Put, doubtfully. "The runners are all right, but the box is on it yet, and the seats."

"We'll put in buffalo robes and blankets, and fix it fine."

"How on earth'll you steer? There isn't any boy in Cuzco with legs enough to heel it for a sleigh of that size."

"I'll show you. I'm going to rig a boom out astern for a rudder. Steer like a ship."

"You don't say!"

Put had a good deal to say, however, when he saw Rod cut a hole in the back of that sleigh box, and shove through it a long pole with a spike on the end.

"Steer? Of course it will. I could steer it myself. Only how on earth'll we ever get it up to the top of the East Hill?"

There might have been some difficulty about that, if all the boys on that side of the main street had not taken the matter in hand. They were a public-spirited lot, and they were all jealous of Court Hoffman's town-made, new-fangled, fancy-painted gimcrack. They knew it wouldn't work, and they said so, and they pulled and pushed at Rod's wonderful idea that evening until they got it up the hill. Then they all got in, or tried to, and the old ark looked more like a pyramid of boys than anything else.

It was a splendid moon-lit evening, and the West Hill boys were out, every soul of them, and the best friends Court Hoffman had were half afraid he wouldn't invite them to ride on his ripper the first time. Then they were more than half afraid he would, for they all knew Deacon Rogers had said there was no telling where that thing would go to if it once got well a-going.

The valley, and the village, and the river, and the East Hill would be in the way, to be sure, and that was something; but the hill road was as slippery as ice, and the new ripper looked more and more like a shark when Court Hoffman lifted it to show them how bright and smooth the runner irons were.

He showed them also how the wheel worked, and declared that he could steer that ripper all around a house. That was what made Jim Delany ask,

"Could ye stheer it round a wood-sleigh, wid three yoke of oxen, av ye met 'em in the sthrate yonder?"

"I'll show you. Now, boys, who's going with me? Hurrah! The more the merrier."

"I'm wid ye," shouted Jim Delany. "It'll be bad luck for any horned baste we run into."

One after another the larger boys followed Jim, and Court never stopped to count.

"Keep your feet on the foot-rests," he shouted. "Hold on hard. Hold steady as rocks. We'll be off in a minute. Ready, all? Go, then."

And go it was, with nearly a mile of sloping road before them, and beyond that the long glittering reach of the level.

There was time for a cheer or two, and they gave one, and nearly half of another; but that second cheer seemed to be cut in two by something.

Court Hoffman grasped his wheel tiller with all the strength he had in him, and looked straight ahead. He had ridden on that sort of machine before, and he knew what was coming the moment she got her speed on.

But the other boys?

Dan Varick's grip on Jim Delany would have brought a yell from him if he had dared to open his mouth. Jim was thinking, too, but he and all the rest were thinking the same thought.

"Fences? They're nothing but two black streaks at the side of the road. Oh dear! we'll go clean through the village. What if we should run into something!"

They held on like good fellows, and made that ripper-load of boys as nearly as possible one solid mass, so that it was easier for Court Hoffman to steer. Even he, though, was beginning to have his doubts as to where they would bring up, and whether he could steer safely around the curve where the road from the West Hill crossed the main street, and met the road from the East that led over the bridge.

The speed was awful! No express train ever went faster, and a race-horse would have been passed as if he were standing still.

Danger in it? Of course there was, and the lives of all of them depended upon the nerve and pluck of Court Hoffman, and the skill he might show in getting around the curve. Yes, and on whether or not there should be a clear road, or a stray team or cow or human being to run against.

It was a terrible risk to run, and all the boys left on the hill were glad they had let somebody else try the first ride on the ripper.

Before the beginning of that swift, perilous dash, however, Rod Sanderson and the East Side boys had completed their preparations. Some of them had to get off and push to get the old sleigh started, and only one of these managed to get on again. Three more jumped off before the "whopper," as Rodney called her, had gone ten rods, and it may have been because they had doubts as to where she would fetch up.

"She just steers lovely," remarked Put Willoughby, as he noticed how Rod Sanderson was straining at the long handle of his rudder.

"She's beginning to go faster!"

"She's a-gaining!"

"Don't she go it!"

"Hurrah—ah—aw—aw!"

They all joined in that, but at just that moment the old sleigh shoved her goose-necks over the little roll at the edge of the first really steep slope of the East Hill road, and she seemed to give a great jump.

"Rod, where's your rudder?"

"Gone! I—"

There was no more to be said. It had been jerked from him, through the hole he had cut for it, the moment the bent spike caught in an icy place, and the old sleigh had things in her own hands from that moment.

She seemed to know it, and to be tickled half to death over the notion of doing her own running, without a span of horses in front of her. She was not a ripper, indeed, but she was a whopper, and she had weight enough on board to give her all the impetus she needed down that hill.

How she did plunge and slip! and how the loose snow and bits of ice did fly! Still, she had been over that road many a time, and seemed to know it like a book now; that is, the ruts were deep, and her runners kept in them as surely as the wheels of a street car keep in the grooves of the track. Faster and faster, with nobody to steer, and no earthly chance of stopping her! There never was such coasting, nor so many boys doing it on one big sled.

Rod Sanderson looked out ahead over his crouching load, and the wind cut by his face as if there had been a hurricane. A team on the bridge! What if it should come on into the road? What if the old sleigh should take a notion to go on over the bridge and into the village, or anywhere?

"Oh dear! she's going faster!"

The short stretch of level road at the bottom of the East Hill was reached like a flash, and it was now going by like another flash—a little slower, to be sure, but with no sign of stopping.

The driver of the team on the bridge had halted his oxen, and the boys in the sleigh seemed all at once to feel the same impulse to dodge. They leaned toward the right, and it may be some of them meant to jump; but the pressure helped a clog of wood the runners touched at that moment to turn the "whopper" out of the ruts of the road, and into the well-worn slide that led down the river-bank. It was her last plunge, and she was nearly out of breath when she took it, but it was well for those boys the ice was so thick. It bore them splendidly, sleigh and all, and away they went, until their ride used itself up, just half way over. Just as they were all drawing their breath for a grand hurrah, something black and long shot down from the western bank of the river, and out upon the very ice that belonged to them.

"Coming right for us!"

"Boys! boys! that's Court Hoffman's ripper!"

Court had done it. He had steered successfully around the curve, partly because some of his speed had gone when he reached it, and his remaining impetus had carried him on until he slipped into the gentle declivity toward the bridge and the river.

"I say," said Rod Sanderson, as the passengers of the ripper sprang to their feet, "how far did you have to haul that thing after you got down hill?"

"Ran all the way itself."

"Well, so did our whopper. Steered herself, too, and that's more'n yours can do."

"Well, yes, I should say so."

Court was looking and feeling a little thoughtful. The coasting on the West Hill was almost too good for his ripper, and he wanted to consider the matter before he tried it again.

As for the "whopper," there was no such thing as persuading the East Hill boys to haul her up the road for another free ride that evening.