And Sparser, now sitting up, was pointing to her pretty legs and laughing loudly, showing most of his teeth.
And all the others were emitting peals and squeals of laughter.
“Hang it all!” thought Clyde.
“Why the deuce does he always have to be hanging about her?
Why didn’t he bring a girl of his own if he wanted to have a good time?
What right have they got to go where they can’t be seen?
And she thinks I think she means nothing by all this.
She never laughs that heartily with me, you bet.
What does she think I am that she can put that stuff over on me, anyhow?”
He glowered darkly for the moment, but in spite of his thoughts the line or whip was soon re-formed and this time with Lucille Nickolas still holding his hand.
Sparser and Hortense at the tail end again.
But Hegglund, unconscious of the mood of Clyde and thinking only of the sport, called:
“Better let some one else take de end dere, hadn’tcha?”
And feeling the fairness of this, Ratterer and Maida Axelrod and Clyde and Lucille Nickolas now moved down with Higby and Laura Sipe and Hortense and Sparser above them.
Only, as Clyde noted, Hortense still held Sparser by the hand, yet she moved just above him and took his hand, he being to the right, with Sparser next above to her left, holding her other hand firmly, which infuriated Clyde.
Why couldn’t he stick to Laura Sipe, the girl brought out here for him?
And Hortense was encouraging him.
He was very sad, and he felt so angry and bitter that he could scarcely play the game.
He wanted to stop and quarrel with Sparser.
But so brisk and eager was Hegglund that they were off before he could even think of doing so.
And then, try as he would, to keep his balance in the face of this, he and Lucille and Ratterer and Maida Axelrod were thrown down and spun around on the ice like curling irons.
And Hortense, letting go of him at the right moment, seemed to prefer deliberately to hang on to Sparser.
Entangled with these others, Clyde and they spun across forty feet of smooth, green ice and piled against a snow bank.
At the finish, as he found, Lucille Nickolas was lying across his knees face down in such a spanking position that he was compelled to laugh.
And Maida Axelrod was on her back, next to Ratterer, her legs straight up in the air; on purpose he thought.
She was too coarse and bold for him.
And there followed, of course, squeals and guffaws of delight — so loud that they could be heard for half a mile.
Hegglund, intensely susceptible to humor at all times, doubled to the knees, slapped his thighs and bawled.
And Sparser opened his big mouth and chortled and grimaced until he was scarlet.
So infectious was the result that for the time being Clyde forgot his jealousy.
He too looked and laughed.
But Clyde’s mood had not changed really.
He still felt that she wasn’t playing fair.
At the end of all this playing Lucille Nickolas and Tina Kogel being tired, dropped out.
And Hortense, also.
Clyde at once left the group to join her.
Ratterer then followed Lucille.
Then the others separating, Hegglund pushed Maida Axelrod before him down stream out of sight around a bend.
Higby, seemingly taking his cue from this, pulled Tina Kogel up stream, and Ratterer and Lucille, seeming to see something of interest, struck into a thicket, laughing and talking as they went.
Even Sparser and Laura, left to themselves, now wandered off, leaving Clyde and Hortense alone.
And then, as these two wandered toward a fallen log which here paralleled the stream, she sat down.
But Clyde, smarting from his fancied wounds, stood silent for the time being, while she, sensing as much, took him by the belt of his coat and began to pull at him.
“Giddap, horsey,” she played.
“Giddap.
My horsey has to skate me now on the ice.”
Clyde looked at her glumly, glowering mentally, and not to be diverted so easily from the ills which he felt to be his.
“Whadd’ye wanta let that fellow Sparser always hang around you for?” he demanded.
“I saw you going up the creek there with him a while ago.
What did he say to you up there?”
“He didn’t say anything.”