DOG TROUBLE 119
seemed to be flying over the snow! Cheeks red from the stinging wintry air, the boys laughed and yelled back and forth.
Neither was aware that the huskies were gradually getting out of hand. The sleds carried no loads, and the dogs sensed the inexperience of their drivers.
Soon they came to a dip in the terrain, where a high, steep hillside sloped down to a frozen creek bed.
“Look out, Bud!” Tom shouted. “Whoa! Whoa, you huskies!”
Tom had suddenly realized that the teams were running away.
Bud, too, tried frantically to stop his team. But the dogs paid no heed. At headlong speed, they went racing down the slope.
A moment later one of Bud’s sled runners hit a boulder. The jarring jolt caused the sled to turn over, throwing Bud against a nearby tree trunk!
Rocketing down the hill at breakneck speed, Tom, too, lost his footing on the sled runners. As his legs spun out from under him, his hands slipped from the bars. Over and over he hurtled down the icy hillside!
At the bottom, he lay dazed for a minute or two before struggling painfully to his feet. Halfway up the hillside, Bud was sprawled, motionless, at the foot of a tree. Just as Tom reached his friend and
120 TOM SWIFT AND HIS ATOMIC BLASTER
began to chafe his wrists, another dog team came into view. The colonel was riding the sled. He halted his dogs on the brow of the hill, and jumping from the runners, hurried toward the boys. When he saw that Bud’s forehead bore a dark bruise, he said:
“I was afraid this might happen when I saw you start racing. That’s why I followed.”