"Look where you're going! Don't you dare foul me!" screamed the Severn girl at Agnes.
That flash of rage cost Trix something. Agnes made no reply--not even when Trix flung back another taunt, believing that the race was already won.
But it was not. "I will! _I will!_" thought Agnes, and she stooped lower and shot up the course passing Trix not three yards from the line, and winning by only an arm's length.
"I beat her! I beat her!" cried Trix, blinded with tears, and almost falling to the ice. "Don't you dare say I didn't."
"It doesn't take much courage to say that, Beatrice," said Miss Shipman, right at her elbow. "We all saw the race. It was fairly won by Agnes."
"It wasn't either! She's a cheat!" gasped the enraged girl, without realizing that she was speaking to her teacher instead of to another girl.
This was almost too much for Agnes' self-possession. She was in pain and almost hysterical herself. She darted forward and demanded:
"Where did _I_ cheat, Miss? You can't say _I_ didn't skate around the spruce clump down there."
"That's right, Aggie," said the high school girl who had been on watch with Ruth. "I saw Trix cut that clump, and if she'd gotten in first, she'd have lost on that foul."
"That's a story!" exclaimed Trix; but she turned pale.
"Say no more about it, girls. The race is won by Agnes--and won honestly," Miss Georgiana said.
But Trix Severn considered she had been very ill-used by Agnes. She buried _that_ bone and carefully marked the spot where it lay.
"What do you think Sammy Pinkney said in joggerfry class to-day?" observed Tess, one evening at the supper table.
"'Geography,' dear. Don't try to shorten your words so," begged Ruth.
"I--I forgot," admitted Tess. "'Ge-og-er-fry!' Is that right?"
"Shucks!" exclaimed Agnes. "Let's have the joke. I bet Sammy Pinkney is always up to something."
"He likes Tess, Sammy does," piped up Dot, "for he gave her Billy Bumps."
Tess grew fiery red. "I don't want boys liking me!" she declared. "Only Neale."
"And especially not Sam Pinkney, eh?" said Agnes. "But what happened? You have us all worked up, Tess."
"Why, Miss Andrews was telling us that the 'stan' at the end of any word meant 'the place of'--like Afghanistan, the place the Afghans live----"