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As soon as he was out of sight, he arose, recovered the thongs of his larrigans from the futile snare, and made his way back on the trail as fast as he could flounder. That one glance over the edge of his trench had told his trained eye all he needed to know about the situation.
First, however, he unlaced his larrigans, and with the thongs made shift to set a clumsy snare in a rabbit track a few paces back among the spruces. Then, close under the lee of a black wall of fir-trees standing out beyond the forest skirts, he clawed himself a deep trench in the snow.
President, G. Howard Whittaker; vice-president and general manager, George P. Jerrard; secretary and treasurer, A. L. Bevan. Capital stock $100,000; $5,000 paid in." After the postmaster had read that twice, he strode out of his little pen. Men in larrigans and leggings were huddled round the stove, for the autumn crispness comes early in the mountains.
With flexible "larrigans" of oiled cowhide on his feet, the hunter moved noiselessly and swiftly as a panther, his keen pale-blue eyes peering from side to side through the shadowy undergrowth.
And in her happy anticipation she bounced up and down in the bunk, a figure of fairy joy in her blue flannel nightgown. Dave turned away with a heavy heart and jammed more wood into the stove. Then, pulling on his thick cowhide "larrigans," coat and woollen mittens, he went out to fodder the cattle.
Around the doorway crowded the rough-shirted woodsmen, loafing and smoking after their prodigious dinner of boiled pork, boiled beans, and steaming-hot molasses cake. The big box-stove behind them, which heated the camp, was wearing itself to a dull red glow; and the air that rushed out with the light from the open door was heavy with the smell of wet woollens, wet larrigans, and wet leather.
Grabbing up a double handful of snow, he buried his face in it to ease the smart. Then he shook himself, coolly carried the treasures he had saved back to a safe distance from the flames, and sat down on the blankets to put on his larrigans. His feet, clothed only in a single pair of thick socks, were almost frozen, while the rest of his body was roasting in the fierce heat of the conflagration.
His feet once more on firm ground, the wolf halted warily. The air that came down the bank carried a strange and warning scent. Noiselessly he crept up the steep, went through a few yards of shrubbery like a ghost, and peered forth upon a rough back-settlement road. Down the road toward the cabin came a man, in gray homespun and cowhide larrigans, with an axe over his shoulder.
This done, he grinned at himself in the mirror, as he reflected that Hanson had never seen him except in conventional clothing, and that he would never recognize him in mackinaw and larrigans, with his mustache gone. Once more he stood up, kicked snow over his fire, swung the pack to his back, and started to skirt the swamp. Then suddenly he halted in his tracks.
As he leaped out in desperate flight, he had snatched with him not only the blankets, but his rifle and cartridge-belt from where they stood by the head of the bunk, and also his larrigans and great blanket coat from where they lay by its foot. He had been sleeping, according to custom, almost fully clothed.
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