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The helmet and the shield were the only defensive articles of dress; nor do they seem to have had trappings for their horses. Their favourite missile weapon was the dart or javelin, and in earlier ages the sling. The spear or lance, the sword, and the sharp, short-handled battle-axe, were their favourite manual weapons.
His rifle was a well-tried repeating Winchester, and he carried a light, short-handled axe in his belt besides the regulation knife; so he had no serious misgivings as he trod the crackling, moonlit snow beneath the moose-hide webbing of his snowshoes.
On hot summer days the thirsty wayfarer takes a sip, using the ancient Russian kovsh, or short-handled ladle, which lies beside it, crosses himself, and drops a small offering on the dish piled with copper coins near by, making change for himself if he has not the exact sum which he wishes to give. Inside, many ikoni decorate the walls.
If any tyro thinks it is easy to take a short-handled, long-lashed whip, and throw the end of that lash just where he wants it, let him put on automobile goggles and try it. On reconsideration, I would suggest the substitution of a wire fencing-mask for the goggles. For days I looked at that whip. It fascinated me, and the fascination was composed mostly of fear.
Now and then one would stay on the wild animal's back longer than had any of his friends, not falling when the bronco leaped up in the air and came down with his legs as stiff as those of an old fashioned piano. "Ki-yi! Yippi-i-yip!" yelled the cowboys, as they dashed about on the bucking bronco, swinging their hats or their quirts, which are short-handled whips, in the air over their heads.
The officer in whose division I was to work now signaled his messenger, and there came out of the darkness another convict, stripes, cap, lamp and all. "Get Reynolds a set of mining tools," said the officer. These were soon brought, and consisted of a pick, a short-handled shovel, two iron wedges and a sledge hammer.
The six little Bunkers had often seen the fishermen on Clam River dig down after these soft-shelled fellows. The men used a short-handled hoe, and when they had dug away the sand there they found the clams in something that looked like little pockets, or burrows. "Maybe we can dig clams," said Margy. "We hasn't got any shovel or hoe," returned Mun Bun.
In the opposite corner stood two short-handled shovels and a miner's pick, while on the wall just above the fireplace hung the head of a great buck that had one time roamed those very hills. The fireplace, which occupied the center of the east wall, was large and very attractive. An old hand-made crane had been built into the firebox, and from it hung an old iron pot.
The limbers bumped and jolted and the short-handled whips cracked like the sound of pistol-practise. Blind, unreconnoitered, grim like a black thunderbolt loosed into the blackness the two guns shot along a hollow, thundered up a ridge and burst into the fire-light up above the mutineers, in the last place where any one expected them.
Never since that long-lashed, short-handled, heavy whip was made, had it given forth such a rapid series of pistol-like reports, and never since they were pups had those ten lanky wolfish dogs stretched out their long legs and scampered over the Arctic sea as they did on that occasion.
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