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Updated: June 25, 2025
The time came when he began to count the swing of his snowshoes, measuring off half a mile, or a mile, and then beginning over again until at last the achievement of five hundred steps seemed to take an immeasurable length of time and great effort. Like the ache of a tooth came the first warning of snowshoe cramp in his legs. In the black night he grinned.
The man on snowshoes staggered, reeled, fell over. His comrade turned and shot as the sledge swept on more than that he could not do. Whether the poor fellow was dead or living we never knew; but nothing mattered the next instant, for the foremost savages reached the spot, and there was the quick gleam of a descending tomahawk. Fifty yards now to the stockade!
It was also agreed that our lads should be provided with fur clothing, snowshoes, a dog sledge, and a guide as far as Indian Harbour. In addition to taking the cargo of the "Sea Bee," the missionary proposed to purchase the schooner itself, at a sum much less than her real value, but one that constituted a very fair offer under the circumstances.
But I will be more careful next time," she said; and, stepping carefully backwards after that first vain attempt, she slipped her feet clear of the snowshoes and went closer to the tree, so that she might try to lift him out of the fork by sheer strength of arm.
Her dream was interrupted, presently, by the call of her brother Tom. Having cut the frost on a window-pane, he stood peering out. A man was approaching in the near field. His figure showed to the boot-top, mounting hills of snow, and sank out of sight in the deep hollows. It looked as if he were walking on a rough sea. In a moment he came striding over the dooryard fence on a pair of snowshoes.
"It was very cold then," said Ned Trent "and very hard. At night we had no other shelter than our blankets, and we could not keep a fire because the spruce burned too fast and threw too many coals. For a long time we shivered, curled up on our snowshoes; then fell heavily asleep, so that even the dogs fighting over us did not awaken us. Two or three times in the night we boiled tea.
Presently, above the scrape of my snowshoes, I heard the deer coming, cr-r-runch! cr-r-runch! the heavy plunges growing shorter and fainter, while behind the sounds an eager, whining trail-cry grew into a fierce howl of canine exultation.
A few of the white women, wives of the leaders and the men in command, formed a little community. There was card-playing and the relating of adventures through the long winter evenings, that sometimes began soon after three. Dances, too, Indian entertainments, and for daylight, flying about on snowshoes, and skating. There was a short summer.
As he ran yelping away I fired my rifle over his head, and sent the good club with a vengeance to knock his heels from under him. A fresh outburst of howls inspired me with hope. Perhaps he would remember now to let deer alone for the winter. Above the noise of canine lamentation I caught the faint click of snowshoes, and hid again to catch the cur's owner at his contemptible work.
"Those are Farmer Green's tracks," she said, as soon as she could stop laughing long enough to speak. "What as big as that?" Fatty pointed at the huge prints in the snow. "Snowshoes!" Mrs. Coon said. "He was wearing snowshoes great frames made of thongs and sticks, to keep him from sinking into the snow." So that was all there was to Fatty's monster. Somehow, he was disappointed.
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