around the great log fire that night pat told doctor merriam about his trip and his impressions of city life, winding up with the emphatically expressed conviction that while it might be a good place to do business it was no place in which to live, and that he would rather have a cabin in the shadow of old baldy than a palace on riverside drive.
"so you don't envy hal?" laughed the doctor.
"i do not!" roared pat. "i wouldn't give the poorest muskrat pelt i ever took to change places with him."
"oh, you young savage!" cried the doctor. "still, i share in a measure your feeling. i have lived in many cities, but you see here i am buried in the woods, and some of my friends wonder why. i'll tell you. it is because here i can live simply, unaffectedly, true to myself and to god. here," he swept a hand toward the book-lined walls, "are my friends ready to give me of inspiration, comfort, advice, knowledge, whatever i demand or may need. they are not dead things, these books. they are living personalities, which have enriched and are enriching the world. when you boys listen to me you are not listening just to an audible voice. you are listening to an expression of that invisible something that we call the spirit—the true personality. and so it is that the writer of a great or good book never dies. his spiritual expression is there on the printed page just as much as if he were giving expression to it in audible speech. so with all these great and wonderful men and women constantly about me how can i ever be lonely? and then when i step out-of-doors it is directly into the temple of god. his nearness and presence are manifest in every phase of nature. the trees are alive, some of them sleeping, but alive nevertheless, and others not even sleeping. sometimes i wonder if the very rocks are not alive. the elements seemingly war with one another, but there is nothing mean or petty or base in the mighty struggle, as there invariably is in the conflict of human passions. the indian sees the great spirit in the lightning, and hears him in the rushing wind and the thunder, and is not afraid, but bows in reverence. he has a sense of nearness to the creator and loses it when he is confined in the man-made world of brick and stone and steel and is eager to get back. it is elemental in him. in nature he sees god made manifest. we call him a savage, but i sometimes wonder if he is not more nearly a true child of the father of all than many so-called civilized men who win the plaudits of the world and seem to forget whence they came and whither they will go.
"but i didn't mean to preach a sermon, but just to give you an idea of why pat and i prefer to be savages, if you please, and spend our lives with nature. now, pat, what are your plans? when do you start in for camp? haven't heard a word since you left from"—he paused at a warning wink from pat, and then finished—"your partner. big jim was down from the lumber camp this week and reported seeing a silver gray. if you could catch a couple of those fellows that problem of going away to school would pretty nearly settle itself."
"what's a silver gray?" asked hal, whose knowledge of fur bearers was rather limited.
"a color phase of the common red fox," replied the doctor, "and if not worth its weight in gold it is worth so much that a single skin is often worth twice over the whole of a season's catch of other furs. why it should be called silver i don't know, for the only silver about it is the tip of the tail. the color is black, and single skins have sold as high as $2,500 and more and $800 to $1,500 is not at all unusual. so valuable are the skins that black fox farming has become an established industry and a pair of black foxes for breeding purposes are worth from $1,000 up. so you see, jim saw considerable money running loose when he saw that fox."
"phew!" exclaimed hal with a low whistle of astonishment. "i didn't suppose there was anything on four legs except blooded live stock worth so much money. wouldn't it be great if pat could catch three or four this winter!"
pat threw back his head and laughed heartily. "make it a dozen while you're about it, son," said he. "don't be so modest. i've lived in these woods some years, but i never yet have seen a live black fox, and i've known of only two being caught. if jim says he saw one he did. there's nothing the matter with jim's eyesight. i guess i'll have to have a look around the neighborhood where he saw it. as for our plans, doctor, we are going to spend to-morrow with you and give these tenderfeet a few lessons on snow-shoes. we'll hit the trail for camp bright and early the next morning."
the next day dawned clear and cold and after a hearty breakfast the snow-shoes were brought forth. first pat explained the tie in common use and showed just how to adjust the rawhide thongs to give free play to the ankles and yet prevent the toes from creeping forward to the crossbars. with the thongs properly adjusted the shoes could be easily kicked off or put on again without untying the knots.
"the chief thing to remember," said he, "is to take a long stride with the toes pointed straight ahead. if you take a short step you will be almost certain to step on the tail of one shoe with the toe of the other and over you go. now i'll show you how, and you fellows can practice a while out here in front where the snow has been cleared away until you get the hang of the thing. then we'll make a little trip out into the woods and visit some of the old places, so you can see how different they are from what they were last summer."
"i have a suggestion to make," said the doctor. "while mother puts up a lunch, you get these youngsters so that they can keep right side up. then we'll all take a short hike and show muldoon how real woodmen can have a hot meal when there is three feet of snow in the woods."
"hurrah!" shouted hal. "that will be bully! come on, walt, and let's see your paces."
for the next fifteen minutes the three boys tramped back and forth in front of the cabin, the shoes clacking merrily amid a running fire of chaff and comment from pat. once sparrer stepped on one of upton's shoes and sent him headlong, to the huge delight of the others. again hal did just what pat had warned them against, took a short step and tripped himself up. but at the end of a quarter of an hour they had pretty well "got the hang of the thing," as pat expressed it, and were eager to try it on deep snow.
"there's nothing to it," declared hal. "i thought there were something to learn, like skating, but this is a cinch. i could keep it up all day," and by way of emphasizing his remarks once more tripped himself up, and sat down abruptly.
"sure, it's no trick at all," chaffed walter. "when you can't keep up sit down, and when you're down stay down. there's nothing to it." for hal, forgetting the width of his present underpinning, had no sooner scrambled to his feet than he had gone down again, because of the overlapping webs.
the doctor and mrs. merriam now joined them, for the latter was an expert on shoes and had no mind to miss the outing. pat and the doctor swung to their backs the packs wherein were the supplies and dishes, and they were off, the doctor in the lead, mrs. merriam next, then sparrer, hal, upton and pat in the rear to keep the tenderfeet from straggling and to pull them out of the snow, he explained.
for a short distance a broken trail was followed. then the doctor abruptly swung off among the trees where the snow lay deep and unbroken. the three novices soon found that progress here was a very different matter from walking on the comparatively hard surface of the packed trail. the shoes sank in perhaps a couple of inches and it was necessary to lift the feet more, to step high, which put more of a strain on the muscles. also there was a tendency to step higher than was at all in good form, and to shorten the stride by so doing, losing the smooth easy forward roll from the hips.
still, all things considered, the three novices were doing themselves proud until in an unguarded moment hal stepped on the stub of a broken branch of a fallen tree buried in the snow. it caught in the tail of the shoe just enough to break his stride. he took a short step to catch his balance, stumbled and took a beautiful header. at pat's roar of laughter the others turned to see two big webs wildly waving above the snow and nothing more of the unfortunate hal. now being plunged head first into deep snow with a pair of snow-shoes on your feet is a good deal like being thrown into the water with a life preserver fast to your feet—you can't get them down. for a few moments the others howled with glee as they watched the frantically kicking legs and listened to the smothered appeals for help from the luckless victim. then pat reached out and loosened the shoes, gripped hal by the ankles and drew him forth, red in the face from his exertions and spitting out snow. he looked so wholly bewildered and withal so chagrined and foolish that he was greeted with a fresh peal of laughter, to which he responded with a sheepish grin as he tried to get the snow out of his neck and from up his sleeves.
"there's nothing to it, nothing at all!" jeered walter.
"i didn't know but you thought you heard that black fox down there and were trying to get him," said pat.
at that instant upton involuntarily stepped back, a thing for which snow-shoes were never designed, and a second later had measured his length in the snow. falling at full length he did not disappear as hal had done, but he was hardly less helpless. every effort to help himself by putting his hands down was futile. he simply buried his arms to the shoulders in the yielding snow without finding anything on which to get a purchase. hal was jubilant.
"when you're down stay down!" he yelped. "laugh at me, will you?"
walter had by this time managed to kick his shoes off and once free of these was soon on his feet and was enjoying the joke as much as any one. both he and hal were up to their hips in the snow, for here among the evergreens it had not packed and flounder as they would they could not get out.
the doctor's eyes twinkled as he picked up hal's shoes and handed them to him. "well, boys," said he, "it's high time we were hitting the trail again. suppose you put your shoes on, and we'll make up for lost time."
hal took the shoes and then looked helplessly across at walter, who had just secured his, and it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps the doctor's remark was not so guileless as it seemed.
"how in thunder are we going to?" he demanded, vainly trying to force a shoe down to meet an upraised foot half-way, in the doing of which he once more lost his balance.
"i thought i showed you fellows just how to put your shoes on this morning. a good scout ought not to have to be shown twice how to do a simple thing like that," said pat, without cracking a smile. "what kind of scouts are you, anyway, crying for help the first time you tumble in a little bit of snow?"
"who's crying for help?" demanded upton, vainly striving to get a shoe down where he could get his foot into the fastening. "i wouldn't take any help now if i thought i'd got to stay here all day. take that and that!"
he began to dig furiously with the shoe, throwing the snow with malice aforethought full in pat's face. hal instantly took the cue and there was a hasty retreat on the part of their tormentors, in the midst of which sparrer came to grief and had his turn at the snow-shoer's baptism. in a few minutes walter had dug away enough snow to get his shoes under him and walked forth in triumph, followed by hal. sparrer, anxious to prove himself a good sport, refused all aid. being small and light he had not sunk in as the others had and managed to get one shoe under him. with this for a support he soon had the other fastened. it was the work of a moment to adjust the first one and he was ready to take his place in line.
there were no more mishaps and as they tramped on through the great still woodland the wonder and the beauty of it silenced them, for it seemed like a vast cathedral in which the human voice would be a profanation of the solemn hush. upton knew every foot within a radius of two miles of woodcraft camp, and for five miles in the direction in which they were heading, and yet not even to sparrer did the surroundings seem more strange, such is the alchemy of the snow king to make the familiar unfamiliar, the commonplace beautiful. so it was that when at the end of three miles they emerged on the shore of a frozen sheet of water walter at first failed utterly to recognize it, and it was not until pat made some reference to the huge pickerel walter had caught during his first summer at woodcraft that it dawned on him that this was the very setback where he had discovered pat's secret fishing grounds and on the shore of which he had given pat his first lesson in boxing and in the meaning of the word honor.
"i've come over here because mother insists that a dinner in the woods is no more complete without a fish course than it would be in a new york hotel, and because to tell the truth i have a hankering for a taste of fresh fish myself. pat, i hope that spring is still open where you put the minnows last fall. suppose you take this net and pail and see what you can find." he opened a small folding net as he was speaking. "i take it for granted that you youngsters have your belt axes with you, as good scouts in the woods should. one of you can run over to that alder thicket and cut a dozen straight sticks about three feet long and as thick as my forefinger. the other two can chop holes in the ice. they don't need to be very big, you know, not over a foot across. i suggest that you scatter them pretty well. it adds to the fun to have them some distance apart, and it multiplies the chances of a good catch. while you are doing that i will start a fire and get things started for lunch."
sparrer, having no axe, but a stout scout knife, volunteered to cut the alder saplings while hal and walter attended to the holes in the ice. hal was radiant. this was one of the things he had counted on, and he had brought from new york a dozen type, as the modern tip-ups for fishing through the ice are called. but when they had started out that morning he had not dreamed that he would have a chance to use them on a snow-shoe trip, and so they were neatly rolled in his duffle bag at the camp.
"wonder what kind of a rig the big chief has got, and how he's going to use those sticks," said he to upton as he came up to where walter was making the ice fly in glittering chips.
"don't know, but whatever it is you can bet your last dollar it is all right," replied walter. "how many holes have you cut?"
"five; i'm going to chop one more over there toward the north shore. how many have you?" replied hal.
"six. that ought to be a good place over there, and that will make the dozen. here come sparrer and the big chief, and i guess we'll soon see what the idea is. pat must have found the spring open, for sparrer has the pail."
the guess was a good one, for when he peeped in the pail walter found that it contained a couple of dozen minnows. together the three walked over to where hal was just finishing the last hole. the doctor took from under his arm a bundle of short pieces of lath, each about eighteen inches long, tapering toward one end, to which was fastened a bit of red flannel. two inches from the other end was a hole big enough for one of the alder sticks to pass through freely. fastened close to the end, and neatly wound around it, was a short length of stout line on the end of which was a hook with wire snell. unwinding one of these lines the doctor passed one of the alder sticks through the hole in the lath, baited the hook with a lively minnow and dropped it through the hole in the ice. the alder stick was placed across this so that the lath came in the middle and lay on the ice at right angles. a pull on the line would drag the end of the lath down, making it stand upright with its little red signal on the end, and that was all there was to it.
it was simple in the extreme, but quite as effective as hal's more elaborate type could have been, as was presently demonstrated. they were just preparing to set the last tip-up when hal, glancing over to the first one set, saw the red signal and with a wild yell of "we've got one! we've got one!" started for it at top speed. the others paused to see what the result would be, and saw him yank out a flapping prize.
"it's a beaut!" he panted as he rejoined them, holding out a handsome pickerel. "bet it weighs five pounds if it weighs an ounce. say, this is great!"
the fish was already stiff, but much to their surprise the doctor told them it was not dead, frozen fish often retaining life for some time after being taken from the water. he now left the tip-ups to the care of the three boys, warning them to make frequent rounds of the holes to break the ice as it formed and keep the lines free. the fish he took with him to where mother merriam was busy beside the fire, for which pat was chopping wood.
pickerel were numerous and hungry, to judge by the way they bit. it was novel and exciting sport to the three city boys. there would be a yell of "there's one!" and then a wild race to see who could reach it first. at first they almost invariably forgot in their excitement to take along the bait pail, which meant a second trip for one of them to rebait the hook. sometimes the signal would drop before they reached it and they knew that the fish was off. several times there were two signals waving at once and one time there were five. by the time the doctor's welcome hail of "din-ner!" came ringing across the ice the bait pail was empty and they had fourteen fish, none under three pounds, and from that up to six. with the first one caught they had a total of fifteen. the doctor smiled as he scanned the eager faces of the young fishermen and then looked at the long row of fish laid out on the snow.
"enough is plenty," said he, "and i guess this will do for to-day. we want to leave some for the boys next summer. we'll take the lines up after dinner."
how good that dinner did smell to the hungry boys with appetites whetted by exercise in the keen air! the snow had been shoveled away nearly to the ground for the bed logs for the fire and ample space cleared in front and spread with balsam boughs on which to sit. there was a steaming kettle of pea soup and a pot of hot chocolate. the pickerel had been split and, broiled in halves pinned to pieces of hemlock bark, stood before the fire and basted with bacon drippings. there was a venison steak done to a turn, for the doctor had hung a deer in his ice house at the end of the open season. there were potatoes boiled in their jackets. there was a brown johnny-cake baked in a reflector oven, and to cap all a plate of the doughnuts for which mother merriam was famous.
"and you call this a lunch!" cried walter when he had eaten until he had to let out his belt. "no wonder it required two packs to bring it here. well, is there anything to beat this in new york?"
"not in a tousand years. oi'm going to run away and live here," declared sparrer, and while the others laughed he stared with dreamy eyes into the leaping flames of the huge fire pat had built, and who shall say but that in them he saw the symbols of new hopes and ambitions springing from the colorless, sordid drudgery which until this time had been his life.
after the meal was finished and the dishes washed there was an hour of story-telling by the doctor, ending with the singing of america under the towering snow-laden spruces and then the homeward trip. thanks to their experiences on the outward trip and the watchfulness resulting therefrom there were no further mishaps, and when they reached camp and kicked off the big webs once more the boys were ready to vote their first day in winter woods all that they had dreamed it would be and more. also they were quite willing to second and carry by unanimous vote the motion that they seek their beds early in preparation for an early start the next day.
