Sometime in the middle of the night Larry was awakened by flakes of snow driven into his face, and by the sound of the storm howling around the tent. The flakes sputtered in the fire which still flared and struggled to keep burning. The boy was warm and comfortable in the fur bag, however, and after pulling the flap over his head to keep out the snow, he was soon sleeping soundly. When he opened his eyes again it was daylight, and Martin was plodding about in the storm, building a fire close to the tent where the wind struck it least. The snow was still falling and was even then a foot deep on the level.
The old hunter was in high spirits: he had been hoping for the storm, and the fact that it was a roaring blizzard made no difference to him so long as the snow kept falling.
The inside of the tent was warm and the boy crawled out of the fur bag reluctantly and reached for his shoes.
“Not that pair,” old Martin said; “there are your things over at the foot of your bed. No more city clothes from now on. I nearly worked my fingers off last night getting things ready for you.”
Larry wondered how much time the old hunter had found for sleep when he examined the pile of clothing the hunter had laid out for him. For most of the pieces had been altered in some way to make them so that the boy could wear them, cut down from some of the larger garments from the hunting outfit. Sleeves and trouser-legs had been cut off or turned up, and buttons set over to take up the slack of the bagging jacket in a way that showed how handy the old hunter was with the needle. His most laborious task had been in reducing the size of a pair of moose-skin moccasins, although he had simplified this operation by taking in the back seam. At that they were at least three sizes too large, as Larry pointed out.
“But when you have on two, or three, or four pairs of thick German socks,” Martin assured him, “you won’t notice a little thing like that. And you’ll fill out the rest of the clothes with underwear the same way.”
Beside the pile of clothing Martin had placed some other things which he told the boy were to be his personal belongings that were to be carried with him all the time except when he slept. But the hunter told him not to put them away until after they had had breakfast, and made things a little more secure about the tent. So Larry left the things as he found them, and went to help Martin.
He soon discovered the difference between his new clothes and the “city” ones he had discarded. Even the fury of the blizzard could not force the piercing cold through the thick, soft Mackinaw cloth; and with the exception of the end of his nose, he was as warm as toast as he worked under the hunter’s directions.
One side and the back of their tent was protected from the wind by the wall of rock, and the fire checked the fury of the storm from the front; but the snow drifted in on them from the unprotected side, and they remedied this by stretching a piece of canvas across the gap. It was no easy task, and several times the wind tore it away before they could get it anchored securely, but when it was finally made storm proof the enclosure before the roaring fire was almost as warm and comfortable as a house.
“Now for your equipment,” Martin announced, when everything was secured to his complete satisfaction.
Larry found that a light hunting hatchet and a stout hunting knife had been added to his belt of cartridges, suspended in leather sheaths from loops slipped over the belt. The belt itself was passed through the loops in the jacket, so that the weight came upon his shoulders instead of his waist, and when buckled, drew the coat snugly around him. The gun in its sheath was slung over his shoulder and hung at his left side. His fur mittens were fastened with leather strings to the coat sleeves so that there was no possibility of losing them even when slipped off.
There was a pocket compass in a hunting case about the size of a watch which fitted into an upper pocket of his jacket which had a button flap for holding it. As an additional precaution against losing it a leather string reached from the inside of the pocket and was fastened to the ring. And Larry found that his watch was secured in his watch-pocket in a similar manner.
“We can’t take a chance on losing anything,” the hunter explained; “for there are no jewelry stores along the road that we are going to travel.”
Larry found that there were three water-proof match boxes to be distributed in his trousers’ pockets, and a pocket knife that combined several kinds of useful tools. The matches seemed to be the ordinary parlor kind. But Martin surprised him by taking one, dipping it in a cup of water, and then after wiping it off, lighting it like an ordinary dry match. Even after a match had been floating in the water for several minutes it would light and burn readily.
“They’ve all been dipped in shellac,” Martin explained. “The shellac forms a water-proof coating that keeps out moisture but doesn’t interfere with lighting or burning. So even if your match safe leaks you won’t have to go without a fire.”
In one box which Larry thought contained matches he found six little cubes looking like wax run into little square aluminum cups. Martin explained their use by a simple demonstration. He placed one of them on the ground where he had scraped away the snow, laid a handful of sticks over it, struck a match and touched the wax-like substance. It burst into a bright flame at once, and continued to burn fiercely for several minutes, igniting the sticks about it and helping to keep their struggling flames going until enough heat had been generated to make a steady fire.
“That’s a new fangled thing called ‘solid alcohol,’ used to start a tenderfoot’s fire when he is wet and cold and has no little dry twigs at hand,” said Martin. “An old woodsmen like me ought to throw the stuff away and scorn to use it; and forty years ago I would have done so. But I am wiser now, I hope, and I don’t despise some of the new things as I did then. And I remember two different occasions when I came near losing my life in the snow because my hands were so cold and numb, and the small wood was so scarce, that I came near not getting my fire started at all. So now I am going to take along a few packages of these cubes, and you must do the same. We’ll never use it except as a last resort; but sometime it may come in handy for starting a fire or boiling a cup of tea.
“You know we will only use two matches a day after we leave here—one match to start our fire at noon and at night. There will be coals from the night next morning to cook our breakfast by. It’s a mark of bad woodsmanship to have to use more than one match to start a fire, no matter what kind of weather is going.”
“But how about your pipe?” Larry asked. For the old man smoked almost continually during his waking hours.
Old Martin sighed and shook his head. “No more pipe for me after we leave here,” he said, with a little laugh. “The weight in pemmican that I’ll take instead of the tobacco may be just the amount that will decide the question of our getting through alive. Smoking isn’t a necessity, but eating is.”
Larry looked at the old man to see if he were not joking; but he saw that he was thoroughly in earnest. It made the boy realize the serious nature of the task before them to know that the old man was going to sacrifice the greatest solace of his life. But it roused his determination, and his spirits were too buoyant to be long depressed.
All day long Martin kept him busy helping at various things that must be completed before their departure. The toboggans were hauled into the canvas enclosure, where he and the old man packed and unpacked the loads, adding something here, or leaving out something there, working in the glow of the warm fire. Dog harnesses had to be altered and extra ones tucked away on the sleds, snow-shoe lacings examined and re-lashed, and a dozen things attended to that Larry recognized as important when Martin pointed them out. The fire, too, needed considerable tending to keep a huge kettle of beans cooking which Martin declared must simmer all day if they were to be cooked properly.
Toward night the wind subsided, and the clouds cleared away, so that by the time they had finished their heaping plates of pork and beans the stars were out glistening like steel points in the frosty air. Later in the evening they heard howling in the distance—terrifying sounds to the boy, made by a pack of big timber wolves out on a hunt, as Martin explained. And for fear the dogs might start an independent wolf hunt on their own account, Martin tied up the big malamoots after he had fed them.
During the day Martin had brought several armfuls of packages into the tent from the stores under the tarpaulin as he went back and forth at his work. Now that supper was over and the dishes cleaned he lighted his pipe and and seated himself beside the packages. He was always talkative when working by the evening fire, and seemed to find great pleasure in imparting bits of information to the boy from his inexhaustible store of woodland experiences.
To-night as he began fumbling among the packages, he asked:
“Larry, have you decided what you are going to carry in your ditty bag?”
“Ditty bag?” Larry repeated; “I’d know better what I was going to carry in it if I knew what a ‘ditty bag’ was.”
“What, a veteran forest pilot like you not know what a ditty bag is!” Martin asked in mock astonishment. “Then it’s high time for you to learn. A ditty bag is the thing that does for the woodsman what all the pockets in a suit of clothes do for a boy—it carries the forty and one indispensable things that can’t be carried in some other place. You’d better sit over here beside me and make yours up to-night while I am fitting out mine.”
So the boy moved over to the little pile of packages ready for instructions.
The hunter handed him a little bag made of tough water-proof material with a string at the top for tying securely. Then he rummaged through the packages, taking out what he wanted and placing them in the bag. At his suggestion Larry duplicated this selection of things for his own bag, so that in case one bag should be lost they would still have the other. “But,” said Martin, “you must put in some little thing for luck—anything that strikes your fancy, after the other things are in. That’s a hunter’s superstition, like the Indian’s ‘medicine.’”
The first useful article selected was a neat Red Cross package containing a few useful medicines and surgical dressings for an emergency. Next came needles of all sizes, with several skeins of thread, and a wooden handle in which were several awls, neatly stored in a hollow bobbin on which was wound many lengths of strong waxed cord. A can of gunoil found a place, and a small whetstone, rough on one side for sharpening the axes, and smooth on the other for the knives. A tool case, containing a “good-sized carpenter shop,” as Martin explained and made of aluminum after Mr. Ware’s own design, found especial favor; and a broken shell extractor was considered indispensable.
Buttons and skeins of twine of various sizes went into the bag as a matter of course; but when the old hunter selected three packages, each containing a dozen yards of the kind of twisted wire used for hanging pictures of different sizes, the boy burst out laughing and rolled on the blankets. He suspected Martin of trying to play off a quiet hoax on him, and did not intend to be caught in the trap.
Nothing was farther from Martin’s thoughts, however, as Larry discovered when the use of the wire was explained. It was to be used for making the snares for catching small animals, particularly rabbits, the hunter said, and for that purpose was unequaled. And the old man assured him that for securing food on the march in a snow-bound country snares were far more useful than rifles. Indian families in many northern regions depended almost entirely upon their snares for their supply of winter food.
“Rabbits are the bread and butter of the woodsman in the winter,” Martin said. “The rabbits make little narrow paths in the snow—thousands of them, running in all directions—and when they are not disturbed and going about their business, they always follow these paths. Now when the rabbit comes to a fallen limb lying across his path a few inches above the ground, he likes to go under the limb rather than hop over it. This simplifies matters for the Indian. He simply hangs his snare in front of the hole under the limb, and is almost sure to catch the first rabbit that comes hopping along that particular path.
“The snare is just a simple slip-noose made large enough to let the rabbit’s head pass through easily. If the wind is blowing the snare can be held open and in place by tying it with blades of dead grass, which are strong enough to hold it in place until the rabbit gets his head through.
“The other end of the snare string is tied to a limb that is bent down and fastened in a notch cut in a stick or a small sapling if it happens to be in the right place. The notch is cut deep enough to hold the bent limb, but not firmly enough but what it can be jerked loose pretty easily.
“Now when the rabbit comes hopping along the path and starts to go under the limb, he runs his head through the snare. When he feels something around his neck he pulls back to get out of its way; but that tightens the noose about his neck, and he begins leaping about frantically to get loose. In this way he jerks the bent limb out of the notch that holds it down, the limb flies back, and swings him up into the air where he smothers in short order.
“Of course if the snare was simply fastened to the limb over the path the rabbit would choke himself to death for a certainty, because he never stops pulling and tugging at the noose while he has a kick left in him. But then some fox or weasel would probably come along and get him. But neither of them will get him if he is dangling in the air: the weasel can’t reach him, and the fox is such a crafty fellow, always looking out for traps and tricks, that he won’t go near a dead rabbit hanging on a string, even if he is starving.
“Now that the snow has stopped falling the rabbits will be out to-night making paths, and to-morrow night we’ll put out some snares just for practice. I’ll teach you a dozen ways to make snares for different kinds of game, but the principle of all of them is the same as the one for catching Mr. Rabbit. And he’s the boy we’re interested in mostly.”
The old hunter rose and went out to “have a look at the snow,” as he put it. He came back well pleased with his inspection.
“The crust will form and set hard to-night,” he said to Larry, “and to-morrow you’ll begin your hardest and most important lesson—learning to walk on snow-shoes. You can look forward to taking some of the grandest headers you have ever taken in your life,” he added, grinning.
“But—” Larry began, and then stopped.
“‘But’ what?” Martin asked.
“Oh, nothing,” Larry answered evasively. “I was just thinking of those headers that I am going to take to-morrow, that’s all.”
“Well, go to bed and dream about them then,” the old hunter instructed.