Silver Lake | Page 2

sleepin', in the forest, and has
got to be found and shot yet. Hallo! boy, where are you bound for?"

"For the woods, father, with you and Walter," replied his son Roy,
sitting down and coolly helping himself to a portion of bear's meat,
with which the hunter was regaling himself.
"Nonsense, boy," said Robin, somewhat gruffly.
"You'll not be able to keep up with us," added Walter, "for we've little
time before us, an' a long way to go."
"If I break down I can turn back," retorted Roy.
"Very good; please yourself;" said Robin in a tone of indifference,
although his glance seemed to indicate that he was not sorry to see his
boy determined to attempt an expedition which he knew from
experience would be very trying to a lad of his years.
Breakfast over, the three hunters clothed themselves in habiliments
suitable to the climate--leathern coats and trousers which were
impervious to the wind; cloth leggings to keep the snow from the
trousers; leather mocassins, or shoes with three pairs of blanket socks
inside of them; fur-caps with ear-pieces; leather mittens with an
apartment for the fingers and a separate chamber for the thumb,
powder-horns, shot-pouches, guns, and snow-shoes. These latter were
light wooden frames, netted across with deerskin threads, about five
feet long and upwards of a foot wide. The shoes were of this enormous
size, in order that they might support the wearers on the surface of the
snow, which was, on an average, four feet deep in the woods. They
were clumsy to look at, but not so difficult to walk in as one might
suppose.
In silence the three hunters entered the dark woods in front of Fort
Enterprise. Robin went first and beat the track, Walter followed in his
footsteps, Roy brought up the rear. The father sank about six inches at
every step, but the snow which fell upon his snow-shoes was so fine
and dry, owing to the intense frost, that it fell through the net-work of
the shoes like dust. Walter and Roy, treading in the footsteps, had less
labour in walking, but Walter, being almost as strong as his uncle, took
his turn at beating the track every two hours.

Through the woods they went, over mound and hollow, across frozen
swamp and plain, through brush and break, until near noon, when they
halted for rest and refreshment. While Walter cut firewood, Robin and
Roy cleared away the snow, using their snow-shoes as shovels, and
prepared their meal. It was simple; a few mouthfuls of dried meat and a
tin can of hot tea--the backwoodsman's greatest luxury, next to his pipe.
It was short, too. Half an hour sufficed to prepare and consume it.
"Let's see, now, what we have got," said Robin, counting the game
before resuming the march.
"More than enough," said Walter, lighting his pipe for a hurried whiff,
"ten brace of white grouse, four rabbits, six red foxes and a black one,
and two wolves. We can't eat all that."
"Surely we won't eat the foxes and wolves!" cried Roy, laughing.
"Not till we're starvin'," replied his father. "Come, let's go on--are ye
tired, lad?"
"Fresh as Walter," said the boy, proudly.
"Well, we won't try you too much. We'll just take a sweep round by the
Wolf's Glen, an' look at the traps there--after which make for home and
have our New Year's dinner. Go ahead, Walter, and beat the track; it is
your turn this time."
Without speaking, Walter slipped his feet into the lines of his
snow-shoes, extinguished his pipe, and led the way once more through
the pathless forest.
CHAPTER TWO.
THE STARVED INDIAN.
In the depths of the same forest, and not far from the locality to which
we have introduced our reader, a Red Indian was dragging his limbs
wearily along over the untrodden snow.

The attenuated frame of this son of the soil, his hollow cheeks and
glaring eye-balls, his belt drawn with extreme tightness round his waist,
to repress the gnawings of hunger, as well as his enfeebled gait, proved
that he was approaching the last stage of starvation.
For many weeks Wapaw had been travelling in the woods, guided on
his way by the stars, and by those slight and delicate signs of the
wilderness-- such as the difference of thickness in the bark on the north,
from that on the south side of a tree--which are perceptible only to the
keen eye of an Indian, or a white man whose life has been spent in the
wilderness.
But Wapaw was a very different man, when he quitted his tribe, from
what he was at the time we introduce him to our reader. Strong, wiry,
upright, and lithe as a panther, he left his wigwam and his