THE MAKING OF THE MOCCASINS 203 



out like sheaves in a stook, the foliage converging to a soft centre, 

 form the trapper's bed. 



The snow is now too deep to travel without snow-shoes. The 

 frames for these the trapper makes of ash, birch, or best of all, 

 the mackikwatick — tamarack — curving the easily bent green 

 wood up at one end, canoe shape, and smoothing the barked wood 

 at the bend, like a sleigh runner, by means of the awkward couteau 

 croche, as the French hunter calls his crooked knife. 



In style, the snow-shoe varies with the hunting-ground. On 

 forested, rocky, hummocky land, the shoe is short to permit short 

 turns without entanglement. Oval and broad, rather than long 

 and slim, it makes up in width what it lacks in length to support 

 the hunter's weight above the snow. And the toe curve is slight ; 

 for speed is impossible on bad ground. To save the instep from 

 jars, the slip noose may be padded like a cowboy's stirrup. 



On the prairie, where the snowy reaches are unbroken as air, 

 snow-shoes are wings to the hunter's heels. They are long, and 

 curved, and narrow, and smooth enough on the runners for the 

 hunter to sit on their rear ends and coast downhill as on a toboggan. 

 If a snag is struck midway, the racquets may bounce safely over 

 and glissade to the bottom ; or the toe may catch, heels fly over 

 head, and the hunter land with his feet noosed in frames sticking 

 upright higher than his neck. 



Any trapper can read the story of a hunt from snow-shoes. 

 Round and short : east of the Great Lakes. Slim and long : 

 from the prairie. Padding for the instep : either rock ground 

 or long runs. Filling of hide strips with broad enough interspaces 

 for a small foot to slip through : from the wet, heavily packed, 

 snow region of the Atlantic Coast, for trapping only, never the 

 chase, small game, not large. Lace ties, instead of a noose to hold 

 the foot : the amateur hunter. Atibisc, a fine filling taken from 

 deer or caribou for the heel and toe ; with askimoneiab, heavy, 

 closely interlaced, membranous filling from the moose across the 

 centre to bear the brunt of wear; long enough for speed, short 



