MAIL SERVICE 341 



track. Somehow I felt that there was some- 

 thing wrong and I hurried down. It was most for- 

 tunate that I did so, for I met them at the edge of 

 the woods, shivering with the cold and not a dry 

 match between them. Levesque had lost his mit- 

 tens and his axe in his fall. I advised them to 

 keep moving while I started a fire, after which 

 I cut some branches to sit on and urged them to 

 wring out part of their clothing. In the mean- 

 time I melted some snow and we had some hot tea. 

 It was then too late to continue and as we were in 

 an exposed and inconvenient situation, I decided 

 that we should walk back half a mile and sleep in 

 a deserted trapper's camp that I knew of. In 

 due time we got there and soon had a good blaze 

 in it, and we passed a fairly comfortable night. 

 We all wore sealskin moccasins for snowshoeing, 

 and Levesque' s shoes being dripping wet, he 

 hung them up on a cross bar near the smoke hole. 

 I cautioned him to remove them before he went to 

 sleep. However, he was too tired to do so, or for- 

 got them, and I being tired also, soon dozed off. 

 How long I slept I don't know, but the fire was 

 getting low, so I piled on more wood, and in the 

 bright light I saw Levesque' s shoes all shrivelled 

 up and about five inches long each. They were 

 burned and in trying to straighten one of them 

 it broke. Wet green hides of any kind are easily 

 burnt, even by the moderate heat of the sun. 

 Next morning we had to improvise a pair of shoes 



