$o Recreations of a Sportsman 



from Mrs. Fogarty as to the care of infants. 

 He was going alone, as there was not a skee- 

 runner who could keep up with him. His outfit 

 was w r ell adapted to the requirements: a heavy 

 suit; a fur sleeping bag, and a bag of fur for 

 the baby, slung from his back; provisions for 

 a week, mostly jerked venison; some chocolate; 

 an outfit for melting the milk, a six-shooter, a 

 knife, and a belt of cartridges, long skees, a skee- 

 pole, and a flask of brandy. 



The entire town, famous for its skee-runners 

 and racers, started with Clancy and followed him 

 down the little valley and up the incline to the 

 forest where, high in the pines, were blazed 

 marks, now in plain sight on the level, but in 

 summer forty or fifty feet in air. Up to the 

 divide which formed the rim of the valley, the 

 crowd went, then stopped and cheered, as Clancy 

 swung himself over and shot down the steep 

 incline, in a short time disappearing from view. 

 As far as the eye could reach, mountains rose, 

 valleys sank, ridges crossed and zigzagged, and 

 deep caiions fell away; and over all the white 

 mantle, from which, like giant pompons, the 

 trees appeared. 



Strong, virile as he was, the eternal whiteness 

 of the snow, its terrible depth, its proneness to 

 slide and form avalanches, sank into his heart 

 as a menace of disaster; but between his 

 shoulders something warm filled him with energy 



