58 Recreations of a Sportsman 



see if any one were looking, wiped the icicles 

 from his beard, bent over the child, a big, red- 

 faced, bloodshot-eyed benediction, and touched 

 his lips to its forehead ; then, swinging the bundle 

 on his back, he slipped on his skees and moved 

 on, conscious that some kind of change had swept 

 over him, exactly what he did not know. 



The snow was soft and fluffy, making travel- 

 ling much more difficult. It concealed treacher- 

 ous places and played tricks with his skees, 

 several times throwing him to the ground with 

 considerable force, so that he was obliged to 

 regulate his pace. For some hours he moved 

 slowly on, then suddenly the caiion ended in a 

 blind lead, and he knew that he had lost the 

 trail followed by the post skee-runner. There 

 was no time to go back; he knew the general 

 direction, so he began the ascent of the caiion 

 wall and in two hours, by zigzagging, came to 

 the summit of the ridge and looked out and 

 down on peaks and mountains rolling, tumbling 

 away to the south. To the south, that was it; 

 he would have known he was headed that way 

 even if he had not seen the needle of his com- 

 pass; he noted the lichens on the north and east 

 sides of the trees where the snow had fallen, 

 and dashed on. The descent was so steep that 

 he coasted on his pole half the time. Reaching 

 the bottom, he entered the largest canon lead- 

 ing in the general direction of south and 



