232 MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 



eum, of a deer. When the fire was not bright this gave 

 "a dim, religious light/' such as steals into some silent 

 crypt through stained glass in an old cathedral, and my 

 eyes improved daily. After some days I could get about 

 the room and do a few things, such as washing out my 

 rifle and oiling it, and it was a surprise to see the Indian 

 eat and sleep. He would rouse up and get wood to 

 cook. The provisions were unlimited, as part of the bear 

 was left, and Antoine had buried a deer in the snow. So 

 it was a picnic for our friend, and he did not even have 

 to hunt nor fish. 



When Antoine came he whittled a huge pair of spec- 

 tacles for me out of dry spruce. They were solid except 

 a small longitudinal slit for each eye, through which one 

 could see all that was necessary, and all lights from points 

 outside the range of vision were excluded. They were 

 fitted to my eyes with exactness, and where glasses 

 would be in ordinary spectacles there were hollows 

 which were blackened with charcoal, and with these I 

 could venture out even in strong sunlight, and next day 

 I ran my line of traps with them, seeing perfectly every- 

 thing that I wished to see, unharmed by the light of the 

 snow. The only unusual event on this trip was seeing 

 where several deer had crossed my trail on the jump, 

 followed by some wolves, as shown in the snow. As the 

 deer were yarded up during such deep snow, the wolves 

 must have stampeded some of them; but we had not seen 

 nor heard a wolf in our part of the woods all winter. 



Returning to the cabin the day afterward, Antoine 

 said: "I'll tole you, Chris'mas he come to-morrow, and 

 we stop home an' heat good Chris'mas dinner; what you 

 say, hey?" and he showed me where he had kept a record 

 of the days on a stick. I had not given a thought to the 

 matter further than to note that it was midwinter by the 



