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Sintamaskin 



fearful lest the soft snow might slide with us 

 bodily, and send us rolling helpless downward. 

 We were up at last, however ; and now our 

 path was easier, though still rough, and along 

 the side of steep slopes, and up and down 

 many sharp pitches. We were passing through 

 a heavy forest, our course to the east, about 

 parallel with the ravine of the river. We 

 went, of course, in single file, the men taking 

 turns at leading, for the work of him who 

 "breaks track" is much the hardest. The 

 snow was about four feet deep on a level, and 

 far more than that in places. It was soft, and 

 though our snow-shoes were large — very dif- 

 ferent from the slender toys one sees in the 

 shop windows of Montreal — our tracks were 

 at least a foot in depth. This meant heavy 

 going for us, though it did not seem to im- 

 pede the caribou. The trees on our left 

 opened, and our path led near the edge of the 

 ravine. It was just at the point where it 

 turned to the north, and through the snow- 

 laden branches we caught glimpses of a mar- 

 velous distance : long walls of mountain, russet 

 and gray with the naked limbs of great hard- 

 wood trees, or deep green with tier upon tier 

 of spruce and fir ; here and there the light 



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