g 
Eee 
THE CHRISTMAS DANCE AT JIMMY FRIDAY’S 491 
the bottom corner, hitched a bit of rope 
about the protuberance and pulled it 
tight. Leading it diagonally up the 
length of the bag he knotted the other 
end tautly at the tie strings. Through 
the loop thus formed he thrust his head. 
The bag lay comfortably across his 
back, the rope over one shoulder and 
across his chest. Satisfied that the 
pack fitted snugly he slipped it off 
again and reaching back in the bunk 
brought forth a sheath knife and its 
case, tied to a colored sash. The sash 
he wrapped about his waist, the knife 
he took in his hand and, lifting his 
candle from its little congealed puddle 
of grease, he crossed noiselessly over 
to the sleeping Dan McAvay’s bunk 
and carefully turned down the top fold 
of the blanket. With his knife he sliced 
off a strip of the gray woolen cloth a 
foot wide, clear across, and replaced 
the fold as carefully as a mother. Re- 
turning to his own bench he stuck the 
candle upright in a drop of its own hot 
wax, and taking his knife once more 
divided the stolen strip of blanket into 
halves. Without a change of expres- 
sion or the slightest noise he proceeded 
to swaddle his feet neatly, layer on 
layer, Indian fashion, in duffél socks 
and stuffed them presently into soft, 
capacious moose-skin moccasins. From 
under the bench he brought forth a 
pair of wide, full-bowed snowshoes, 
with moose-skin thongs ready tied in 
the squaw hitch. Taking his belted 
mackinaw coat from the nail at the 
post of his bunk he slipped into it and 
adjusted his pack. Pulling down the 
woolen toque to his ears and lifting 
his snowshoes he extinguished the 
candle with his finger and passed out 
into the black darkness of a winter’s 
early morning. 
It was very cold and the warm breath 
of the camp rushed out before him in 
a cloud of steam. Jimmy crossed the 
dark camp yard to the blacksmith shop, 
finding his way miraculously among 
the broken sleighs and road sprinklers 
and the great pine stumps that had 
been left there when the camp-site was 
cleared. Lighting a match he searched 
till he found the blacksmith’s crook- 
knife, used to pare the horse-hoofs to 
fit. the shoes. It was keen as a razor 
and made of the best saw steel; there 
wasn’t another such knife within the 
distance between the camp and Stur- 
geon Falls. Jimmy smiled for the- first 
time that winter, remembering the 
blacksmith’s feigned solicitude. He 
jammed the knife into the sheath along- 
side his own and stepped once more 
into the yard. At the cook’s wood-pile 
he paused again to feel into the dark- 
ness among the chips for the chore 
boyss kindling ax. It was lighter to 
carry than the great four-pound. chop- 
ping axes used at work in the woods, 
and of a shorter and more convenient 
length of handle. Pulling on his mit- 
tens he swung off up the logging road, 
following the ruts of the great sleigh- 
runners by feel of foot. 
If Jimmy was happy at having begun 
the work of meek inheritance and de- 
spoiling the Egyptians it didn’t appear 
on his features, when at the first gray 
shadow of dawn he turned off the log- 
ging road and twisted into his snow- 
shoes. Once on a great swinging 
snowshoe stride, however, and heading 
up the white plain of snow-hidden Lac 
d’Original, his blood warmed. A glint 
of gold came into the east; the air was 
keen, dry and sweet with the frost. The 
breathing of the forest’s awakening 
came to him faintly across the snow. 
“Mushah, mushah,’ cried he sharply, 
as though to toboggan dogs, and then 
he laughed joyously and broke into a 
run. 
Sixty miles that day did Jimmy lope 
and walk upon his snowshoes. They’ll 
tell you at Bear Island of much greater 
walks in a day than that. But Jimmy’s 
route is now on the maps, and by sur- 
vey, and by fair approximation meas- 
ures 60 winter miles. By level, frozen 
lake and river, he went for most part, 
crossing hills through the warm still 
forest when the home instinct told him 
that thus the trail was shorter, the bee- 
line more direct. 
