492 
At dusk he turned into a spruce 
thicket, glanced about him once, threw 
down his pack, and in five minutes had 
a big dry pine stub crashing into the 
snow. With birch bark and a single 
match he started a roaring fire, and in 
the glare he cut a pile of spruce brush 
and laid it thickly on the snow. Also 
a few birch logs were felled while thé 
light flared fresh, for green birch is 
good to supplement dry pine for night 
fires. It burns long and its coals are 
very hot. Then he melted snow in his 
tin cup, took tea from a little caribou 
leather tobacco pouch and boiled it for 
three minutes to get the good of it. 
And also he broiled bacon on a skewer 
of whittled birch. 
On the warm spruce brush he spread 
his rabbit-skin blanket and ate his sup- 
per with the satisfaction that comes to 
a good walker after a creditable day. 
Afterward he lit his pipe with a flaring 
stick and taking off his moccasins he 
unrolled the blanket socks, and rested 
his bared feet in the warm glow of the 
fire. The snowshoe thongs had made 
no mark, thanks to Dan McAvay’s 
blanket. 
“The ol’ way is best,” smiled Jimmy 
in English, “Dan McAvay nishishin— 
nice teller... 
He made up his fire with green logs 
and pine splits presently, and rolling 
himself in his woven rabbit-skins, slept 
peacefully under the winter stars. No 
breath of wind came into the spruce 
thicket, and the pine tops whispering 
far above but made the still, silent com- 
fort of the little camp the more retired. 
At midnight Jimmy woke and poked 
the logs together. In the freshened 
blaze he threw some ready split green 
birch and went to sleep again. The 
snow melting from about the fire left 
a little hollow to the ground and the 
heat reflected the more genially thereby 
on the brush bed above. 
Three hours after, Jimmy woke once 
more and put on his warm, dry blanket- 
socks and moccasins. Once more he 
boiled tea in his great tin cup and siz- 
zled bacon fat on the end of a stick. 
company. That 
RECREATION 
Then stuffing his blanket into his bag 
he put on his pack and got out into the 
trail. 
Toward the middle of the afternoon 
a great valley with a white ribbon of 
snow-buried river came to meet him 
from the southwest. Out on the snow- 
carpeted ice Jimmy found a fresh 
snowshoe track heading north. In an 
instant he was alive with interest. He 
inspected the print of the shoes with 
minute care, studying the shape, the 
size, the depth of the impression, the 
length of stride, the mark left by the 
toe (where it comes through the web 
of the shoe and digs a little hole into 
the snow). 
“Saginosh,’ he said at last, “white 
man; very fresh.” He lengthened his 
stride and swung into the other’s trail, 
following in haste to catch up. For 
even an Ojibwa loves company on a 
snowshoe journey, and to-morrow was 
Christmas Eve. It was the social sea- 
son of those parts. 
If Jimmy Friday thought to catch 
the maker of that trail before the snow 
shadows turned to blue he was mis- 
taken. Not till it was too dark to see 
the track, however, did he stop to build 
his camp. He had made a long day of it 
and walked fast. Instead of reaching 
the village of his folk that night as he 
had intended to he had been led far 
aside. Now he would not be home in 
time to visit the Hudson’s Bay store 
with his time check on the Lumber 
slip of paper was 
marked and signed in his favor for $46 
payable at Sturgeon Falls. With that 
check discounted at 50 per cent. he 
could buy many nice things for his 
mother and sisters and cousins and 
cousins-in-law (all Bear Island is re- 
lated). And for Angele Whitebear a 
ring! It was exasperating. He had 
lost a day. And all for the sake of 
following a stranger’s track. But once 
on the trail there was no giving up for 
Jimmy Friday. In the morning he 
would get the start of Him. He would 
follow as soon he could see. His curi- 
osity and his obstinacy alike satisfied, 
