Away in the Wilderness by R. M. Ballantyne (surface ebook reader txt) 📖

and spend their short days in trapping and shooting. At night the Indian piles logs on his fire to keep out the frost, and adds to the warmth of his skin-tent by heaping snow up the outside of it all round. The fur-trader puts double window-frames and double panes of glass in his windows, puts on double doors, and heats his rooms with cast-iron stoves.

But do what he will, the fur-trader cannot keep out the cold altogether. He may heat the stove red-hot if he will, yet the water in the basins and jugs in the corner of his room will be frozen, and his breath settles on the window-panes, and freezes there so thickly that it actually dims the light of the sun. This crust on the windows inside is sometimes an inch thick!

Thermometers in England are usually filled with quicksilver. In Rupert’s Land quicksilver would be frozen half the winter, so spirit of wine is used instead, because that liquid will not freeze with any ordinary degree of cold. Here, the thermometer sometimes falls as low as zero. Out there it does not rise so high as zero during the greater part of the winter, and it is often as low as twenty, thirty, and even fifty degrees below zero.

If the wind should blow when the cold is intense, no man dare face it—he would be certain to be frost-bitten. The parts of the body that are most easily frozen are the ears, the chin, the cheek-bones, the nose, the heels, fingers, and toes. The freezing of any part begins with a pricking sensation. When this occurs at the point of your nose, it is time to give earnest attention to that feature, else you run the risk of having it shortened. The best way to recover it is to rub it well, and to keep carefully away from the fire.

The likest thing to a frost-bite is a burn. In fact, the two things are almost the same. In both cases the skin or flesh is destroyed, and becomes a sore. In the one case it is destroyed by fire, in the other by frost; but in both it is painful and dangerous, according to the depth of the frost-bite or the burn. Many a poor fellow loses joints of his toes and fingers—some have even lost their hands and feet by frost. Many have lost their lives. But the most common loss is the loss of the skin of the point of the nose, cheek-bones, and chin—a loss which is indeed painful, but can be replaced by nature in the course of time.

Of course curious appearances are produced by such intense cold. On going out into the open air, the breath settles on the breast, whiskers, and eyebrows in the shape of hoar-frost; and men who go out in the morning for a ramble with black or brown locks, return at night with what appears to be grey hair—sometimes with icicles hanging about their faces. Horses and cattle there are seldom without icicles hanging from their lips and noses in winter.

Poor Mr Pemberton was much troubled in this way. He was a fat and heavy man, and apt to perspire freely. When he went out to shoot in winter, the moisture trickled down his face and turned his whiskers into two little blocks of ice; and he used to be often seen, after a hard day’s walk, sitting for a long time beside the stove, holding his cheeks to the fire, and gently coaxing the icy blocks to let go their hold!

But for all this, the long winter of those regions is a bright enjoyable season. The cold is not felt so much as one would expect, because it is not damp, and the weather is usually bright and sunny.

From what I have said, the reader will understand that summer in those regions is short and very hot; the winter long and very cold. Both seasons have their own peculiar enjoyments, and, to healthy men, both are extremely agreeable.

I have said that Jasper’s marriage-day had arrived. New Year’s Day was fixed for his union with the fair and gentle Marie. As is usual at this festive season of the year, it was arranged that a ball should be given at the fort in the large hall to all the people that chanced to be there at the time.

Old Laroche had been sent to a small hut a long day’s march from the fort, where he was wont to spend his time in trapping foxes. He was there alone, so, three days before New Year’s Day, Jasper set out with Arrowhead to visit the old man, and bear him company on his march back to the fort.

There are no roads in that country. Travellers have to plod through the wilderness as they best can. It may not have occurred to my reader that it would be a difficult thing to walk for a day through snow so deep, that, at every step, the traveller would sink the whole length of his leg. The truth is, that travelling in Rupert’s Land in winter would be impossible but for a machine which enables men to walk on the surface of the snow without sinking more than a few inches. This machine is the snowshoe. Snow-shoes vary in size and form in different parts of the country, but they are all used for the same purpose. Some are long and narrow; others are nearly round. They vary in size from three to six feet in length, and from eight to twenty inches in breadth. They are extremely light—made of a frame-work of hard wood, and covered with a network of deer-skin, which, while it prevents the wearer from sinking more than a few inches, allows any snow that may chance to fall on the top of the shoe to pass through the netting.

The value of this clumsy looking machine may be imagined, when I say that men with them will easily walk twenty, thirty, and even forty miles across a country over which they could not walk three miles without such helps.

It was a bright, calm, frosty morning when Jasper and his friend set out on their short journey. The sun shone brilliantly, and the hoar-frost sparkled on the trees and bushes, causing them to appear as if they had been covered with millions of diamonds. The breath of the two men came from their mouths like clouds of steam. Arrowhead wore the round snow-shoes which go by the name of bear’s paws—he preferred these to any others. Jasper wore the snow-shoes peculiar to the Chipewyan Indians. They were nearly as long as himself, and turned up at the point. Both men were dressed alike, in the yellow leathern costume of winter. The only difference being that Jasper wore a fur cap, while Arrowhead sported a cloth head-piece that covered his neck and shoulders, and was ornamented with a pair of horns.

All day the two men plodded steadily over the country. Sometimes they were toiling through deep snow in wooded places, sinking six or eight inches in spite of their snow-shoes. At other times they were passing swiftly over the surface of the open plains, where the snow was beaten so hard by exposure to the sun and wind that the shoes only just broke the crust and left their outlines behind.

Then they reached a bend of the river, where they had again to plod heavily through the woods on its banks, until they came out upon its frozen surface. Here the snow was so hard, that they took off their snow-shoes and ran briskly along without them for a long space.

Thus they travelled all day, without one halt, and made such good use of their time, that they arrived at the log-hut of old Laroche early in the evening.

“Well met, son-in-law, that is to be,” cried the stout old man heartily, as the two hunters made their appearance before the low door-way of his hut, which was surrounded by trees and almost buried in snow. “If you had been half an hour later, I would have met you in the woods.”

“How so, father-in-law, that is to be,” said Jasper, “were ye goin’ out to your traps so late as this?”

“Nay, man, but I was startin’ for the fort. It’s a long way, as you know, and my old limbs are not just so supple as yours. I thought I would travel to-night, and sleep in the woods, so as to be there in good time to-morrow. But come in, come in, and rest you. I warrant me you’ll not feel inclined for more walkin’ to-night.”

“Now my name is not Jasper Derry if I enter your hut this night,” said the hunter stoutly. “If I could not turn round and walk straight back to the fort this night, I would not be worthy of your daughter, old man. So come along with you. What say you, Arrowhead; shall we go straight back?”

“Good,” answered the Indian.

“Well, well,” cried Laroche, laughing, “lead the way, and I will follow in your footsteps. It becomes young men to beat the track, and old ones to take it easy.”

The three men turned their faces towards Fort Erie, and were soon far away from the log-hut. They walked steadily and silently along, without once halting, until the night became so dark that it was difficult to avoid stumps and bushes. Then they prepared to encamp in the snow.

Now it may seem to many people a very disagreeable idea, that of sleeping out in snow, but one who has tried it can assure them that it is not so bad as it seems. No doubt, when Jasper halted in the cold dark woods, and said, “I think this will be a pretty good place to sleep,” any one unacquainted with the customs of that country would have thought the man was jesting or mad; for, besides being very dismal, in consequence of its being pitch dark, it was excessively cold, and snow was falling steadily and softly on the ground. But Jasper knew what he was about, and so did the others. Without saying a word, the three men flung down their bundles of provisions, and each set to work to make the encampment. Of course they had to work in darkness so thick that even the white snow could scarcely be seen.

First of all they selected a tree, the branches of which were so thick and spreading as to form a good shelter from the falling snow. Here Jasper and Laroche used their snow-shoes as shovels, while Arrowhead plied his axe and soon cut enough of firewood for the night. He also cut a large bundle of small branches for bedding. A space of about twelve feet long, by six broad, was cleared at the foot of the tree in half an hour. But the snow was so deep that they had to dig down four feet before they reached the turf. As the snow taken out of the hole was thrown up all round it, the walls rose to nearly seven feet.

Arrowhead next lighted a roaring fire at one end of this cleared space, the others strewed the branches over the space in front of it, and spread their blankets on the top, after which the kettle was put on to boil, buffalo steaks were stuck up before the fire to roast, and the men then lay down to rest and smoke, while supper was preparing. The intense cold prevented the fire from melting the snowy walls of this encampment, which shone and sparkled in the red blaze like pink marble studded all over with diamonds, while the spreading branches formed a ruddy-looking ceiling. When they had finished supper, the heat of the fire and the heat of their food made the travellers feel quite warm and comfortable, in spite of John Frost; and when they at last wrapped their blankets round them and laid their