Adventure and adventurers > Away in the wilderness, or, Life among the red Indians and fur-traders of North America

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AWAY IN THE WILDERNESS.
inches. This machine is the snow-shoe. 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 framework of hard wood, and covered
with a network of deer-skin, which, while it pre¬
vents 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. Arrow¬
head 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