knife and hatchet, pulled over our feet our spare ankle-moccasins of oiled moose-hide soled with the coarse hair of the great, blundering beast himself.

I led, setting foot in the icy water, and moving out into the shadow with no more noise than a chub’s swirl or a minnow’s spatter-leap when a great chain-pike snaps at him.

Feeling my way over bed stones and bottom gravel with my feet, striving in vain to pierce the dense obscurity, I moved forward with infinite caution, balancing as best I might against the current. Ankle-deep, shin-deep, knee-deep we waded out. Presently the icy current chilled my thighs, rising to my waistline. But it grew no deeper.

Yet, here so swift was the current that I scarcely dared move, and was peering around to