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Long, William Joseph, 1866-1952

"Wilderness Ways"

A storm in the woods is no joke when you are
six miles from camp without axe or blanket. I broke away from the
trail and started for the head of the second barren on the run. If I
could make that, I was safe; for there was a stream near, which led
near to camp; and one cannot very well lose a stream, even in a
snowstorm. But before I was halfway the flakes were driving thick and
soft in my face. Another half-mile, and one could not see fifty feet
in any direction. Still I kept on, holding my course by the wind and
my compass. Then, at the foot of the second barren, my snowshoes
stumbled into great depressions in the snow, and I found myself on the
fresh trail of my caribou again. "If I am lost, I will at least have a
caribou steak, and a skin to wrap me up in," I said, and plunged after
them. As I went, the old Mother Goose rhyme of nursery days came back
and set itself to hunting music:
Bye, baby bunting,
Daddy's gone a hunting,
For to catch a rabbit skin
To wrap the baby bunting in.


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