He frankly confessed his ignorance of these
things, and the Missioner chuckled good-humouredly as he buckled the
belt and holster about his waist and told him on which hip to keep the
pistol, and where to carry the leather sheath that held a long and
keen-edged hunting knife. Then he turned to the snow shoes. They were
the long, narrow, bush-country shoe. He placed them side by side on the
snow and showed David how to fasten his moccasined feet in them without
using his hands. For three quarters of an hour after that, out in the
soft, deep snow in the edge of the spruce, he gave him his first lesson
in that slow, swinging, _out_-stepping stride of the north-man on the
trail. At first it was embarrassing for David, with Thoreau and the
Indians grinning openly, and Marie's face peering cautiously and
joyously from the cabin door. Three times he entangled his feet
hopelessly and floundered like a great fish in the snow; then he caught
the "swing" of it and at the end of half an hour began to find a
pleasurable exhilaration, even excitement, in his ability to skim over
the feathery surface of this great white sea without so much as sinking
to his ankle bones. When he slipped the shoes off and stood them up
beside his rifle against the cabin, he was panting.
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