Page:Cornelia Meigs-The Pirate of Jasper Peak.djvu/229

, his mouth and eyes both round with unbelieving astonishment.

“What is it, Hugh?” he asked, sniffing delightedly. “I could live on that smell for a week. Did the witches or the angels bring it?”

“I don’t know,” laughed Hugh delightedly, “but however it came, it’s real. Get up quickly or I will eat it all without you.”

They speculated long over every possible source for the mysterious gift, but could come to no conclusion. On examining the space before the cottage they saw that some one had come on snowshoes up the hill and had removed them to walk in the narrow trampled path that the boys had  made, deep in the drifts, up to their door. They could see where the snowshoes had been stuck upright against a bank while the owner  came up to the doorstone: the footsteps were  short, shuffling ones made by moccasined feet.

“But no Indian man that ever I saw walks with such a short stride as that,” Dick insisted, staring  thoughtfully at the marks in the snow, “and think  what a load he must have carried!”