Page:The trail of the golden horn.djvu/137

Rh knife. Anyway, it can’t be helped, so I must make the best of it.”

The sergeant was gone for over half an hour, and when he returned he was carrying with him a bundle of stout withes, consisting of alders and birch limbs. These he threw down near the fire and held his hands close to the genial heat. He looked at Marion, who was sitting upon the fir boughs, holding one end of a strip of the moose hide which the constable was carefully slicing. She was interested in her work, glad to be of some use. North thought that he never saw her look more beautiful, and when she lifted her head and saw the expression of admiration in the sergeant’s eyes, her cheeks took on a richer hue.

“This life certainly agrees with you,” he remarked. “You don’t seem to mind the cold.”

“Not while I have something to do,” was the reply. “I am glad to be able to help a little.”

North lost no time, but began at once making the frames for the snow-shoes. He worked with feverish haste, for every minute was precious. When Marion was not busy helping with the cutting of the skin, she sat watching him as he peeled the sticks, bent each into the proper shape, fastened the two ends together, set in the cross-bars, and lashed them securely to the frame. The weaving of the web was a more difficult task, but the sergeant showed Marion how it should be done, and she proved an apt pupil.

“You are to weave your own,” he informed her, “while Tom and I do ours. Let us see who will be done first.”

Then the friendly rivalry began, which was only interrupted as they rested, prepared, and ate some more broiled moose meat. This simple repast ended, they