Page:They who walk in the wilds, (IA theywhowalkinwil00robe).pdf/186

 membered them from the autumn, and knew at once where he was. Burnt Brook Valley was not more than a dozen miles ahead. His heart jumped with relief and exultation. He skirted the broken ground on the right, instead of the left, and broke into the long, loose, shambling trot of the Indian snow-shoe runner. He would be at the settlement before noon—and he thought no more of girls and dances, but of buckwheat cakes and bacon.

In this mood he hurried forward for perhaps a half hour; and then, without warning, the jealous Powers of the Wilderness, coldly mocking his over-confidence, touched him, and tripped him up. What looked like a firm level of the snow was but the mask of a pit between two rocks, a pit half filled with juniper bushes and débris and old logs. The spreading tops of the juniper held up the snow, like a roof. The moment McLaggan planted a foot upon it, it gave way, and through he went—head and shoulders and one foot first, while the other foot, in its snow-shoe, kicked ignominiously on top of the hole.

Scratched, torn, and wrenched though he was by the headlong plunge, McLaggan's predominant feeling was that of being choked and smothered. Blindly fumbling, he released his foot from the thongs of the snow-shoe. Then he crawled forth, drew a deep breath, brushed the snow and broken