Marooned in the Forest: The Story of a Primitive Fight for Life

by A. Hyatt Verrill

It was now growing dark and I was compelled to stop work, but all through the preparation of my evening meal I was busily thinking and trying to evolve some means for perfecting the shoes. Not until I had climbed into my bunk did the simple expedient of wetting the skin, while lashing it in place, occur to me. This I felt positive would result in stretching the skin as tight as a drumhead when it shrunk in drying. Having thus seemingly overcome this difficulty, I tried to conjure up a mental picture of the arrangement of foot-straps on the snow-shoes I had used years before. As my brain visualized the graceful, racquet-shaped shoes, with their amber-colored netting, their tiny, ornamental, worsted tassels, and their glossy hickory frames, each detail slowly came back to me. I remembered the slightly upturned toes, the broad, buckskin foot-straps, and—yes—the open spaces in the centers of the network into which one’s toes sank as one’s feet bend when walking. As all this came back to me I wondered that I could have forgotten it, and then, feeling that I would have a practical pair of snow-shoes before the next night, I fell asleep to the roar of the gale outside.

Morning found the storm over, but with fully four feet of snow covering the earth, while the drift before my door was so high that I could not see over it. With the memories of the night before still fresh in my mind I unlashed the pieces of skin from the frames and placed them to soak in water while I ate my breakfast. Now that I remembered that a hole must be left for one’s toe in the center of a snow-shoe the task seemed greatly simplified. As soon as I had eaten I drew a piece of the soggy, softened hide from the water and, cutting it in two, proceeded to lace one portion of it in the frame between the bowed, semicircular rim and the nearest brace. As soon as this piece was in place I laced the other piece in the opposite end, hung the shoe to the roof of the cabin to dry, and repeated the operations with the other shoe.

By the time this was completed the first shoe was partly dry, and I was well pleased to find that, as I had foreseen, the skin was shrinking as tight and hard as a sheet of iron. I then busied myself with my bow and worked steadily until late in the afternoon, when, the snow-shoes having dried thoroughly, I hurried out to test them. They were a great success and supported my weight perfectly, scarcely sinking beneath the surface of the snow as I stood upon them. Tying the straps about my ankles, I started forward. For a few minutes I had some difficulty in walking, yet the knack soon came back to me and I found no trouble in traveling about on the primitive snow-shoes I had evolved.

My first need was fire-wood and I shuffled off across the snow to the woods. It was a strange sensation to be thus walking into the forest on a level with the “second floor,” so to speak, but it enabled me to obtain a fine lot of dry, resinous branches which had previously been far beyond my reach.

Well pleased with the success of my snow-shoes, and with a great load of wood, I returned to the cabin, and then spent the time until dark digging away the drift before my door and using a snow-shoe for a shovel.

Realizing that it would be useless to attempt to trap in the deep snow, I determined to set out on a hunt the next morning, hoping to find some birds or animals which I might be able to kill with my bow and arrows. My new bow was far from completed, but for my immediate purposes the old bow would serve and within a few days the new one would be ready for use.

When I started out the following morning I found numerous tracks of small creatures, and was soon within the forest searching each snowladen evergreen for partridges or other game.

I had traveled for some distance without success when I came upon the unmistakable tracks of the lynx. His broad, padded, furry feet had served him as well as snow-shoes and he had sunk but slightly into the snow, but I could not tell whether he had passed that way within a few minutes or the day before. I felt that there was little danger of the creature attacking me here in broad daylight, and I commenced trailing his steps, glancing keenly at each tree as I proceeded. Presently I came to a spot where the lynx had crouched low, and then, for the first time, I realized that he had been trailing some other creature. Partly obliterated by the marks of the cat’s feet were other tracks, small, deep, and with a furrow between them as if some animal had dragged himself slowly through the snow into which his feet had sunk. I was puzzled to know what had made these tracks, and, curious to learn the outcome of the tragedy indicated by the telltale marks in the snow, I crept cautiously forward.

I had gone scarcely a hundred yards when I rounded a projecting ledge and came within sight of a little, open glade. Near the center of the swale a dark spot stood boldly out upon the snow, and before I had time to realize what it was the lynx leaped up and, bounding off, disappeared in the thick woods beyond. But the dark object still remained in the center of the glade, and, approaching it, I discovered that it was a full-grown deer. It was evident that the lynx had overtaken and killed the buck while the latter was floundering in the deep snow and was unable to travel rapidly enough to escape, for the deer’s throat was torn open and a good portion of the shoulder had been eaten by the lynx. There was plenty of good, fresh meat left upon the carcass, however, and the skin was scarcely injured, and I congratulated myself upon having followed the lynx tracks, for my curiosity had thus led me to a supply of food which would last me for a long time. The lynx had unwittingly saved me a deal of trouble, and I forgave him all the fright and loss he had caused me hitherto.

Immediately I set to work cleaning the deer, leaving the entrails for the lynx, and then, tying the legs together, I shouldered the carcass and commenced my return journey. It was a heavy load, and the additional weight caused my snow-shoes to sink deeply into the snow. I found progress slow and difficult, and decided to try dragging the deer instead of carrying it.