Fig. 23. Barrel Stave Snow Shoe.
Another pair of shoes was made from barrel staves. At first one stave was made to serve for a shoe, but we found that two staves fastened together with a pair of wooden cleats were much better. Jack was the proud inventor of these shoes and insisted that they were far more satisfactory than the elaborate ones which were later devised.
Barrel Hoop Snow Shoe.
Fig. 24. Barrel Hoop Snow Shoe.
Now that Jack had shown his ingenuity, Fred thought it was his turn to do something, and after mysteriously disappearing for the space of an hour we saw him suddenly come waddling back to the shed on a pair of barrel hoops covered with heavy canvas. He had stretched the canvas so tightly across the hoops that they were bent to an oval shape. It was claimed for these shoes, and with good reason, that they were not so slippery as the barrel stave shoe, for they permitted the foot to sink slightly into the snow.
After dinner, Dutchy came back with a book of his father’s, a sort of an encyclopedia in which several different kinds of snow shoes were illustrated. Reddy, whose father owned a sawmill, volunteered to provide us with strips of hickory from which to make the frames.
The Sioux Snow Shoe.