"If there's any sign of the storm letting up by noon, we'll clear out and take our chances of finding Uncle Caleb's shack before night-time," he was told.
"And as the snow's so deep," Toby rattled on, "what's to hinder me from trying my bully snow-shoes?"
"Nothing that I know of," Elmer remarked; "only I'm afraid you won't find the going as easy as you expect."
"I won't, eh? What's the reason?" asked Toby, who always wanted to be shown.
"You're a new beginner, in the first place, and a knowledge of how to walk on snow-shoes is something that's got to be gained by experience. I've been on them up in Canada; and they had to dig me out lots of times before I learned how to stand straight. If once you slip it's good-bye to you. Down your head goes, and you can't get up alone because of the clumsy big shoes. They always carry a long stick to keep from taking these headers, especially when going it alone."
"Anything else?" asked the aspiring one, as he took up the pair of splendid snow-shoes Uncle Caleb had sent him, and made as if to secure his toe in place with the thong intended for that purpose.
"Yes, there's another thing that will make it doubly hard," Elmer informed him. "Dry snow like this is the toughest kind to walk over. When hunters go after deer or moose on snow-shoes they always pick a time after a thaw, when a return of the cold has frozen the wet surface of the deep snow. Over this thin ice they can run three times as fast as the poor deer, which breaks through with every jump, and flounders almost helplessly."
"That sounds almost like plain murder, do you know," Lil Artha vehemently declared, frowning at the idea.
"Well, if you were hungry, and that was the only way to get near a venison mebbe you wouldn't feel so particular," George told him. "I know right now that I wish a splendid buck was doing some of that same floundering near us, and Elmer had a chance to settle his hash for him. It'd sure do me a heap of good just to know we had enough grub for a week, and then some."
"That's a forbidden subject, George," remonstrated Elmer, who wanted to get the minds of his chums directed in more pleasant channels; "let's all get together and compare notes about direction. I said I had a plan, but then I might be off my base, and some of you could correct me. Four heads are better than one all the time."