HIDDEN GUNS
By Henry W. Patterson
Never within the memory of the oldest voyageur had there been such a snowfall in the Trois Lacs country. During the latter part of December and all through January the gray clouds hung low over the tree-tops, pouring down their load of fine crystals with sullen persistency, while the north wind, sweeping through the forest, piled the flying flakes high against all obstacles, driving them firmly into each crack and crevice.
The two trappers on Cañon Creek fought the drifts for many days in an effort to keep their lines clear. At last, however, when they woke one fearfully cold morning to find not only the north window but also the doorway on the other side of the little cabin covered with hard-packed drifts that rose clear to the peak of the squat roof, they laid aside their spruce-wood shovels with a sigh of resignation and relief.
Jim Henderson, gnarled and grizzled by years of life in the wilderness, dug a narrow tunnel to daylight. While he went to the creek and chopped the water-hole clear of ice, his partner, a young tenderfoot named Nick Hartley, cleared the snow from the wood-pile and sent a good number of dry logs down the slanting chute into the cabin. The men then made a final round of the traps and lifted those not already frozen and too deeply buried. Thereafter the daily trip for water and more infrequent attacks on the wood-pile were the only breaks in the dull routine of eating and sleeping.
During the first few days the partners loafed about, enjoying to the full the perfect relaxation that comes with the knowledge that work is for the time being not only futile but practically impossible.
Time passed slowly, however, and gradually the atmosphere of content began to change to one of restlessness. Nick, who had never before been snowed up, was the first to feel the irritability that generally accompanies a long period of enforced inactivity. One morning as he crept down the tunnel behind a pile of firewood he said—
“Seems to me you picked a punk place to build this cabin—right under a bank and only open on the south, where any fool ought to know a north wind’d drift worst.”
Henderson knew very well that he had made a mistake in picking the spot, but he did not care to have the fact called to his attention.
“Oh, I did, did I?” he flared in sudden heat. “Well, it’s comf’table, ain’t it? I ain’t noticed you packin’ up yet. Durned glad to come in here, you was, last Fall. If you don’t like it you know what you can do—an’ where you can go, too!”