“O, they cut down a large pine-tree, and then cut it up into very short logs, and then split the logs into thin pieces, very wide. Then they take these pieces, and shave them smooth. We looked into the hut, but the man was not there. His shave was there, and there was a great pile of shavings; and the horse was in one corner.”
“Yes,” replied Dorothy, “and we went in and sat down on the shavings to rest ourselves.”
“How came the man to leave his horse there?” said Royal.
“Why, he was coming back again in the morning, and so he left his horse and his tools. There was nobody about there to steal them. It would have been a great deal of trouble to have taken his horse home every night.”
“And what did he have to eat?” said Royal—“shavings?”
Dorothy laughed, and said there was nothing else for him to eat, and that, in fact, he looked as if he lived upon shavings.
“We staid here a few minutes to rest,” continued Dorothy, “and then we concluded that we would make ourselves some snow-shoes.”
“What are snow-shoes?” asked Lucy.
“They are large, flat things to put under your feet to keep your feet from sinking into the snow. They make them in different ways; but we were going to make ours of the broad and thin pieces of pine which had been split out for shingles. So we began to look about before the hut for some pieces which were of the right size.”