Of course their talk was chiefly of home, and of the mother who had been the sun and the joy of their existence up to that sad day when they were lost in the snow, and naturally they conversed of the Bible, and the hymns which their mother had made the chief objects of their contemplation on the Sabbaths they had spent at Fort Enterprise.
Monday was as bad as Sunday in regard to weather, but Tuesday dawned bright and calm, so that our wanderers were enabled to resume their avocations. The snow-shoes were put in order, the sled was overhauled and mended, and more fish were caught and hung up to dry. In the evening Roy loaded his gun with ball, put on his snow-shoes, and sallied forth alone to search for deer. He carried with him several small pieces of line wherewith to make rabbit snares; for, the moment the snow fell, innumerable tracks revealed the fact that there were thousands of rabbits in that region. Nelly, meanwhile, busied herself in putting the hut in order, and in repairing the mocassins which would be required for the journey home.
Lest any reader should wonder where our heroine found materials for all the mending and repairing referred to, we may remark that the Indians in the wilderness were, and still are, supplied with needles, beads, cloth, powder and shot, guns, axes, etcetera, etcetera, by the adventurous fur-traders, who penetrate deep and far into the wilderness of North America; and when Nelly and Roy ran away from their captors they took care to carry with them an ample supply of such things as they might require in their flight.
About half a mile from the hut Roy set several snares. He had often helped his father in such work, and knew exactly how to do it. Selecting a rabbit-track at a spot where it passed between two bushes, he set his snare so that it presented a loop in the centre of the path. This loop was fastened to the bough of a tree bent downwards, and so arranged that it held fast to a root in the ground; when a rabbit should endeavour to leap or force through it, he would necessarily pull away the fastening that held it down, and the bough would spring up and lift the hapless creature by the neck off the ground.
Having set half-a-dozen such snares, Roy continued his march in search of deer-tracks. He was unsuccessful, but to his surprise he came suddenly on the huge track of a bear! Being early in the season this particular bruin had not yet settled himself into his winter quarters, so Roy determined to make a trap for him. He had not much hope of catching him, but resolved to try, and not to tell Nelly of his discovery until he should see the result.
Against the face of a cliff he raised several huge stones so as to form a sort of box, or cave, or hole, the front of which was open, the sides being the stones referred to, and the back the cliff. Then he felled a tree as thick as his waist, which stood close by, and so managed that it fell near to his trap. By great exertions, and with the aid of a wooden lever prepared on the spot, he rolled this tree—when denuded of its branches—close to the mouth of the trap. Next he cut three small pieces of stick in such a form that they made a trigger—something like the figure 4—on which the tree might rest. On the top of this trigger he raised the tree-stem, and on the end of the trigger, which projected into the trap, he stuck a piece of dried fish, so that when the bear should creep under the stem and touch the bait, it would disarrange the trigger, set it off, and the heavy stem would fall on bruin’s back. As he knew, however, that bears were very strong, he cut several other thick stems, and piled them on the first to give it additional weight.
All being ready, and the evening far advanced, he returned to the hut to supper.