He held the frayed end of a broken trace in his hand. The trouble was quite evident.
“What can we do?” asked the Bishop. “Have you any rope?”
“No. Dat’s how I been one big fool, me. I lef’ new rope on de sled las’ night on Lowville. Dis morning she’s gone. Some t’ief.”
“We must get on somehow,” said the Bishop, as he unbuckled part of the lashing from his bag and handed the strap to Arsene. “That will hold until we get to the first house where we can get the loan of a trace. We can walk behind. We’re both stiff and cold. It will do us good. Is it far?”
“Dat’s Long Tom Lansing in de hemlocks, ’bout quarter mile, maybe.” The little man looked up from his work long enough to point out a clump of hemlocks that stood out black and sharp against the white world around them. As the Bishop looked, a light peeped out from among the trees, showing where life and a home fought their battle against the desolation of the hills.
“I donno,” said Arsene speculatively, as he and the Bishop took up their tramp behind the sled; “Dat Long Tom Lansing; he don’ like Canuck. Maybe he don’ lend no harness, I donno.”
“Oh, yes; he will surely,” answered the Bishop easily. “Nobody would refuse a bit of harness in a case like this.”
It was full dark when they came to where Tom Lansing’s cabin hid itself among the hemlocks. Arsene did not dare trust his team off the road where they had footing, so the Bishop floundered his way through the heavy snow to find the cabin door.
It was a rude, heavy cabin, roughly hewn out of the hemlocks that had stood around it and belonged to a generation already past. But it was still serviceable and tight, and it was a home.