“I buckled on Way’s haversack, filled it with graham bread, stuck his hatchet in his belt, slung his rifle over his shoulder, and with many misgivin’s saw him disappear in the woods. After he’d left I commenced to get kind o’ nervus like, an’ wish I hadn’t let him go. Afore night I begun to feel terrible skittish about him. I lit my pipe, cleaned my gun, cut boughs and bark from the trees to make our camp more snug, an’ tried by fussin’ round to git the lad out o’ my mind; but ’twant no use—it didn’t work wuth a cent. So buryin’ the balance of our kit in the snow I started back to Chamberlin Farm by the old path and camped that night on Haymoak Lake, reaching the farm the next night.
“You will bet boys I was scared to find that Way had not got in, but I thought p’raps he was restin’ at the old log camp I had pinted out for him on the Leadbetter. John the “toter” came along the next morning from the logging camp—don’t you think, he had’nt seen a hair of him either. Wall, the way I got into them snow-shoes was a caution—the deer’s hide was gathered over my toes and heels quicker than a trout takes a fly, and I was a-slidin’ off into the woods like mad. I kept goin’ and goin’ hour arter hour, as if the devil hisself was arter me; it was the best time I ever made on snow-shoes, even on a moose track.
“At 2 o’clock I reached Way’s camp of the night before, and follerin’ his ‘sloat’ (track) I kept on arter him and in two hours saw him stumblin’ along through the snow in front o’ me like a lost sheep. I give a shout of joy, and then a wild halloo, as I dashed on arter him. But he plunged on without turnin’ a head—he did’nt seem to hear me. I hailed him agin with no better effect, ‘Somethin’s up. He’s not hisself by a long sight,’ I said to myself; an’ the way I put forrard through that snow would have done honor to a pair o’ the seven leagued boots. Jist as I come up with him, an’ was about plankin’ my paw down on his shoulder, I heerd him give a gasp, an’ then he stumbled an’ fell in a parfect heap at my feet.
“FOLLERIN HIS SLOAT—HALLOO!”
“‘Johnny! Johnny!’ says I, ‘Brace up. Hiram’s here, and yer all safe.’ But he was so far gone, he skarce knew me. To his belt was tied a partridge; but this was all the provishuns he had left, an’ with his half froze hands he could but jist hang on to his rifle. I took his gun an’ haversack, an’ goin’ before broke down the big drifts with my snow-shoes, an’ cleared a track for him to foller. But he was so weak an’ benumbed with cold, that every little while he dropped in the snow like a wounded animile, an’ begged me to let him alone.
“‘Hiram,’ he moaned, ‘I can go no further. I am so tired. I feel so sleepy. Go on yourself, an’ leave me here.’ But I warn’t a lad o’ that kind. I knew pesky well what that there sleepiness meant; it meant nothin’ less than a closin’ of eyes once an’ forever; he would have been cold, stiff, stone dead in half an hour. It didn’t take me more’n a brace o’ minutes to find a remedy for this. Whippin’ out my old knife I cut down a stick from one o’ the young trees on the road, an’ the way I laid it round that poor feller’s body would have been a sight for the chicken-hearted, I tell ye. I beat him like an old carpet until his bones were sore. I fairly warmed him, which was jist what was wanted; an’ what with whippin’, kickin’ him, an’ at times cartin’ him along on my back, we soon made mile after mile on our way.
“Those were long hours flounderin’ on through the snow; but at last we reached Chamberlin Farm, though to tell a gospel truth I felt we never would git in.
“As luck would have it there was a doctor there from East Corinth, an’ with his help we were soon at work with snow gittin’ the frost out of Johnny’s hands an’ feet, an’ pumpin’ life into him. In a week he was up an’ about, good as new, an’ hunted with us till the followin’ April afore goin’ out o’ the woods.
