With a whoop the three boys fell on the stockings. Entering into the spirit of the occasion they seated themselves on the floor in front of the fire and pulled out the contents as gleefully as ever they had emptied Christmas stockings at home in their younger days. The gifts were trifling in themselves, but the better for that very fact. There were little packages of spruce-gum, a carved paper-knife, a tiny birch-bark canoe, whistles made from buck's horn, a rabbit's foot charm, and other knickknacks of the woods. Pat's voice broke into the midst of the babel produced by the discovery of the socks and their contents. "Five minutes for those who want breakfast," he announced.
Instantly there was a mad scramble to finish dressing and when time was up it was evident that no one proposed to go hungry that Christmas morning. During the meal it was decided that Alec should remain at camp to prepare for the grand feast while the others went in search of rabbits. Walter and Hal, knowing the surrounding country, were to go each on his own hook while Pat would take Sparrer with him. Just before starting the two former held a whispered conference. They had brought in with them a few gifts for Pat and his partner and also some small packages which the home folks had pledged them not to open until Christmas day. At Hal's suggestion it was decided to say nothing about these until night and spring them as a surprise at the Christmas tree on which Hal had set his heart.
As Pat had foreseen, there was a crust on which the shoes made no impression. Hal elected to go down the north side of the brook while Upton took the opposite side. Pat and Sparrer were to visit a certain swamp not far distant. All were to be back at the cabin by eleven o'clock.
To Upton the tramp in that wonderful wilderness of glistening white meant far more than the hunt. As a matter of fact the very thought of killing anything amid such pure surroundings was repugnant to him. To this feeling a big white hare which foolishly sat up to stare at him within fifteen minutes after he had left the cabin undoubtedly owed its life. Slowly the rifle had been raised until the sights rested squarely between the two innocent staring eyes. Then it had been as slowly lowered. "I can't do it, puss. The others will get all we need to eat, I guess, so suppose you remove your pretty self from the range of temptation," said he, taking a sudden forward step. Thereupon puss promptly acted upon his advice, and so precipitately that Upton laughed aloud. "Merry Christmas!" he shouted as the bounding white form disappeared.
That decided him. His heart was not in hunting that morning. What he did want to do was just to tramp and drink in the beauty of the wonderful scene. His rifle was a nuisance. He wished that he had not brought it at all. Why not cache it and pick it up on his way back? A hasty survey of his surroundings discovered a fire blackened hollow stub split its full length on one side. It was the very thing he was looking for. It was a landmark he could not very well miss on his return. He put his rifle in it, tightened his belt, and then deliberately turned his back on the valley and headed for the top of the ridge. He was in quest of views, and not of game.
Climbing a ridge on a snow crust is no child's play, as Walter soon found out. It sometimes seemed as if he slipped back two feet for every one he gained. He tried taking off the shoes, only to find that in sheltered places he broke through and was worse off than on the slipping shoes. But he was grimly resolved that he would get to the top of the ridge, cost him what it might. It was characteristic of the boy that what he set out to do he did. So he ground his teeth and kept at it, slipping, scrambling, pulling himself up by brush and trees. After a little he discovered that by zigzagging back and forth along the face of the slope and taking advantage of every little inequality he could make fairly good progress.
Still it took an hour and a half of strenuous work to gain the coveted top of the ridge, and he was thoroughly winded and weary, to say nothing of sundry bruises and scratches from frequent falls. Panting and perspiring he turned to look back. Below him lay Smugglers' Hollow, but how different from the Hollow into which he had gazed for the first time in September! It was not less lonely or less wild. In fact if anything these features were accentuated. The mountains which seemed to enclose it on all sides were no less heroically grand and rugged, but they had been robbed in a measure of their forbidding, somber gloom by the transforming mantle of snow. The heavy stand of spruce on the opposite mountain no longer cloaked it with the shadows of night like a perpetual threat of evil. Each tree was a pyramid of myriad gems flashing in the sun.
He could trace the course of the frozen brook through the heart of the Hollow, a ribbon of white, smooth and unbroken, between the fringe of alders on either side. He could see the cabin, or rather the roof and eaves, for the cabin itself was nearly buried in a drift. From the chimney a thin pencil of blue smoke rose straight up in the still air. It was the one thing needed. It in no way marred the grandeur of the scene, but it saved it from utter desolation. Something of this sort flitted vaguely through Upton's mind. Then he heard the faint crack of a rifle on the opposite side of the Hollow, followed by two more cracks. The smoke and the sound of the rifle removed the last vestige of temporary depression which the grandeur of the scene and the utter silence of the vast solitude had tended to produce.
"Hal's got into a bunch of 'em or else his shooting eye is off," he chuckled and turned to scan the ridge he was on to the west. It presented a broken line of low peaks. One slightly higher than the rest marked the place where the pass to the Hollow entered. It was the hill from which the Lost Trail party had first looked into Smugglers' Hollow, and the view from the summit was more complete than from the point Walter now occupied.
"I'd like to get up there," he thought, "but it's a little too much of an undertaking on this crust. Besides, it would make me late for dinner. Hello! Wonder what that is."