zingly. 'I ought to have warned you not to walk too much in
them at first.'

'And is there no cure?' asked Arthur, somewhat sharply.

'Peter Logan would scarify your foot with a gun-flint, that is, if the
pain were bad enough. Do you feel as if the bones were broken, and
grinding together across the instep?'

But Arthur could not confess to his experiences being so bad as this.
Only a touch of the _mal de raquette_, that was all. Just a-paying for
his footing in snow-shoes.

CHAPTER XX.

THE ICE-SLEDGE.

Sam Holt had long fixed the first snow as the limit of his stay. He had
built his colossal shoes in order to travel as far as Greenock on them,
and there take the stage, which came once a week to that boundary of
civilisation and the post.

Two or three days of the intensest frost intervened between the first
snow and the Thursday on which the stage left Greenock. Cedar Pond was
stricken dead--a solid gleaming sheet of stone from shore to shore. A
hollow smothered gurgle far below was all that remained of the life of
the streams; and nightly they shrank deeper, as the tremendous winter in
the air forced upon them more ice, and yet more.

Notwithstanding the roaring fires kept up in the shanty chimney, the
stinging cold of the night made itself felt through the unfinished
walls. For want of boards, the necessary interior wainscoting had never
been put up. The sight of the frozen pond suggested to Mr. Holt a plan
for easily obtaining them. It was to construct an ice-boat, such as he
had seen used by the Indians: to go down to the 'Corner' on skates,
lade the ice-boat with planks, and drive it before them back again.

Arthur, who hailed with delight any variety from the continual chopping,
entered into the scheme with ardour. Robert would have liked it well
enough, but he knew that two persons were quite sufficient for the
business; he rather connived at the younger brother's holidays; he must
abide by the axe.

One board, about nine feet long, remained from Arthur's attempts at
'slabbing.' This Mr. Holt split again with wedges, so as to reduce it
considerably in thickness, and cut away from the breadth till it was
only about twenty inches wide. The stoutest rope in the shanty stores
was fastened to it fore and aft, and drawn tightly to produce a curve
into boat shape, and a couple of cross pieces of timber were nailed to
the sides as a sort of balustrade and reinforcement to the rope. The
ice-sledge w