ven his arms seemed to him pithless. He sank
to his place hard-breathed, exhausted. It was some minutes before he
could look about him calmly.

The first object to catch his eye was the cardinal red of a moose-maple,
like a spot of blood on velvet-green. And thus he knew that September,
or the Many-caribou-in-the-woods Moon, was close at hand.

"Hi!" he called.

May-may-gwan came as before, but without the look of expectation in her
eyes.

"Bring me wood of mashkigiwateg, wood of tamarack," he commanded; "bring
me mokamon, the knife, and tschi-mokamon, the large knife; bring the
hide of ah-tek, the caribou."

"These things are ready, at hand," she replied.

With the _couteau croche_, the crooked knife of the North, Dick laboured
slowly, fashioning with care the long tamarack strips. He was
exceedingly particular as to the selection of the wood, as to the taper
of the pieces. At last one was finished to his satisfaction. Slowly then
he fashioned it, moulding the green wood, steaming it to make it more
plastic, until at last the ends lay side by side, and the loop of wood
bowed above in the shape of a snow-shoe raquette. The exact shape Dick
still further assured by means of two cross-pieces. These were bound in
place by the strips of the caribou-skin rawhide wet in warm water, which
was also used to bind together the two ends. The whole was then laid
aside to dry.

Thus in the next few days Dick fashioned the frame of six snow-shoes. He
adhered closely to the Ojibway pattern. In these woods it was not
necessary to have recourse to the round, broad shape of the rough
bowlder-hills, nor was it possible to use the long, swift shoe of the
open plains. After a while he heated red the steel end of his rifle
cleaning-rod and bored holes for the webbing. This also he made of
caribou rawhide, for caribou shrinks when wet, thus tightening the
lacing where other materials would stretch. Above and below the
cross-pieces he put in a very fine weaving; between them a coarser, that
the loose snow might readily sift through. Each strand he tested again
and again; each knot he made doubly sure.

Nor must it be imagined that he did these things alone. May-may-gwan
helped him, not only by fetching for him the tools and materials, of
which he stood in need, but also in the bending, binding, and webbing
itself. Under the soft light of the trees, bathed in the aroma of fresh
shavings and the hundred natural odours of the forest, it