out of the way. They were all very much puzzled.

"It's worse than one of Laddie's queer riddles," said Daddy Bunker, when
he and Grandpa Ford came back from having searched in several of the
rooms.

They listened for a while longer, but the noise was not heard again, and
then it was time to go to bed. The wind sprang up again and the clouds
seemed to promise more snow. And, surely enough, in the morning, the
white flakes were falling thick and fast.

"They'll cover up our snow man," said Laddie to Russ.

"Never mind. I know how we can have more fun," said the older boy.

"How?"

"I'll make some snowshoes for us, and we can walk without sinking down
in the snow."

"How can you do that?"

"Oh, I'll show you. I started to make 'em before, but I forgot about it.
Now I will."

And, when breakfast was over, and the four older children had been
warmly wrapped and allowed to go out to play in the storm, Russ led
Laddie to the barn.

"We'll make the snowshoes there," he said. "I have everything all
ready."

Laddie saw a pile of barrel staves--the long, thin pieces of wood of
which barrels are made, where his brother had stacked them. Russ also
had some pieces of rope, a hammer and some nails, and some long poles.

"What are they for?" asked Laddie, pointing to the poles.

"That's to take hold of and help yourself along. It's awful hard to walk
on snowshoes--real ones, I mean. And, maybe, it'll be harder to walk on
the barrel kind I'm going to make."

Then Russ began making the snowshoes.

CHAPTER XVIII

ON SKATES

You have probably all seen pictures of regular snowshoes, even if you
have not seen real snowshoes, so you know how much like big lawn-tennis
rackets they look. Snowshoes are broad and flat, and fasten on outside
of one's regular shoes, so a person can walk on the soft snow, or on the
hard crust, without sinking down in.

The Indians used to make snowshoes by bending a frame of wood into
almost the shape of a tennis racket--except it had no long handle--and
then stretching pieces of the skins of animals across this.

"But I'm not going to make that kind," said Russ.

"What kind are you going to make?" asked Laddie as he watched his
brother.

"Oh, mine's going to be easier than that."

Russ took a long, thin barrel stave, that was curved up a little on
either end. To the middle of the stave he tacked some pieces of rope and
string.

"That's to tie the shoe to your foot," he exp