lves stout moccasins, coon-skin caps and buckskin
breeches.

Ree found time during many evenings to read again and again the few books
he had. John was less given to reading, but with much care and diligence
he managed to make a fife by boring a maple stick through from end to end
with a thin piece of iron from their cart, much of which had been carried
piece-meal to the cabin. Having natural musical talent, he learned to
play the instrument he thus fashioned, and though Ree had declared, as he
practiced, that he would surely bring the savages down upon them in war
paint, he liked the music as well as its maker.

So, for a fortnight the boys were scarcely out of sight of the cabin. The
weather was bitter cold much of that time and no Indians came near. There
at last came a day, however, when the wind blew steadily from the
southwest, bringing with it at night a cold rain. Changing to the north,
the wind turned the rain to sleet, followed by cold weather again.

"We must have snow-shoes," said Ree, when he saw what was taking place,
and the third day the boys ventured forth on such contrivances as they
had made and did finely with them on the thick, slippery crust which had
formed. Taking their rifles, they made their way through the river
valley, which, farther up the stream, became quite narrow, steep, rocky
banks rising on both sides to a height of fifty feet or more. No sooner
had they entered this canyon than they found evidences of deer and other
animals having taken shelter there.

Going quietly forward, the lads discovered four of the timid, beautiful
creatures huddled together. They went quite near before the deer leaped
away through the frozen snow, and Ree quickly brought one down. John did
better--or worse--killing one and wounding another. They secured the
skins and choice parts of the meat and hanging these in a tree for
safety, pushed on after the two which had escaped. They especially
desired to capture the doe which had been wounded, not so much for its
value, but because Ree insisted that it would be downright cruelty to let
the poor creature suffer from its injury for days, perhaps, then die at
last.

But the young hunters traveled far before again coming upon the animals
they sought. The trail took them out of the narrow valley or canyon, and
a long distance through the woods to a locality they had never before
visited, where the earth was cut by deep ravines, zig-zagging in nearly
all directions