they feared, caring for nothing but the
actual safety of the lives in the household. She brought him his coat
and cap and also a man's moccasins and snow-shoes. With a courage that,
because somewhat shy and trembling, evoked all the more his admiration,
she untied the first knot of his rope, unwound the coil, and then untied
the last knot. The process was slow because of the trembling of her
fingers, which he felt but could not see. She stood resolute, making him
dress for the storm upon the threshold of the door. He did not know how
to strap on the snow-shoes. She watched his first attempt with great
curiosity; looking up, he was made the more determined to succeed with
them by seeing the pain of incredulity returning to her eyes.

'How do you expect me to know how to manage things that I have never
handled in my life before?'

'But if you don't know how to put them on how can you walk in them?'

'I have seen men walk in them, and there are a great many things we can
do when something depends upon it.'

She directed him how to cross and tie the straps; she continued to watch
him, increasing anxiety betraying itself in her face.

The snow was so light that even the snow-shoes sank some four or five
inches. It was just below the porch that he had tied his straps, and
when he first moved forward he trod with one shoe on the top of the
other. He had not expected this; he felt that no further progress was
within the bounds of possibility. For some half minute he stood, his
back to the door, his face turned to the illimitable region of drifts
and feathery air, unable to conceive how to go forward and without a
thought of turning back. When his pulses were surging and tingling with
the discomfort of her gaze, he heard the door shut sharply. Perhaps she
thought that he was shamming and was determined not to yield again;
perhaps--and this seemed even worse--she had been overcome in the midst
of her stern responsibility by the powers of laughter; perhaps, horrid
thought, she had gone for Morin to bid him again throw the noose over
his treacherous shoulders. The last thought pricked him into motion. By
means of his reason he discovered that if he was to make progress at all
the rackets must not overlap one another as he trod; his next effort was
naturally to walk with his feet so wide apart that the rackets at their
broadest could not interfere. The result was that in a few moments he
became like a miniature Colossus of Rhod