Now that Jack had shown his ingenuity, Fred thought it was his turn to do something, and after mysteriously disappearing for the space of an hour we saw him suddenly come waddling back to the shed on a pair of barrel hoops covered with heavy canvas. He had stretched the canvas so tightly across the hoops that they were bent to an oval shape. It was claimed for these shoes, and with good reason, that they were not so slippery as the barrel stave shoe, for they permitted the foot to sink slightly into the snow.

Fig. 22. Fig. 23. Fig. 24.

Chair Seat Barrel Stave Snow Shoe. Barrel Hoop

Snow Shoe.

After dinner, Dutchy came back with a book of his father's, a sort of an encyclopedia in which several different kinds of snow shoes were illustrated. Reddy, whose father owned a sawmill, volunteered to provide us with strips of hickory from which to make the frames.