“I must do something before dark, and I must have plenty o’ grit,” he presently said. “I must keep a stout heart like a man. Pop says there’s no fix so bad a man can’t find his way out of un if he uses his head and does his best, and prays th’ Lard to help he.”
And so Andy, in simple words and briefly, said a little prayer, and then he used his head and did his best to make the prayer come true.
There was no time to be lost. The long northern twilight was already waning. Hastened by the storm, darkness would come early.
“The Injuns get caught out this way often enough, when they’re huntin’,” said Andy, by way of self-comfort. “They finds a way to make out. They just gets a place in th’ lee, where th’ wind can’t strike un, and puts on a good fire. That’s all they ever does. But,” he continued doubtfully, “they’re used to un, and I never stopped out without a tent, _what_ever.”
Bivouacking in a blizzard, with a thirty-degrees-below temperature and no blankets or other protection, was an emergency Andy had never before been called upon to meet. Now he turned to it uncertainly.
Reconnoitering he discovered, near at hand, a large fallen tree, partly covered by the snow. Close to the butt of the fallen tree stood a big, thickly foliaged spruce tree, the outer ends of its branches bending so low that the tips were enveloped by the deep snow.
“’Twill make a shelter, _what_ever!” exclaimed Andy, encouraged. “A little fixin’, and maybe ’twon’t be so bad, in under the branches. They’ll make a cover from the snow.”
With his ax he at once cut off the limbs of the spruce tree on the side next the fallen trunk. This made an opening that would serve as a door. Under the arching branches was a circular space, thatched above by foliage. Removing one of his snowshoes, and utilizing it as a shovel, he cleared the space of snow. Then donning his snowshoes again he cut several branches, which he thatched upon the overhanging limbs of the tree, thus increasing the protection of his cover from fresh drift. This done, he banked snow high against the branches around the entire circle, save at the opening facing the fallen tree.
Now breaking a quantity of boughs and arranging them as a floor for his improvised shelter, he made a comfortable bed.