This shoe possessed the disadvantage of being too flat and of picking up
too much snow when used.
[Illustration: Fig. 22. Chair Seat Snow Shoe.]
Barrel Stave Snow Shoe.
Another pair of shoes was made from barrel staves. At first one stave
was made to serve for a shoe, but we found that two staves fastened
together with a pair of wooden cleats were much better. Jack was the
proud inventor of these shoes and insisted that they were far more
satisfactory than the elaborate ones which were later devised.
[Illustration: Fig. 23. Barrel Stave Snow Shoe.]
Barrel Hoop Snow Shoe.
[Illustration: Fig. 24. Barrel Hoop Snow Shoe.]
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.
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.
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