He was a mighty woodsman now, and could make a
spray of chips fly around him as he hewed his way through the
trunk of spruce-tree.
Behind these leaders followed a pair of teamsters, guiding a rude
sledge, loaded with food and the equipage of the camp, and drawn
by two big, shaggy horses, blowing thick clouds of steam from
their frosty nostrils. Tiny icicles hung from the hairs on their
lips. Their flanks were smoking. They sank above the fetlocks at
every step in the soft snow.
Last of all came the rear guard, armed with bows and javelins. It
was no child's play, in those days, to cross Europe afoot.
The weird woodland, sombre and illimitable, covered hill and vale,
tableland and mountain-peak. There were wide moors where the
wolves hunted in packs as if the devil drove them, and tangled
thickets where the lynx and the boar made their lairs. Fierce
bears lurked among the rocky passes, and had not yet learned to
fear the face of man. The gloomy recesses of the forest gave
shelter to inhabitants who were still more cruel and dangerous
than beasts of prey,--outlaws and sturdy robbers and mad
were-wolves and bands of wandering pillagers.
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