Indeed, we were obliged to work fast to keep warm.
Addison and I then stuck our axes in a log and went on the snow crust up to the foot of a mountain, about half a mile distant, where the hardwood growth gave place to spruce.

We wanted to dig a pocketful of spruce gum.
For several days Ellen and Theodora had been asking us to get them some nice "purple" gum.
As we were going from one spruce to another, Addison stopped suddenly and pointed to a little round hole with hard ice about it, near a large, overhanging rock across which a tree had fallen.

"Sh!" he exclaimed.

"I believe that's a bear's breath-hole!" We reconnoitered the place at a safe distance.

"That may be Old Three Paws himself," Addison said.