216 THE LABEADOR PENINSULA. CHAP. xnr. 



the smallest taint upon the air of anything human at least 

 two miles up wind of him, and unsuspected. If he takes 

 alarm and starts off on the run, no one dreams of pur- 

 suing. As well pursue the wind, of which no man knoweth 

 whence it cometh or whither it goeth. Snow-shoes against 

 him alone avail little ; for, propped up on the broad 

 natural snow-shoes of his long elastic pasterns and wide- 

 cleft clacking hoofs, he shoots over the crust of the deepest 

 drifts, unbroken, in which the lordly moose would soon 

 flounder, shoulder-deep, if hard pressed, and the graceful 

 deer would fall despairing, and bleat in vain for mercy; 

 but he, the ship of the winter wilderness, outspeeds the 

 wind among his native pines and tamucks, even as the de- 

 sert ship, the dromedary, out-trots the red simoom on the 

 terrible Sahara, and, once started, may be seen no more 

 by human eyes, nor run by fleetest foot of man no, not 

 if they pursue him from their nightly casual camps, un- 

 wearied, following his trail by the day, by the week, by 

 the month, till a fresh snow effaces his tracks and leaves 

 the hunter at the last as he was at the first of the chase, 

 less only the fatigue, the disappointment, and the folly. 



' Therefore by woodmen, whether white or red-skinned, 

 he is followed only on those rare occasions when snows 

 of unusual depth are crusted over to the very point 

 at which they will not quite support this fleet and 

 powerful stag. Then the toil is too great even for his 

 vast endurance, and he can be run down by the speed of 

 men inured to the sport and to the hardships of the 

 wilderness, but by them only. Indians by hundreds in 

 the provinces, and many loggers and hunters in the 

 Eastern States, can take and keep his trail in suitable 



