THE MIGRATION NEARLY OVER. 79 



yet the number of caribou tracks crossing the 

 line since it fell, between Howley station and 

 Goose Lake, was very small, and so far as we 

 could learn from enquiry at the different camps, 

 no big stags had been seen during that time. 



My guide now abandoned his original idea that 

 a snowstorm would bring a number of old stags 

 across the railway line, and came to the con- 

 clusion that the autumn migration was nearly 

 over, and that, therefore, it would not be much 

 use our remaining any longer where we were. 



To my question as to whether we could not 

 get into the country to which the deer had 

 migrated, he replied that the difficulty of 

 hunting in any district, which was not either 

 adjacent to the railway or accessible by water, 

 arose from the fact that in Newfoundland no 

 pack animals could be used, and thus in a 

 journey across country all provisions and camp 

 equipment had necessarily to be carried on 

 men's backs. He told me, however, that if we 

 moved to a station about a hundred and fifty 

 miles east of Howley, he thought we could get 

 by boat to a country where no one else was 



