560 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



they were attached into the center of a herd and how the dogs and 

 some of the men were uncomfortably situated as a consequence. 

 But I know from experience in both places, and so must every 

 one else who shares it, that cowboys on the large ranges of twenty 

 and thirty years ago were frequently in more danger from half' 

 wild "domestic" cattle than any of our party have ever been from 

 ovibos. 



The day after killing the bull and cow we remained in camp to 

 rest the dogs and repair our snowshoes. The going was passable 

 along the coast but for hunting parallel to the sled's course inland 

 it was difficult to keep up unless you had snowshoes, for you sank 

 to the knee at every step. 



I have explained elsewhere how caribou meat is never tough 

 because caribou never get old. Just as the domestic calf can run 

 faster than the cow, so can fawns, and the yearlings run faster than 

 the older animals, and year by year their speed lessens. It is al- 

 ways the old animals that lag behind when the band is fleeing from 

 wolves, and probably where wolves are numerous few caribou live 

 to be more than from five to seven years old. But it is otherwise 

 with ovibos, except as newborn calves or single stragglers from 

 the herd. The older they are the more powerful and the more 

 difficult to wound through the thickness of hide and hair and wool. 

 Their safety from wolves increases as they get older up to the 

 point of actual decrepitude when they lose their instinct of follow- 

 ing the herd and allow themselves to be surrounded and killed. 

 It follows that big animals such as the ones I had killed are tough. 

 The bull was in beautiful condition, giving fifty or sixty pounds 

 of clear fat from the outside of his carcass, chiefly from the neck 

 and back, and ten or fifteen pounds of intestinal and kidney fat. 

 The cow was in good condition although less fat, and the meat of 

 both was excellent in flavor. 



Before we landed on Lougheed Island we had been saving 

 about three-quarters of a gallon of kerosene, doing our cooking 

 mainly with caribou fat up to the point of finding the huge drift 

 log on Borden Island. This had been thoroughly rotten except 

 some of the roots, but they had given fuel to take us nearly to 

 Melville Island. Then for a few days we had cooked with kero- 

 sene but now we turned to ovibos fat to save a quart of kerosene that 

 still remained. We thought we might want it badly to burn for light 

 in a lantern in case the Bear had not reached Melville Island. As 

 an indoors light tallow and seal oil will do very well, but for signal 



