152 DEER STALKING ON 



Indians to one who knows the habits of both. It has bold rocky 

 points, and promontories enclosing fair soft curving little bays, 

 where the woods descend with gentle slope to a narrow margent of 

 gravelly beach. It has occasional meadows on its borders which 

 are favourite summer haunts of the deer. These are dotted here 

 and there with clumps of brushwood, and usually watered by 

 some mountain brook which with soft murmurous babble empties 

 itself into a brown oily ' steady ' (still-water) flecked with yellow 

 lilies slowly winding a circuitous path towards the lake. 



The caribou come down to its shores from the neighbouring 

 barrens. All through the summer the cry of the ' twillick ', or 

 yellow-legged plover, keeps time to the lapping of the waves on its 

 rocky shores, and the rustle of the western breeze through the 

 scrubby growth of the dwarfed and ragged evergreen forest. From 

 early May to mid September, the shores of the lake swarm with 

 wild geese, and the midsummer night is filled with the discordant 

 cries of the ' wabby ', or red-throated loon, and the harsh call of the 

 great northern diver. Emphatically a lonely spot that has for 

 its background an uninhabited wilderness stretching away for 

 many a league where reigns a tense silence, save when on rare 

 occasions broken by these weird and disconsolate notes of the 

 northern solitude. 



Most enchanting can Red Indian Lake appear at times 

 either when its crystal waters array themselves in the borrowed 

 glories of sunrise or the golden splendour of sunset ; or on quiet 

 nights radiant with stars ; or when the autumn mists, reeling before 

 the sunrise into rosy shattered spirals, are moving across its surface 

 like the remnants of a defeated army, unveiling a glittering expanse 

 as smooth as glass. 



Toward September 20, stags in large numbers may be looked 

 for in the vicinity of this interesting lake which, however, is only 

 one of many other equally attractive hunting grounds. The 

 hunter has ten days before him wherein to secure his trophies ere 

 the close season shuts off his sport for a brief interim. By the 

 middle of September the southerly movement of the deer fairly 

 sets in. They will be met with after thus traversing the island 

 in their periodical migration from north to south. Should the 

 weather be rough and cold their march is accelerated. Should 

 fine and sunny days prevail the animals linger and loiter on their 

 route. 



All the great lakes of the interior lie across their path. They 

 are seen to cross them even when the waters are lashed into wild 

 fury by autumn gales, for the caribou is a gallant and tireless 

 swimmer. Now and then the bleached skeleton of a drowned 



