222 BLACK ELK. 



came a solitary hunter, loaded with meat, who told 

 them that, having followed the track of a moose for 

 some distance, he had traced it to the margin of the 

 pond, but that having also discovered the foot steps 

 of two men made at the same time, he concluded 

 that the creature had been killed. Wearied with 

 the labour of the day, he sat down to rest beside 

 the pond, and looking over its surface to the dense 

 and dark forest on the opposite margin, he saw 

 a moose rise slowly from the centre of the pond, 

 and make towards the shore. In a moment his 

 gun was ready, and the animal fell. The Indian 

 further added that he considered the moose to be 

 much shyer and more difficult to take than any 

 other animal, being extremely vigilant, and having 

 his senses more acute than either the buffalo or 

 caribou ; being also fleeter than the elk, and more 

 prudent and crafty than the antelope. 



Three varieties of the North American rein-deer, 

 or Caribou, inhabit very different localities. The 

 first is known among the Canadian voyageurs as 

 the caribou des bois, or wood rein-deer; the second 

 gives animation to the dreary regions of the Rocky 

 Mountains in central North America, and is sup- 

 posed to be the mule-deer of Lewis and Clark ; the 

 third, and smallest, inhabits the islands of the Polar 

 Sea, Greenland, and the cold and pitiless shores of 

 Labrador. They differ from their brethren of the 

 ancient world, by having shorter, less concave, 

 and stronger antlers ; with these they are said to 

 remove the snow when in quest of food. Un- 

 taineable as the wilds which they inhabit, none of 

 the aborigines have yet learned to domesticate them. 



