346 A BOOK-LOVER S HOLIDAYS 



spruce spires; on the mountain crests the 

 pointed spruces made a serrated line against 

 the sky. Arthur and I paddled off across the 

 lake in the light canoe we had been carrying. 

 We had hardly shoved off from shore before 

 we saw a caribou swimming in the middle of 

 the lake. It was a young cow, and doubtless 

 had never before seen a man. The canoe much 

 excited its curiosity. A caribou, thanks prob 

 ably to its peculiar pelage, is a very buoyant 

 swimmer. Unlike the moose, this caribou had 

 its whole back, and especially its rump, well 

 out of water; the short tail was held erect, 

 and the white under-surface glinted whenever 

 the swimmer turned away from us. At first, 

 however, it did not swim away, being too much 

 absorbed in the spectacle of the canoe. It kept 

 gazing toward us with its ears thrown forward, 

 wheeling to look at us as lightly and readily 

 as a duck. We passed it at a distance of some 

 seventy-five yards, whereupon it took fright 

 and made off, leaving a wake like a paddle- 

 wheel steamer and, when it landed, bouncing 

 up the bank with a great splashing of water 

 and cracking of bushes. A caribou swims even 

 better than a moose, but whereas a moose not 

 only feeds by preference in the water, but half 

 the time has its head under water, the caribou 



