Hunting in the Selkirks 175 



chosen by blacktail deer. The caribou droppings 

 were also very plentiful; and there were signs of 

 where they had browsed on the blueberry bushes, 

 cropping off the berries, and also apparently of 

 where they had here and there plucked a mouthful 

 of a peculiar kind of moss, or cropped off some 

 little mushrooms. But the beasts themselves had 

 evidently left the hemlock ridge, and we went on. 



We were much pleased at finding the sign in open 

 timber, where the ground was excellent for still- 

 hunting; for in such thick forest as we had passed 

 through, it would have been by mere luck only that 

 we could have approached game. 



After a little while the valley became so high 

 that the large timber ceased, and there were only 

 occasional groves of spindling evergreens. Beyond 

 the edge of the big timber was a large boggy tract, 

 studded with little pools; and here again we found 

 plenty of caribou tracks. A caribou has an enormous 

 foot, bigger than a cow's, and admirably adapted for 

 traveling over snow or bogs; hence they can pass 

 through places where the long, slender hoofs of 

 moose or deer, or the round hoofs of elk, would let 

 their owners sink at once ; and they are very difficult 

 to kill by following on snowshoes a method much 

 in vogue among the brutal game butchers for slaugh- 

 tering the more helpless animals. Spreading out his 

 great hoofs, and bending his legs till he walks al- 

 most on the joints, a caribou will travel swiftly over 



