Hunting in the Selkirks. 147 



pace, plunging through thickets and leaping from log to 

 log in the slashes of fallen timber, and from boulder to 

 boulder in crossing the rock-slides, that I could hardly 

 keep up to him, struggle as I would, and we each of us 

 got several ugly tumbles, saving our rifles at the expense 

 of scraped hands and bruised bodies. We went up one 

 side of the stream, intending to come down the other ; 

 for the forest belt was narrow enough to hunt thoroughly. 

 For two or three hours we toiled through dense growth, 

 varied by rock-slides, and once or twice by marshy tracts, 

 where water oozed and soaked through the mossy hilt 

 sides, studded rather sparsely with evergreens. In one 

 of these places we caught a glimpse of an animal which 

 the track showed to be a wolverine. 



Then we came to a spur of open hemlock forest ; and 

 no sooner had we entered it than the hunter stopped and 

 pointed exultingly to a well-marked game trail, in which 

 it was easy at a glance to discern the great round foot- 

 prints of our quarry. We hunted carefully over the spur 

 and found several trails, generally leading down along the 

 ridge ; we also found a number of beds, some old and 

 some recent, usually placed where the animal could keep 

 a lookout for any foe coming up from the valley. They 

 were merely slight hollows or indentations in the pine- 

 needles ; and, like the game trails, were placed in locali- 

 ties similar to those that would be 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 ap- 

 parently of where they had here and there plucked a 



