150 The Wilderness Hunter. 



object, and using every caution not to slip on the hem- 

 lock needles, nor to strike a stone or break a stick with our 

 feet. The sign was very fresh, and when still half a mile or 

 so from the bottom we at last came on three bull caribou. 

 Instantly the hunter crouched down, while I ran noise- 

 lessly forward behind the shelter of a big hemlock trunk 

 until within fifty yards of the grazing and unconscious 

 quarry. They were feeding with their heads up-hill, but so 

 greedily that they had not seen us ; and they were rather 

 difficult to see themselves, for their bodies harmonized 

 well in color with the brown tree-trunks and lichen-cov- 

 ered boulders. The largest, a big bull with a good but 

 by no means extraordinary head, was nearest. As he 

 stood fronting me with his head down I fired into his neck, 

 breaking the bone, and he turned a tremendous back 

 somersault. The other two halted a second in stunned 

 terror ; then one, a yearling, rushed past us up the valley 

 down which we had come, while the other, a large bull 

 with small antlers, crossed right in front of me, at a canter, 

 his neck thrust out, and his head so coarse-looking com- 

 pared to the delicate outlines of an elk's turned towards 

 me. His movements seemed clumsy and awkward, utterly 

 unlike those of a deer ; but he handled his great hoofs 

 cleverly enough, and broke into a headlong, rattling gal- 

 lop as he went down the hillside, crashing through the 

 saplings and leaping over the fallen logs. There was a 

 spur a little beyond, and up this he went at a swinging 

 trot, halting when he reached the top, and turning to look 

 at me once more. He was only a hundred yards away ; 

 and though I had not intended to shoot him (for his head 



