Hunting in the Selkirks. 153 



waters we found no caribou sign, and came back without 

 slaying anything larger than an infrequent duck or grouse. 

 The following February I made a trip on snow-shoes 

 after the same game, and with the same result. How- 

 ever, I enjoyed the trip, for the northland woods are 

 very beautiful and strange in winter, as indeed they are 

 at all other times and it was my first experience on snow- 

 shoes. I used the ordinary webbed racquets, and as the 

 snow, though very deep, was only imperfectly crusted, I 

 found that for a beginner the exercise was laborious in 

 the extreme, speedily discovering that, no matter how 

 cold it was, while walking through the windless woods I 

 stood in no need of warm clothing. But at night, espe- 

 cially when lying out, the cold was bitter. Our plan was 

 to drive in a sleigh to some logging camp, where we were 

 always received with hearty hospitality, and thence make 

 hunting trips, in very light marching order, through the 

 heart of the surrounding forest. The woods, wrapped in 

 their heavy white mantle, were still and lifeless. There 

 were a few chickadees and woodpeckers ; now and then 

 we saw flocks of red-polls, pine linnets, and large, rosy 

 grossbeaks ; and once or twice I came across a grouse or 

 white rabbit, and killed it for supper ; but this was nearly 

 all. Yet, though bird life was scarce, and though we saw 

 few beasts beyond an occasional porcupine or squirrel, 

 every morning the snow was dotted with a network 

 of trails made during the hours of darkness ; the fine 

 tracery of the footprints of the little red wood-mouse, the 

 marks which showed the loping progress of the sable, the 

 V and dot of the rabbit, the round pads of the lucivee, and 



