1 66 THE V/ILDERNESS HUNTER. 



shape might stalk out of the darkness into the 

 dim light of the embers. 



Until within a couple of days of turning our 

 faces back towards the lake we did not come 

 across any caribou, and saw but a few old 

 signs ; and we began to be fearful lest we 

 should have to return without getting any, for 

 our shoes had been cut to ribbons by the 

 sharp rocks, we were almost out of flour, and 

 therefore had but little to eat. However, our 

 perseverance was destined to be rewarded. 



The first day after reaching our final camp, 

 we hunted across a set of spurs and hollows 

 but saw nothing living ; yet we came across 

 several bear tracks, and in a deep, mossy 

 quagmire, by a spring, found where a huge 

 silver-tip had wallowed only the night before. 



Next day we started early, determined to 

 take a long walk and follow the main stream 

 up to its head, or at least above timber line. 

 The hunter struck so brisk a 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 nar- 

 row 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 hillsides, studded rather 

 sparsely with evergreens. In one of these 



