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A Caribou Hunt 



How many goodly creatures are there here ! 



—The Tempest. 



A BRIGHT morning in one September found me on 

 my way for a caribou hunt in the pine woods of 

 Maine. The train had reached Boston and I was 

 about stepping from the sleeper when a sudden kink 

 in my back warned me that there was trouble ahead 

 for Thomas. In plainer words, I felt it in my bones, 

 or rather muscles, that my hete noire, the lumbago, 

 was about to pay me a visit. In one respect that 

 wily disease resembles the rattle-snake — it doesn't 

 use its fangs without warning ; but it is very unlike 

 the rattler in another respect; when its warning 

 does come, its fangs are sure to come with it. 



From Boston to Greenville, Maine, towards which 

 we were traveling, is a ride of nine hours, and during 

 that time the lumbago had been grinding its fangs 

 into my lumbar regions and twisting my backbone 

 till its owner's contour looked something like the 

 letter S. 



On reaching Greenville I decided that I must adopt 

 some heroic measure, and do it quickly, or the bottom 

 would be knocked out of my caribou hunt. Expe- 



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