TWO DIANAS IN ALASKA 115 



birds do, the plovers of the tundras play-acted little 

 comedies of death in life to detract our attention from 

 the nesting-place. One bird flew on before me one 

 afternoon feigning to be wounded, dropping with 

 ruffled feathers, helpless, into a crumpled mass, and 

 even as I stopped to raise the piteous little heap was 

 up and off again, fluttering on stronger wing away 

 and away from the zone of her nest. 



The Lily being on the sick-list, we decided to take 

 our chance of getting a bear or so in the country round 

 about us. The creek in which we lay up was on the 

 Unimak side of Cape Rodgnof, and a serviceable 

 little river flowed down the valley to the sea. 



Prospecting round, we came on undoubted traces of 

 the former presence of caribou, numberless shed 

 antlers denoting the fact that, as our men told us, the 

 caribou in their hundreds seek this part of the pen- 

 insula in the fall of the year. Careful scrutiny of all 

 the hills around with powerful glasses failed to reveal 

 to us a caribou in the flesh, but Ned, backed up by 

 the beautiful and beneficent arrangement which 

 permits natives to kill game in and out of season, went 

 off on a shoot of his own, and spoored to some purpose, 

 for he returned with a caribou bull with the tiniest of 

 horns, protruding about four inches from the head, 

 and as soft as putty. Our hunter said he required the 

 animal for food, when I remarked that it seemed a pity 

 to kill so wantonly. Which was pretty cool of him, 

 considering that both our men had been, up to then, 

 gorging like boa-constrictors daily at our expense. 



Our idea was to camp up river some way, and 



