152 AN OLD-TIME CARIBOU HUNT 



converted into a percussion cap gun. We found 

 several families of Indians at the camping 

 ground , and there were two or three others near 

 at hand. We were about four miles from the 

 range where the caribou were feeding, and pre- 

 parations had already been made to round them 

 up by having a lot of small black spruce trees 

 planted near the entrance of a lake, about three 

 miles long. Gaps had been left here and there 

 about one hundred yards wide, at each of which 

 a hunter was to be stationed, forming, when the 

 inlet would be closed, a regular pound, the cor- 

 ral of the West. We had to wait two days for 

 suitable weather strong wind and snow. Be- 

 fore daylight the leaders were off, and the balance 

 were stationed by old Pierre near the inlet and 

 on the sides of the pound. The idea was for the 

 leading hunters to get beyond the caribou, and 

 coming back on them, drive them down to the 

 inlet, and so on to the lake, which they would 

 naturally make for, to escape the deep snow. 

 The hunters driving the caribou were to shoot all 

 they could in the drive, but those stationed at 

 the inlet were not to fire a shot before the last 

 caribou of the herd had gone past them, which 

 would thus place the whole herd in a circle of 

 about six hundred yards wide. It was a well ar- 

 ranged plan. I was the second gun at the inlet, 

 with my brother next to me. At about an hour 

 after daylight we began to hear the first shots 



