242 THE DRAMA OF THE FORESTS 



discovered a band of caribou quietly sunning themselves on a 

 large muskeg. 



"Some were feeding, others were lying down, fawns were 

 scampering about in play, and young bulls were thrusting at 

 each other with their prong-like horns. There were over a 

 hundred in all. I watched them for some time before I was dis- 

 covered by seven young bulls, and as they were nearest me, 

 they stopped in their play, left the others, and came down wind 

 to investigate the strange two-legged creature that also wore a 

 caribou skin. 



"With heads held high and expanded nostrils quivering in 

 readiness to catch scent of danger, they came on very slowly 

 yet not without a great deal of high stepping and of prancing, 

 with a sort of rhythmical dancing motion. Every now and then 

 they threw their heads down, then up, and then held them rigid 

 again. They were brave enough to come within sixty or 

 seventy paces and even a httle closer. But as ill luck ordained, 

 while I was waiting for a better chance to bring down one of 

 them with my old flint-lock, they caught scent of me, and sud- 

 denly falling back — almost upon their haunches — as though 

 they had been struck upon the head, they wheeled round, then 

 fled in alarm to the main body. Then, as caribou usually do, 

 the whole band began leaping three or four feet into the air — 

 much as they sometimes do when hit by a bullet. Then, too, 

 with tails up they swept away at full gallop and, entering the 

 forest beyond, were lost to view. 



"It was a great disappointment, my son, and I became so 

 disheartened that I made but a poor attempt to trail them 

 that day. That evening, when I lay down to rest upon the edge 

 of a muskeg, the moon was already shining; and by midnight 

 the cold was so intense that the frost-bitten trees went off with 

 such bangs that I was startled out of my slumber. It was then 

 that I discovered a pack of eight wolves silently romping about 

 in the snow of the muskeg — just hke a lot of young dogs. 



