122 THE WILDERNESS OF THE UPPER YUKON 



sible without coming in plain sight of the sheep, and in 

 the hope that they might feed upward toward me was 

 obliged to wait patiently until they should rise. It would 

 have been trying to the patience to have waited, as I did 

 for three hours on that bleak slope, had not the wilder- 

 ness given up to my eyes one of those rare sights which 

 ever after haunts the memory. 



Directly below the vast timbered area, cut with canons 

 and dotted with small lakes, extended in rolling ridges to, 

 and beyond, the river. The deep valley of Husky Dog 

 Creek was plainly in view, winding upward to a large 

 lake a thousand feet above the river's dancing riffles 

 which, as the current raced over its stony bottom, 

 shimmered in the sunlight. On the north, not far from 

 Husky Dog Creek, a large yellow meadow-land con- 

 taining a small lake made a bright patch in the dark 

 timber. A look through my field-glasses revealed a large 

 bulky animal walking across it. The animal, now stand- 

 ing still, now feeding, finally remained motionless in the 

 centre for an hour, and then continued to feed again, still 

 keeping in sight in the meadow-land. It was a big, 

 solitary bull moose, its horns not distinguishable enough 

 in the distance to show their size. 



Shortly after seeing him, when looking over the coun- 

 try on the other side of a deep canon below me, I saw 

 another small glade containing a tiny lake, its ice spark- 

 ling in the sun a mysterious little opening buried in the 

 wild spruce forest. There I beheld another large bull 

 moose, his huge antlers shining apparently pure white 

 under the sun, and near him a cow and a calf. Silently, 



