A Cold Trail 349 



Once safe in cover, the shoes were removed, and, 

 gliding, stealing, flitting shadow-like from tree to 

 tree, now crouching in the line of a boulder, now 

 crawling and wriggling painfully over a snowy open 

 patch of moss, I at last gained the edge of the tim- 

 ber within a hundred and seventy-five yards of my 

 meat. 



He was standing with his rump to me, and his 

 nose occasionally sought the moss, only to be raised 

 in a moment and thrust into the wind while the 

 gentleman chewed a mouthful. About halfway 

 between us was a goodly clump of brush, overgrow- 

 ing some scattered boulders, while the space between 

 my shelter and the brush was filled with little hum- 

 mocks and hollows, showing where the low growth, 

 moss, etc., upheld the snow. If I once gained the 

 brush, and nerves kept steady, he should drop in his 

 tracks. 



I hesitated for a moment between waiting for a 

 broadside shot from where I was, or attempting to 

 crawl to the brush, then got down on hands and 

 knees and began the difficult journey. The hum- 

 mocks were smaller and hollows shallower when 

 reached than they had seemed, and when halfway 

 across the dangerous space it became a question of 

 wriggling along a-la-serpent. In this position the 

 caribou was invisible, but I had faith in the wind, 

 and was wriggling doggedly forward, when from a 

 clump of moss not twenty feet from my nose a grouse 

 walked forth, clucking softly to itself in regard to my 

 probable business. 



Here was a pretty position. Of course I didn't 

 dare flush the grouse, for fear of alarming the caribou, 



