TTIKIIE 



(D)IF TTUfflE 



WE were in the caribou country. Far north, 

 wrapped in his white shroud, lay Mistassini sleeping 

 through the long white silence until Wa-Wa called 

 him. Nearer, to the left, lay the Big Flat Water drows- 

 ing under a pallid coverlid a fathom thick. Over all 

 sprang an arch of mysterious gray, that seemed to 

 draw in and narrow slowly, silently, steadily, while 

 we looked. Far as we could see, stretching in one 

 soundless cordon until they dwindled to mere 

 mounds in the distance, stood what had been 

 sturdy conifers. Now they were tents drear 

 domes of death they seemed, pitched there by the 

 army of the Arctic for a bitter bivouac. We stood 

 before the small cabin and looked eastward. No 

 sign of the sun, although he had been up an hour. 

 Somewhere behind the sad gray veil he was shin- 

 ing with the wonderful brilliancy of the North, but 

 that day he would cast no velvet shadows for us. 



" Well, wot ye tink ? " inquired Jo. 



I hardly knew what to say. Something in the 

 feel of the air, in the pervading grayness, coun- 

 selled caution, yet here was the last day of my 

 leave, and as yet the twelve-gauge had not spoken 

 to the game I particularly wanted, the ptarmigan 

 in its full winter plumage. 



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