NEAR MIDDLE RIDGE. 145 



struck the tracks of a band of some eight or ten caribou, 

 amongst them a stag which gave us a splendid day. 

 We found the trail quite fresh in the snow, and in due 

 time saw the stag himself lying down among some 

 boulders. A number of does kept such good watch, 

 however, that it was late in the afternoon before I got 

 within range, when I shot the stag through the neck. 

 The head was a very disappointing one of twenty-five 

 points, although the animal himself was perhaps the 

 heaviest I have ever seen. 



The weather was now turning bitterly cold, but at 

 last the wearisome rain had ceased and been succeeded 

 by a hard frost which continued day and night. On 

 the morning of the 10th I fired a long shot at a stag as 

 he galloped along a ridge, and missed him just as he 

 disappeared into a belt of pine. Running round this, I 

 was in time to see him emerge not more than fifty 

 yards away, but then I saw that his head was much 

 lighter than I had thought, so I did not kill him, which 

 I could easily have done. During the remainder of 

 the day we saw two or three stags that had dropped 

 their horns, and it was very obvious that the season 

 was practically at an end, and I therefore decided to 

 rejoin Wynyard after one more day's hunting. 



As that was to be our last day except on the east- 

 ward trail we started at daylight. It had been snowing 

 in the night and from time to time there were other 

 slight falls, driven up by a bitter wind. It was already 

 past eleven o'clock when, in a valley at the southern 

 end of Island Pond, we spied three stags and several 

 does. I do not know if these deer had been fired upon 

 by the Gambo shooters, for, although they did not 

 move much, they kept an exceedingly good look-out, 



H.C. L 



