356 BIG GAME FIELDS 



In a little pocket we took up our watch and 

 were thankful for the partial shelter which it 

 afforded from the savagery of the wind. We 

 took turns scanning- every bit of the surrounding 

 country. Slow minutes dropped by an hour 

 passed then two. I was growing too painfully 

 cold to remain inactive much longer, and on 

 finishing a frugal lunch told Mac so. 



For a few minutes Mac sat in silence, formulat- 

 ing, no doubt, some new plan. The air rang 

 hollow as it does on these intensely cold, clear 

 days; nothing moved there was no sign of a 

 living thing. It seemed that few creatures of 

 the northern wilderness had the fortitude to face 

 the polar wind that blew keen as an icicle, but re- 

 mained in their lairs under rock and in the densest 

 fir thickets, waiting for the rigor of the cold and 

 wind to abate. 



Then it was while Mac was still devising 

 some new plan, I focused my glasses across the 

 gully and made out on the opposite mountainside 

 a herd of caribou. Among them stood a bull, 

 and unless the light, or my glasses, were deceiv- 

 ing me, he surpassed by far any that had yet 

 met our view. "I see a very fine old caribou," I 

 said to Mac. He then took the glasses and care- 

 fully looked him over. "He plenty beeg horns, 



