ISO BIG GAME SHOOTING 



of their keen senses of hearing and smell, the great deer will, 

 when they have been scared and become, in some mysterious 

 way, aware that they are being tracked, resort to all kinds of 

 artifices to conceal their huge trail (of the conspicuousness 

 whereof they seem to be painfully conscious), and to baffle and 

 confuse the pursuer. A favourite trick, for example, is to wade 

 or swim for a long distance when the simple route lies along 

 the edge of a tarn or lake ; another, to double sharply back at 

 an acute angle and travel for a long way to leeward of their 

 original line before resuming it ; a third, to enter a river and 

 work up the bed of it for several hundred yards before actually 

 crossing ; a fourth, to travel out of their way along a stony ridge 

 where they leave no footing. I believe myself that these 

 stratagems always originate in the brain of the cow, especially 

 when she has a calf beside her. If they are not invariably 

 successful, chiefly owing to our employment of another animal 

 of equal nose and sagacity, they at least seem to rue to exhibit 

 a considerable share of reasoning faculty incompatible with 

 stupidity. I find that my hunter is imbued with great respect 

 for the intelligence of the elk, which he considers as not so far 

 inferior to that of the bear ; but of their eyesight he has not a 

 high opinion. Where the lie of the land will admit of it, a 

 forced march may sometimes be executed with great advantage 

 when the elk have turned and are retreating down wind. On 

 the very last day of last season we were following on low ground 

 up wind the spoor of a bull and cow which had caught a glimpse 

 of us, but were not much scared ; after trotting for some dis- 

 tance they subsided, as we saw by the tracks, into a walk. But 

 on reaching a spur of rock which jutted into the forest, the 

 extremity of a ridge which ran up to a considerable height, 

 they rounded it and at once turned downwind, thereby placing 

 us in their rear to windward had we continued to pursue them. 

 Without hesitation my Lapp hunter faced about, and after 

 following the back trail for some way under the ridge, began 

 to ascend the slope of the latter in a slanting direction at such 

 a pace that I needed all my forty days' training to keep up 



