The Wilderness Hunter. 



rear man of the file ; but now he went first and struck a 

 pace that, continued all day long, gave me a little trouble 

 to follow. Each of us carried his pack ; to the Indians' 

 share fell the caribou skull and antlers, which he bore on 

 his head. At the end of the day he confessed to me that 

 it had made his head " heap sick " as well it might. We 

 had made four short days*, or parts of days', march coming 

 up ; for we had stopped to hunt, and moreover we knew 

 nothing of the country, being probably the first white men 

 in it, while none of the Indians had ever ventured a long 

 distance from the lake. Returning we knew how to take 

 the shortest route, we were going down hill, and we walked 

 or trotted very fast ; and so we made the whole distance 

 in twelve hours' travel. At sunset we came out on the 

 last range of steep foot-hills, overlooking the cove where 

 we had pitched our permanent camp ; and from a bare 

 cliff shoulder we saw our boat on the beach, and our white 

 tent among the trees, just as we had left them, while the 

 glassy mirror of the lake reflected the outlines of the 

 mountains opposite. 



Though this was the first caribou I had ever killed, it 

 was by no means the first I had ever hunted. Among 

 my earliest hunting experiences, when a lad, were two 

 fruitless and toilsome expeditions after caribou in the 

 Maine woods. One I made in the fall, going to the head 

 of the Munsungin River in a pirogue, with one companion. 

 The water was low, and all the way up we had to drag the 

 pirogue, wet to our middles, our ankles sore from slipping 

 on the round stones under the rushing water, and our 

 muscles aching with fatigue. When we reached the head- 



