174 HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC 



53 inches long, with 37^ inches spread, carr^-ing thirty- 

 five points. It was nearly symmetrical, which is not 

 often the case with caribou; the corresponding prongs 

 on each side had almost exactly the same number of 

 points. Leaving this trophy too, we went farther on, 

 as it lacked an hour and a half of noon. But at the middle 

 of the day we settled to lunch on the shore of a little lake. 



Our noonday lunches, while hunting here at Pavlof 

 Bay, were a most delightful feature of the sport, and we 

 afterw^ard looked back on them with the greatest pleasure. 

 First we chose a sheltered spot under the overhanging 

 bank of a lake, gathered armfuls of dead alder stems and 

 soon had a cheerful fire going. Mike fitted a handle of 

 green wood to a tin can he brought with him and we 

 boiled lake water to make bouillon and several cups of 

 tea for each of us. Mike produced from his bag slices of 

 bread and balls of force-meat which his wife had made 

 from caribou steak. While tea was brewing we took off 

 our shoes and stockings to dry them and covered our feet 

 with the warm sand. Then for a half hour we smoked 

 our pipes and talked, and when the footgear was ready 

 to put on again we were off for the rest of the afternoon. 



As we had covered some ten miles in the morning 

 and were now seven miles distant from camp in a straight 

 line, we made our way leisurely back toward home, pick- 

 ing up my caribou head on the way, and heading for a 

 hill about two miles from camp on the bank of the river, 

 where Mike was accustomed to sit and look for game in 

 his own hunting. But we were destined not to reach 

 home so directly as we had thought, for when we gained 

 Mike's lookout it offered a splendid panorama of the 

 valley between camp and a double hill north of Pavlof 

 Volcano and we sat there for about an hour studying the 

 landscape through our glasses. 



