CARIBOU HUNTING 83 



assistance, for I counted no less than fifteen doe caribou 

 coming out of the woods before my companion had seen 

 one. The migration of the females had evidently just com- 

 menced, for they all passed uphill to the west, and then as 

 I afterwards found, swung away to the south-west. 



It was growing late, but was one of those perfect 

 autumn evenings that tempt a man just to sit and enjoy 

 the play of light and shade on distant hill and forest. 

 Saunders talked away of his seal-hunting days, and I was 

 quite happy enjoying the landscape, working the glass or 

 watching the gaggles of Canadian geese that frequently 

 passed us, for this country was evidently a great breeding- 

 ground. In a little while it would be too dark to see, and 

 there really seemed no chance of a stag showing up. It 

 was too warm, and they were all up by this time in the 

 forests, munching the moss that grows so luxuriantly within 

 a few yards of their now well-worn beds. 



" A' don't believe there's a blessed stag outside the woods 

 in Newfun'lan'," said Saunders, yawning as he lay on his 

 back chewing blueberries and, as he expressed it, " tired o' 

 lookin'." 



" Well," I replied, " I believe there's one anyhow. Bob," 

 for at that moment I had caught in the glass the white 

 stern of a deer feeding about a mile below in a little marsh. 

 A small bit of horn stuck out at one side, though his head 

 seemed half-hidden in a peat-hole. I kept the glass fixed, 

 and in a minute he turned sideways and revealed the form 

 and antlers of a caribou stag, and a big one too. At last ! 

 There he was, feeding right in the open and the wind 

 perfect. Just the sight every hunter longs for ! Leaving 

 Saunders with the glass to watch events, I hurried down the 

 hill and easily kept out of sight even in a stooping position 



