36 NEWFOUNDLAND 



wood trails/ which were sometimes "soft" going. Twice 

 we nearly reached a large lake which we saw to the north- 

 west, but to achieve this was rather more than we felt inclined 

 to undertake as yet, until we had exhausted the intervening 

 ground. The next stag we found involved rather an interesting 

 follow-on chase, which I give from my diary. 



September 8. — At daybreak, from the high ground above 

 St. John's Lake, I spied eight does and three stags all coming 

 along the high ridge above the New Lake. They were about 

 two miles off, and were travelling and feeding at short intervals. 

 One of the stags seemed to be a big beast with a fair head, 

 so I determined to try and catch him before he reached the 

 timber for which he seemed to be making, to lie up for the 

 day. First we had to cross a wooded valley, and in this we 

 disturbed two does, which fortunately moved off in a safe 

 direction. Once on the ridge, and on the spot where we had 

 seen the game, I spied again, and soon found the white sterns 

 of the deer, which had fed on for about a mile. They were 

 walking fast, and when a caribou is walking fast you have 

 to run. Not more than a mile ahead of the animals was the 

 opening of the forest, and so it was a case of who would 

 get there first. The ground was perfectly flat and open, 

 and so we had to run up-wind, keeping just inside the forest 

 on the north side so as to gain cover. This made the travel- 

 ling most arduous. To walk in the tangle of larch scrub, 

 peat-holes, and fallen trees is hard enough work, but to 



' Cormack, writing in 1822, speaking of the abundance of the deer paths, says : 

 " One of the most striking features of the interior are the innumerable deer paths on 

 the savannahs. They are narrow, and their directions as various as the winds, giving 

 the whole country a chequered appearance. Of the millions of acres here, there is 

 no one spot exceeding a few superficial yards that is not bounded on all sides by deer 

 paths!'' This is equally applicable to-day, but only of the interior. 



