108 NEWFOUNDLAND 



you are torn with conflicting emotions in those few minutes 

 of intense activity and excitement). This form of the chase, 

 which 1 may appropriately call " river-hunting," offers both 

 the easiest and the most difficult chances at deer. In the 

 open marshes the caribou stag is generally at your mercy. 

 You have time to circumvent him and to lay your plans. 

 If you are anything of a shot and take care not to walk 

 about too much, or give him the wind, he is yours. But 

 by the river it is different. The stag appears ; you must 

 shoot at once or run like a hare to get into range, for 

 he may disappear at any second, and generally, too, your 

 shot is taken at the wrong end of the beast, though that is 

 not of much moment, as in the old days of inferior rifles. 



The following morning, 15th September, we continued 

 to ascend the Gander. A strong head-wind was blowing, 

 and the men experienced much difficulty in keeping on 

 their feet and preventing our frail craft from breaking. I 

 walked on for about five miles, and then sat down to spy 

 as the country suddenly opened up, and I saw, for the 

 first time since leaving the lake, a high, open, sparsely- 

 wooded country. The men with the canoes arrived about 

 midday, and, just as Bob came opposite to me, he slipped 

 off a stone and fell in over his neck. 



"This is my lucky day," he said philosophically; "only 

 been in twice this morning." 



We sat down to dinner on the bank, and, after much 

 wrangling, I got him to change his clothes, which he did 

 with many protests. Little Bob had half "shifted" when, 

 it seems, he was overcome with curiosity as to the exceed- 

 ingly "gamy-looking" nature of the mountain opposite, so, 

 without saying a word, he captured my telescope, which he 

 had now come to use with some success, and slipped off 



