256 NEWFOUNDLAND 



at lOO yards, I fired, and struck him right through the heart. 

 Joe soon skinned off the head, and we returned to camp 

 slowly, where a good hot breakfast soon put me to rights 

 again. Mem. : Do not in future run over swamps in the 

 early morning without first having taken some food. It 

 is not wise. 



After breakfast we ascended the mountain where we had 

 discovered a good spying-place, and so settled ourselves 

 for a long look. Five or six deer were already in sight 

 in spite of our having run over a good part of the ground. 

 It was, however, my turn to find a good beast, for, with the 

 aid of the telescope, I just caught a glimpse of him as he 

 glinted in and out of a great belt of spruce fully a mile and 

 a half away. The white neck of a big caribou stag is quite 

 conspicuous at a great distance, and even at this long range 

 I could see that the bays were large and thick. 



So once again we were down the hill, over the river and 

 running northwards across swamp and barren for a point 

 ahead of the amorous traveller. First we encounter a doe 

 and a fawn, then two young stags, and then Joe, after a 

 tree spy, marked what he thought must be the big fellow 

 I had seen. It was a good-sized beast in truth that he 

 had seen moving in front of us, but on heading him I saw 

 at once that it was not "my" stag, as his bays were almost 

 absent. He came sauntering along, so I thought I would 

 try a little amateur "tolling." To my surprise the stag at 

 once responded, and came grunting up close to our shelter and 

 would hardly go away. We left him, and hurried on thinking 

 that the big stag must either have passed by us or still be 

 to the north-east and heading west, in which case we might 

 see him. But work which way we liked, there was no sign 

 of the deer for an hour at any rate, when Joe ascended a 

 high larch on the edge of dense forest, and tried to survey 



