My First Kill 19 



over its surface. I remember we scarcely ven- 

 tured to look into the white silent country that 

 stretched in front of us; disappointment had 

 rewarded our long searchings so often that we 

 had somehow come to accept it as a matter 

 of course. Squatting down back of the sledge in 

 shelter from the wind seemed of more imme- 

 diate concern than looking ahead for meat: at 

 least we were sure of the solace our pipes gave. 

 Thus we smoked in silence, with no sign of inter- 

 est in what the immediate country ahead might 

 hold for us, until Beniah, the leader of my Indians, 

 and an unusually good one, started to his feet 

 with an exclamation and, hurriedly climbing on 

 top a good-sized rock, stretched his arm ahead, 

 obviously much stirred with excitement. He 

 shouted, once and loud, " ethan? * and then con- 

 tinued mumbling it as though to make his tongue 

 sure of what his eyes beheld. We all gathered 

 around him, climbing his rock or on other ones, 

 in desperate earnestness to see what he saw in the 

 direction he continued pointing. It was minutes 

 before I could discern anything having life in the 

 distance which reached away to the horizon all 

 white and silent, and then I detected a kind of 



1 Caribou. 



