248 HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



mind this would be a great joke on Kunaluak, for he had 

 only that day been saying that he had known white men 

 to fire many hundred shots at caribou and the only time 

 he had known them to hit was when there were several 

 caribou in a band and when a bullet intended for one had 

 struck some other animal. 



Jt j_s._sometimes difficult to approach caribou, but in 

 this case it was easy for there was a little ridge about 

 three hundred yards away from them. We crawled to 

 the top of this ridge and found conditions ideal, except 

 that twilight was stealing on and we could no longer see 

 the sights of our rifles plainly. The eight caribou were 

 strung out almost in a straight line at right angles to 

 us, and the big bull was at some distance from the others. 

 It was agreed that Kunaluak should begin shooting at 

 the right hand end of the line and Ilavinirk at the left 

 hand end. In this conversation the two Eskimos agreed 

 that I was to shoot at the middle of the line, but Ilavinirk 

 gave me a wink to remind me that I was not to shoot at 

 the line at all but at the old bull. 



I think it took the Eskimos about twenty shots all 

 together to kill six out of the eight animals, for two 

 escaped. In the excitement of the shooting they had not 

 been watching the bull. The other animals had been 

 dashing round in various directions and in the half dark 

 it would not have been strange if the bull which originally 

 had been some distance away from them had got mixed 

 up in the band without being noticed for in that light his 

 antlers would not be conspicuous. When we went up 

 to the dead caribou and found the bull to be one of them, 

 Kunaluak said that Ilavinirk must have killed it for he 

 felt sure that he had never aimed at any animal excepting 

 a young one. Ilavinirk denied having shot the bull and 



