258 HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



twenty-one, which I estimated would be enough to feed 

 our men and dogs between two or three weeks, giving 

 them a chance to recuperate. 



After about half an hour the fog began gradually to 

 clear and in another half hour I could see all the animals. 

 I was near the top of a hill and they were in a hollow, 

 the nearest of them about a hundred and fifty yards 

 away and the farthest about three hundred. 



In winter the ground in any cold country will split in 

 what we call frost cracks. These are cracks in the frozen 

 surface of what in summer is mud. They are ordinarily 

 only half an inch or so w r ide but I have seen cracks four 

 or five inches wide. These cracks form when the mer- 

 cury is dropping and with a noise that resembles a rifle 

 shot. Under the same conditions the ice on the small 

 lakes cracks similarly. These loud noises are so 

 familiar to the caribou and the report of a rifle is so 

 similar that the mere sound of a rifle does not scare 

 them. Of course, we have smokeless powder so they 

 cannot see where the shots come from. What does scare 

 them is the whistle of the bullet and the thud as it strikes 

 the ground. It is instinctive with all animals to run 

 directly away from the source of any noise that frightens 

 them. It is another instinct of caribou when they are 

 alarmed to run towards the center of the herd. A Jband 

 that has been scattered feeding will bunch up when they 

 take fright. When 3'ou know these two principles, it is 

 obvious that the first caribou to kill is the one farthest 

 away from you. On some occasions when I have been 

 unable to get within good shooting distance of a band, 

 I have commenced by firing a few shots into a hill on 

 the other side of them, hoping that the noise of the 

 striking bullets would scare them towards me. Fre- 



