226 THE ARCTIC PRAIRIES 



chance is to reach the water. Here his wonderful 

 powers of swimming make him easily safe, so much so 

 that the Wolves make no attempt to follow. The 

 crippled deer makes for some island sanctuary, where 

 he rests in peace till his leg is healed, or it may be, in 

 some cases, till the freezing of the lake brings him again 

 into the power of his foe. 



These six, then, were the cripples in hospital, and 

 I hope our respectful behaviour did not inspire them 

 with a dangerously false notion of humanity. 



On the island that I have called Owl-and-Hare, we 

 saw the first White Owl and the first Arctic Hare. 



In this country when you see a tree, you know per- 

 fectly well it is not a tree; it's the horns of a Caribou. 

 An unusually large affair of branches appeared on an 

 island in the channel to Aylmer. I landed, camera in 

 hand; the Caribou was lying down in the open, but 

 there was a tuft of herbage 30 yards from him, another 

 at 20 yards. I crawled to the first and made a snap- 

 shot, then, flat as a rug, sneaked my way to the one es- 

 timated at 20 yards. The click of the camera, alarmed 

 the buck ; he rose, tried the wind, then lay down again, 

 giving me another chance. Having used all the films, 

 I now stood up. The Caribou dashed away and by 

 a slight limp showed that he was in sanctuary. The 

 20-yard estimate proved too long; it was only 16 yards, 

 which put my picture a little out of focus. 



There never was a day, and rarely an hour of each 

 day, that we did not see several Caribou. And yet 

 I never failed to get a thrill at each fresh one. " There's 

 a Caribou," one says with perennial intensity that is 



