86 HUNTING CAMPS. 



would wish to make one's way. Here is a wild and empty 

 land, inhabited only by a few hundred Indians, uncounted 

 deer, and, for the rest, beaver, a few black bears, many 

 lynx, foxes and other of the smaller fur-bearing animals, 

 with, few and far between, the dying remnant of the wolf- 

 packs, for whose slaughter a heavy Government bounty is 

 still, I believe, offered, though very rarely claimed. 



By the game laws of the island the shooting licence 

 costs $50, and now its holder is limited to the killing of 

 three stags, though under the old licence five stags and two 

 does were allowed. A resident of the island is limited to 

 five caribou, but should a Newfoundlander be employed as 

 guide by a non-resident he is, very wisely, prohibited from 

 exercising his right during the time he is acting in that 

 capacity. All guides must have certificates, but a non- 

 resident guide must also carry a licence costing $50. 



Heads are locally judged by the number of points. The 

 average head seems to carry about twenty-five points ; a 

 proportion of one in every twenty, thirty points ; while 

 one stag in every eighty or a hundred may carry forty 

 points or over. Most of the does grow horns, which they 

 do not drop until April or May. 



I had taken with me to the Labrador a Newfoundland 

 guide named Jack Wells. On our return he, fresh from 

 desolations compared with which his native outport of 

 Glovertown, Alexander Bay, was a populous centre, re- 

 joiced to set foot again in a land where, as he said, " a man 

 might see a body now and again what wasn't a Huskimaw." 

 He left me in St. John's, where I spent one comfortable 

 night between sheets, while he went on to find two other 

 men in Glovertown with whose help it might be possible 

 to " pack " well into the country from the head of George's 

 Pond. 



Jack was afraid that, so late in the season, the best 

 woodsmen would be already engaged, or away trapping, a 



