104 HUNTING CAMPS. 



track we were on. He carried a fair head, but one brow 

 was very poor, so I passed him, as well as two smaller 

 stags. 



We now climbed an eminence that commanded a stretch 

 of likely-looking country, all barrens red with moss and 

 patched with trees. Here we sat down and kept a good 

 look-out. Shortly we saw the white shine of a deer's neck 

 moving among some trees ahead of us. Taking advantage 

 of the fact that we were well screened from sight, we ran 

 across the intervening spaces and lay down in a thicket. 



I must say here that, in my opinion, more caribou are 

 lost through " pottering round " than in any other way. 

 If you watch a stag cross your track, you see him leap up 

 into the air and he is gone for ever ; or let him get the wind 

 of you a mile off, and your chance is generally over. On 

 the other hand, the eyesight of the caribou is poor. Mid- 

 way between his sense of smell and power of sight comes his 

 hearing, which is neither very good nor very bad in open 

 ground, though earlier in the year he is a hard beast to kill 

 in the green timber. 



But to return to the stalk. We were still lying in the 

 bush when, about two hundred yards away, a doe, old as 

 the damsel of the evening star, came into view, followed at 

 no great distance by other does. Behind them the bushes 

 parted and gave up an old and ragged stag. The whole 

 party passed along quite close, not a hundred yards from 

 us. The old stag had a good wild head, but the left top was 

 represented by a single jagged, broken spike, so of course I 

 let him go in peace. 



All the morning we loitered among the barrens round 

 Island Pond, and saw two or three more stags, but none 

 worth shooting ; indeed, I had made up my mind that 

 nothing under forty points, or its equivalent in weight or 

 length, should tempt me. 



At last we went to the edge of the water and boiled our 



