NEAR MIDDLE RIDGE. 135 



will often travel ten miles, yet, if you are determined to do 

 so, you can generally come to terms with him again. But a 

 caribou in a similar case will altogether abandon the part 

 of the country in which he has been jumped. Thus we were 

 aware that if the two animals ahead had winded us or our 

 tracks to follow them would have been worse than useless. 

 But as matters stood I did not believe that they had been 

 much frightened ; consequently, as one of them appeared to 

 be a particularly big fellow, we pushed on upon their trail 

 not without hopes. 



For the first couple of miles the big slots were very 

 plain, but after this the nature of the ground changed and 

 hard, bald barrens took the place of the marshes. From 

 each of these we spied the country ahead, but for two hours 

 we saw nothing of the caribou, and I was thinking of giving 

 them up, as we could not tell in which direction they had 

 gone, when we suddenly perceived them sparring together 

 upon a sloping barren about a mile distant. I took out the 

 telescope, only to find that the damp had clouded the lenses 

 and that without a thorough cleaning it was practically 

 useless. Fortunately, however, the stags were in full view, 

 the wind was absolutely in our favour, and the country 

 broken up by boulders, which afforded good cover. In 

 these circumstances we were able to go forward at a good 

 pace, but, to our vexation, long before we came within range 

 we saw the smaller of the two stags walk away over the hill, 

 followed immediately by his companion. 



We lost little time in reaching the hummock over which 

 they had vanished, and, crawling cautiously round the base 

 of it, we found ourselves quite close to the smaller stag, 

 which stood with its head up looking out over the country 

 like a sentinel. For a moment we failed to sight the big 

 stag, but soon we perceived him feeding just over the top 

 of the next rise. Half of the great yellow body was visible, 

 but his head was down, and in that position two or three 



