136 HUNTING CAMPS. 



steps took him completely out of view. We were expecting 

 No. 2 to follow him, when, to my mortification, he quietly 

 lay down. To go further was impossible without alarming 

 him, so we also lay down and passed the time in cleaning the 

 telescope. When it was ready we had a good look at the 

 sentinel stag, and I was delighted to find that he carried a 

 very tolerable pair of horns and was in all ways a mature 

 stag. Beside his comrade he had looked " nothing at all," 

 as Wells put it. 



My only fear now was that the giant would travel away 

 while we were forced to wait ; still the chances were in 

 favour of the stags remaining together, and as the one that 

 was close to us showed no sign of uneasiness I concluded 

 that the other had lain down on the further side of the ridge 

 at no great distance. We remained where we were as 

 patiently as we could for the better part of two hours before 

 the inconvenient smaller caribou at last rose and, stretching 

 himself like a dog, walked off at right angles in an aimless 

 kind of way. By this time our coats, which had been very 

 wet, were frozen quite hard, so that they crackled with our 

 first movements. Before very long we were peering over 

 the ridge where the big yellow stag had disappeared. My 

 supposition had been correct, for I soon made him out lying 

 down about two hundred yards away on the opposite slope 

 directly in front of us. A glance at the horn nearest to us 

 was enough to settle all doubts ; a more massive antler no 

 hunter could desire. Then with the telescope I tried to dis- 

 cover its fellow, but in vain, for the stag carried only one 

 antler. Without a word I handed the glass to Wells. 

 " That's the stag we saw last year, don't you think so ? " 

 he said at once. In fact there was no room for a doubt, for, 

 besides its extraordinary weight, the horn was of a peculiar 

 shape a long, sharp spike protruded some eighteen inches 

 from the beam between the brow and the bay. 



It seemed probable that this stag had never possessed 



