208 HUNTING CAMPS. 



a spruce at the back of the camp. I showed them to him, 

 and, after he had examined them, asked him if he would buy 

 any of them, as some were larger than the one he carried. 

 " I can shoot a stag whenever I want one," he answered, 

 rather gruffly. At last, by way of changing the conversa- 

 tion, I invited him to have a cup of tea. But he refused, 

 and slinging the horns on his shoulders repeated that he 

 could dispose of them at Glenwood, and so, with a surly 

 grunt, walked off out of sight. 



We remained in our fortunate camp near the Little Gull 

 River for a couple more days, but during that time saw 

 nothing save one small stag. On the third day Hardy and 

 his men rejoined us. They had met with no luck, and we 

 all agreed that, caribou being so few and far between 

 by the river, we should be well advised to change our 

 ground to the height of land in the direction of Red Indian 

 Lake. 



Red Indian Lake is a large sheet of water, one of the 

 largest in the island, and at one time its shores used to be 

 visited by great numbers of caribou. Of recent times, 

 however, the extension of the lumber business and Lord 

 Northcliffe's timber works have driven the line of migration 

 further to the west. 



In the previous year Mr. F. C. Selous had travelled in 

 far beyond Red Indian Lake to George IV/s Pond, a region 

 only once previously visited by a white man, and had told 

 ine of the large number of deer which he had seen there. As 

 the crow flies, or, as in Newfoundland one might say, as 

 the wild goose flies, this big, untouched country lay over a 

 hundred miles to the west, but between us and Red Indian 

 Lake spread an immense expanse which, up to that time, 

 had remained almost, if not quite, untried. This was the 

 district that we now made up our minds to travel a de- 

 cision the more easily arrived at since we were all a little 

 tired of the conditions under which we had hunted of late, 



