ON THE GANDER RIVER. 211 



Even then no harm need have been done, as the wind 

 was still in our favour, but on coming in sight of the spot 

 where we had seen the animal we found him gone, his tracks 

 proving that he had walked off at his leisure along the 

 spine of the ridge. We followed him for a short distance 

 until the timber became too thick ; then, feeling very crest- 

 fallen for he certainly was a fine stag we took our way 

 back to the camp. Indeed, as I thought the matter over 

 during the night, the desire to add that stag to my collec- 

 tion became so keen that in the morning, when Hardy 

 proposed to hunt the country in another direction, I re- 

 turned to the look-out, spent the whole day on it, and 

 saw nothing at all. 



But I would not give up my determination, for I had 

 an idea that the chances of ultimately securing the animal 

 were quite hopeful. He was evidently summering in the 

 thickets, probably within a mile radius of the little broken 

 barren upon which he had appeared. To attempt to follow 

 him up in the wood was useless. The drought had made 

 the floor of the forest like a sounding-board ; so closely 

 did the trees grow together that it was difficult to see a 

 dozen yards in any direction. Yet, sooner or later, I knew 

 the big stag must show himself in the open, as he certainly 

 had not been frightened. My only fear was that he might 

 come across my tracks, in which case he would be almost 

 sure to travel away from the neighbourhood, for, as I have 

 said before, caribou are very easily alarmed through the 

 sense of smell. 



A second day spent upon the look-out produced no 

 result, though a young stag, the same, so far as I could 

 judge, I had previously seen fording the river, passed within 

 sixty yards. On the third day, after again spending a 

 couple of hours on the look-out, Jack and I moved across 

 to a lower hillock, some three-quarters of a mile to the 

 east. We had not been there ten minutes before Jack saw 



