CHAPTER X. 



FURTHER DAYS AFTER MAINLAND CARIBOU. 



IN the autumn of 1908 I chanced to have the oppor- 

 tunity of making a third trip after caribou in Eastern 

 Canada, and, though I had already enjoyed such capital 

 sport in the two former ones, I found strong inducements 

 to undertake another when my friend Mr. F. W. Ross asked 

 me to accompany him on a short venture into the woods. 

 Firstly, I was glad to go with him ; and my second attrac- 

 tion took the shape of a cast horn that had been brought 

 in by Mr. Ross some years previously. In weight and size 

 this one enormous antler far surpassed any I had ever seen, 

 and although the length of time which had elapsed since 

 the finding of the huge horn made it more than probable 

 that the skull which once carried it lay whitening long 

 since upon some hillside, yet I could not help hoping the 

 deer was not a unique specimen, but that others, his sons 

 and grandsons perhaps, might possibly approach, if they did 

 not rival, the record of their forefather, for the country 

 Ross proposed to hunt was situated in the same district as 

 that in which the mighty antler had been cast. 



Our party consisted of Ross, Dr. Campbell Howard of 

 Montreal, and myself, together with Ed Atkins and three 

 French-Canadians. With us travelled a couple of buck- 

 boards to carry our baggage for the first sixty or seventy 

 miles of our journey. We made the distance in two days 

 and a half over an execrable road, but its difficulties brought 



