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 induce- 

 ments 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 attraction 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 



H.C. 8 



