176 RECENT HUNTING TRIPS. 



was travelling, looking for berries, and there 

 was a great deal of thick biTsh on the hillside, 

 I never canght sight of it again, though I must 

 have been very near it. Eventually it must 

 either have heard me in the thick bush, or 

 smelt my tracks where I went up the hill, as it 

 was seen from the canoes coming do^vn the hill 

 at a gallop. Mr. Sheldon tried to cut it off, 

 but was prevented from doing so by the thick- 

 ness of the timber. 



On the evening of September Gtli we had 

 reached a point veiy near the foot of a fine 

 range of mountains, the broken rocky peaks of 

 which rising above the dark spruce forests, 

 which covered their lower slopes, looked like 

 excellent sheep ground, whilst some high bare 

 plateau-like slopes were, we thought, well suited 

 to the requirements of caribou. 



Except in the valley of the river itself, the 

 whole country was now covered with new snow, 

 and, as another fall occurred during the night, 

 we found all the trees and the ground round 

 our camp near the bank of the river quite 

 white in the morning. 



