A HUNTER'S CAMP-FIRES 



of our recent experience. Shortly after dark a band of caribou 

 swam the lake and landed with much splashing a few hundred 

 feet from the tent, and then we heard them crashing away 

 through the thick spruces. This was the first time I had heard 

 of caribou travelling during the night, but Tom said that the 

 blizzard had probably warned the beasts to keep moving south- 

 ward. This theory was corroborated the next morning by the 

 fact that caribou started to swim the lake at daylight, and 

 singly or in small bands kept crossing the entire day. 



During the afternoon Tom stuck his head in the tent door, and 

 broke up the game of checkers which the cook and I were play- 

 ing by shouting that a large band of caribou, including a bull 

 with a fine head, was swimming the lake a mile distant. The 

 three of us quickly manned the boat, and putting every ounce of 

 energy we could muster into the long oars, drove the clumsy 

 craft down the lake in the teeth of a gale. Rowing in the bow 

 of the boat, I glanced over my shoulder after we had fought 

 our way for half a mile, and could discern the line of twenty or 

 more swimming caribou through sheets of sleet. I also made 

 a mental note of the size of the antlers of the bull, as it swam 

 eighth from the front, and of the fact that the band would 

 reach the shelter of the spruces on the shore before w^e could 

 overtake it. The leading cows were already splashing in the 

 shallow w^ater when I dropped my oars, scrambled into the bow 

 of the boat, and fired a random shot at the bull, which was 

 plunging toward the shore in a cloud of flying spray. Fortu- 

 nately this bullet struck the thick portion of an antler, tem- 

 porarily stunning the animal, and enabling me to approach 

 close enough to finish it with a shot while it was still in the 

 water. Like the first bull, it proved to be a dark-colored animal, 

 and possessed a fine set of antlers carrying thirty-five points. 



The next morning about nine o'clock I succeeded in shoot- 

 ing a solitary old bull in the vicinity of camp. This was a 

 typical light-colored New^foundland caribou, carrying a much 



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