HUNTING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 



travelling too noisy for successful hunting, and obliged us to 

 wait until the heat of the sun had thawed out the ground. 



After three hours of tiring and discouraging travel through 

 mud and moss, we came upon the very fresh tracks of a large 

 number of caribou in the snow. There were many animals in the 

 band, and, in feeding, their trails led in all directions, on which 

 account we circled cautiously for an hour before we located the 

 general whereabouts of the caribou, on a heavily timbered ridge. 

 They were evidently lying down taking a mid-day siesta among 

 the thick spruces when we came stealing into the midst of the 

 band. Suddenly two cow caribou arose to their feet in a thick 

 clump of trees twenty feet ahead of us, while from all sides we 

 could hear invisible animals getting up from their beds in the 

 thicket. We were at a disadvantage as far as securing the 

 head of the leader was concerned, and, as the animals might , 

 start off at any moment and we needed meat in camp, I shot one 

 of the cows, which rolled struggling down the mountain-side. 

 At the report of the rifle the whole band stampeded with a 

 great smashing of brush, while we stood motionless and listened 

 until the sound of their noisy retreat had died away in the 

 distance. 



Next we became aware of the increasing noise of crackling 

 underbrush, combined with the continuous challenging cough of 

 a bull caribou in the rutting season, approaching nearer and 

 nearer from the slope below. The old bull of the band had 

 stampeded with the cows, then became ashamed of fleeing from 

 an invisible enemy, and, scenting a battle with a possible rival, 

 was now forcing his way through the brush in our direction, 

 challenging at every stride. I hurried down the mountain-side 

 to meet this accommodating caribou, and, seeing indistinctly 

 the general outline of the animal, fifty yards distant, as he 

 ascended the mountain-side, I aimed through a network of 

 branches and fired. As the rifle spoke the bull faltered, and at 

 the second report collapsed and rolled several yards down the 



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