CARIBOU-HUNTING 



vised them to move farther into the country. We had done 

 likewise, with the result that the two parties had again unin- 

 tentionally camped only a few miles apart. Brown and his 

 Indian had been following this band of caribou for a number 

 of hours, and were about to overtake them when we accidentally 

 intercepted the animals in the narrow pass. However, as we 

 had each secured a fine head out of the band, we were both 

 satisfied. Not so with MacClusky. The Indian guiding these 

 neighboring sportsmen, while a warm friend of Mac's, was a 

 keen rival in anything pertaining to the chase. 



So afraid was Mac that this party would outdo us in the 

 size and number of trophies, that he got me out of my warm 

 sleeping-bag long before dawn the next morning. At day- 

 light, in a temperature that made the skin tingle under our 

 light travelling-clothing, w^e w^ere climbing up the frost-covered 

 rocks of the slope opposite camp. An hour later, while on the 

 bowlder-strewn summit of the mountain, w^e discovered a bull 

 caribou picking its way among the rocks in our direction. We 

 were unable to decide that it had a small set of antlers and 

 was not worth shooting until it suddenly appeared over a 

 ledge close to us. When w^e rose from where we had been 

 crouching among the rocks this young bull snorted once, 

 circled us only twenty feet away, and continued nosing along 

 the cow caribou-tracks it was following. A little later, when 

 we were above the animal, a faint w^hiff of our scent was car- 

 ried to its sensitive nostrils, whereupon it threw up its head 

 and trotted rapidly down the slope. 



Carefully examining all the country below us with the glasses, 

 we were picking our way along the crest of the mountain when 

 Mac, who was ahead, suddenly stopped like a well-broken 

 pointer discovering a covey of birds. About one hundred yards 

 ahead of us, and watching us from various attitudes of atten- 

 tion, was a band of eight Stone's sheep, including two large 

 rams. One of the lambs, accompanying a very dark-colored 



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