CARIBOU-HUNTING 



swift creeks and a waist-deep glacial river, we found ourselves 

 forcing our way through tenacious scrub spruces in the vicinity 

 of where Mac had seen from a distance the nearest band of caribou. 



We were stealing along with every nerve on the alert when 

 Mac suddenly stopped and pointed to the sky-line of the bare 

 mountain-side which we were following. Three-quarters of a 

 mile above us, silhouetted against a clear, blue sky, a band of 

 about forty caribou, including two large bulls, were feeding 

 along the crest of the mountain. Mac became so interested 

 in watching the band that we walked into the midst of the 

 caribou which we were seeking before we knew it. A suc- 

 cession of violent snorts and glimpses of gray bodies and up- 

 lifted white tails were followed by a loud crashing of trees and 

 bushes as the band stampeded along the mountain-side, i^fter 

 an exhausting run of five minutes through the brush we again 

 overtook the band, which had stopped to listen, but started 

 off again through the brush at the sight of us. 



By scrambling to the top of an enormous moss-covered 

 bowlder I could see the backs of the string of caribou as they 

 passed through a small open space sixty yards distant in the 

 stunted timber. I counted fifteen cow^s and calves and a small 

 bull as they passed this spot before the old bull trotted out 

 into the open and stopped for a moment to gaze over its 

 shoulder in the direction of the alarm. The carbine cracked, 

 and with a broken neck the bull sank down in the moss without 

 a tremor. A solitary bull, attracted to the scene by the report 

 of the carbine, came over the tundra in our direction at a 

 swinging trot, but, meeting the now thoroughly alarmed cows, 

 promptly disappeared with them over a near-by ridge. On 

 examining the fallen bull we found its antlers measured thirty- 

 nine and three-quarter inches and forty-four and one-quarter 

 inches around the curve, with twenty-nine and one-quarter 

 inches spread, and carried thirty-three points. 



We immediately started up the mountain in the direction 



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