A HUNTER'S CAMP-FIRES 



of the feeding caribou, with the wind blowing directly over our 

 backs toward the game. At this point Mac adopted what 

 were to me new and startling tactics. Every few yards he 

 rapidly lighted a small grass fire. Then enveloped in, and 

 preceded by, a drifting haze of thin blue smoke, we steadily 

 climbed up toward the caribou. The Indian claimed that his 

 people always used this method of approaching caribou down 

 wind, and that the odor of grass smoke killed the human scent. 

 To my surprise, there was no sign of alarm among these ani- 

 mals, which, however, fed out of sight over the mountain-top 

 before we were in range. As we followed them across the 

 summit, our descent over a precipitous slide on the opposite 

 slope dislodged a shower of rocks and alarmed the caribou, 

 which were in a ravine below. I secured a three-hundred- 

 yard running-shot at one of the bulls bringing up the rear 

 of the band as it disappeared over a ridge lower down the 

 mountain-side. 



I was about to scramble down the slope in pursuit when Mac 

 grasped my arm as in a vise with one hand, and with the other 

 pointed to a glacier behind us. On the white slope of ice, 

 about one hundred yards away, stood a motionless string of 

 staring cow caribou terminating in an old bull. This animal 

 stood facing us with fore-legs outspread and antlered head low- 

 ered, and, as the report of the carbine reverberated along the 

 glacier front, collapsed and rolled down the icy slope. We 

 feared that the antlers would be smashed on the rocks below, 

 and ran forward to the edge of the ice, stampeding the cows 

 in every direction. As it slid down the glazed slope the 

 struggling bull spun around and around, but fortunately struck 

 the mass of rocks below rump first. We hurried down to where 

 it lay to find that while the antlers measured thirty-six and 

 thirty-eight inches around the curve, and thirty-five inches in 

 spread, they only carried twenty-three points, but were a re- 

 markably thick and massive set of horns. We found the 



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