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TmfDgyof 



pierced the heart more surely than a hunter's 

 bullet. And the mother caribou, plunging 

 wildly away through the brush with the 

 startled fawn jumping at her heels, could 

 not know that her mad flight was needless ; 

 that the terrible enemy which had spared 

 her and let her go free had no need nor 

 desire to follow. 



The fat autumn had now come with its 

 abundant fare, and the caribou were not 

 again molested. Flocks of grouse and ptar- 

 migan came out of the thick coverts, in 

 which they had been hiding all summer, and 

 began to pluck the berries of the open plains, 

 where they could easily be waylaid and 

 caught by the growing wolf cubs. Plover 

 came in hordes, sweeping over the Straits 

 from the Labrador; and when the wolves 

 surrounded a flock of the queer birds and 

 hitched nearer and nearer, sinking their gray 

 bodies in the yielding gray moss till 

 they looked like weather-worn logs, 

 >, the hunting was full of 

 tense excitement, though 



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