How Animals Talk 



his right forefoot, the bone above it shattered by 

 some blundering hunter's bullet, swung help- 

 lessly as he hobbled along, leaving its pathetic 

 record in the snow. 



On a wooded slope which fell away to a chain of 

 barrens, halting to search the trail ahead, my eye 

 caught a motion far across the open, and through 

 the field-glass I saw my herd for the first time, 

 resting unsuspiciously on the farther edge of the 

 barren, a full mile or more away. From my feet 

 the trail led down through a dense fringe of ever- 

 green, and then straight out across the level plain. 

 A few of the caribou were lying down; others 

 moved lazily in or out of the forest that shut in the 

 barren on that side; and as I watched them two 

 animals, yearlings undoubtedly, put their heads 

 together for a pushing match, like domestic calves 

 at play. 



Hardly had I begun to circle the barren, keeping 

 near the edge of it but always out of sight in the 

 evergreens, when I ran upon a solitary caribou 

 trail, the trail of the cripple, who had evidently 

 wearied and turned aside to rest, perhaps knowing 

 that his herd was near the end of its journey. 

 A little farther on I jumped him out of a fir 

 thicket, and watched him a moment as he hobbled 

 deeper into the woods, heading away to the west. 

 The course surprised me a little, for his mates 



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