A CHANGE OF BASE 135 



expected it was a miss. Then such a scur- 

 rying to and fro, principally on the part of 

 the cows, one cannot imagine, and the remark- 

 able thing about it was that in some way the 

 cows almost instantly surrounded the bull. 

 No matter which direction he took, he al- 

 ways had a zealous body-guard from among 

 his twenty-seven wives. 



It may easily be surmised that their line 

 of flight would be to the top of the inclined 

 plane, and so it was, but they never seemed 

 to think of going in a straight line; they 

 surged from one side of the plane to the 

 other. 



In the interim I was doing some wild 

 shooting. As the convoy of females always 

 hung around the flanks of "the master," and 

 in front and back of him as well, in order not 

 to hit any of the cows, I was taking the finest 

 sort of fine shots. I consequently made many 

 misses. To tell the absolute truth, and that's 

 what I always aim to do, I fired no less than 

 fifteen cartridges, and the only harm done 

 was to knock a small point off one of the big 

 bull's antlers. Now my last cartridge was 

 fired. It was necessary to go back to where 

 Billie was tied, and get a fresh supply of am- 

 munition. It was now noon. The caribou 



