CARIBOO HUNTING, 



159 



over water and laden with snow. Presently the tracks 

 showed they were walking, and on entering a thick 

 covert of young spruces, whose lower branches, thickly 

 covered with snow, prevented our seeing far ahead, the 

 Indian said, " There — fire 1 " and a bounding form or two 

 flashed through an opening in the bush with such 

 rapidity that we could scarcely say that we had seen 

 them. Our barrels were levelled and discharged, but, as 

 might be expected, without effect. The deer had been 

 lying down, and had seen our legs under the lower 

 branches before the Indian was aware of their pre- 

 sence. 



Williams said, " I 'most afraid we couldn't get shot. 

 Calil)oo very hard to creep when shiftin' their ground : 

 don't stop and feed much, and when they lie down they 

 watchin' all the time, and then up agen 'most directly. 

 I know them caliboo makin' for some big barrens, five or 

 six mile away." 



We then turned back to the northward, and, recrossing 

 the road, made for the barrens where my dead cariboo 

 were lying. The place was marked by the great pile of 

 snow whi(;h we had shovelled over them, and by the 

 skins suspended on a rampike hard by ; no wild animals 

 had disturbed the meat, though great numbers of moose- 

 birds and jays were screaming around, apparently dis- 

 tressed that the fresh snow had covered up their little 

 pickings in the shape of offld, which had been left around. 

 Here we sat down on a log, after clearing off th' snow, 

 to cat our biscuit and broach the flasks (^ rt'c had 

 tindged many miles since breakfast, and the sun was 

 past the south) — the Indian, always restless, and perhaps 

 anxious to take a survey of the country unimpeded by 



