Megaleep the Wanderer. 15 



The caribou I am speaking of now are all wood- 

 land caribou — larger, finer animals every way than 

 the barren-ground caribou of the desolate unwooded 

 regions farther north. In summer they live singly, 

 rearing their young in deep forest seclusions. There 

 each, one does as he pleases. So when you meet a 

 caribou in summer, he is a different creature, and 

 has more unknown and curious ways than when he 

 runs with the herd in midwinter. I remember a 

 solitary old bull that lived on the mountain-side 

 opposite my camp one summer, a most interesting 

 mixture of fear and boldness, of reserve and intense 

 curiosity. After I had hunted him a few times, and 

 he found that my purpose was wholly peaceable, he 

 took to hunting me in the same way, just to find out 

 who I was, and what queer thing I was doing. Some- 

 times I would see him at sunset on a dizzy cliff across 

 the lake, watching for the curl of smoke or the coming 

 of a canoe. And when I dove in for a swim and went 

 splashing, dog-paddle way, about the island where my 

 tent was, he would walk about in the greatest excite- 

 ment, and start a dozen times to come down ; but 

 always he ran back for another look, as if fascinated. 

 Again he would come down on a burned point near 

 the deep hole where I was fishing, and, hiding his 

 body in the underbrush, would push his horns up 



