Megaleep the Wanderer. j 



stop to examine it a moment. Something gray, dim, 

 misty, seems to drift like a cloud through the trees 

 ahead. You scarcely notice it till, on your right, a 

 stir, and another cloud, and another — The caribou, 

 quick, a score of them ! But before your rifle is up 

 and you have found the sights, the gray things melt 

 into the gray woods and drift away ; and the stalk 

 begins all over again. 



The reason for this restlessness is not far to seek. 

 Megaleep's ancestors followed regular migrations in 

 spring and autumn, like the birds, on the unwooded 

 plains beyond the Arctic Circle. Megaleep never 

 migrates ; but the old instinct is in him and will not 

 let him rest. So he wanders through the year, and 

 is never satisfied. 



Fortunately nature has been kind to Megaleep in 

 providing him with means to gratify his wandering 

 disposition. In winter, moose and red deer must 

 gather into yards and stay there. With the first 

 heavy storm of December, they gather in small bands 

 here and there on the hardwood ridges, and begin to 

 make paths in the snow, — long, twisted, crooked 

 paths, running for miles in every direction, crossing 

 and recrossing in a tangle utterly hopeless to any 

 head save that of a deer or moose. These paths they 

 keep tramped down and more or less open all winter, 



