2 Wilderness Ways. 



where near it. And if after a season's watching and 

 following you catch one good glimpse of him, that is 

 a good beginning. 



I had always heard and read of Megaleep as an awk- 

 ward, ungainly animal, but almost my first glimpse 

 of him scattered all that to the winds and set my 

 nerves a-tingling in a way that they still remember. 

 It was on a great chain of barrens in the New Bruns- 

 wick wilderness. I was following the trail of a herd 

 of caribou one day, when far ahead a strange clack- 

 ing sound came ringing across the snow in the crisp 

 winter air. I ran ahead to a point of woods that cut 

 off my view from a five-mile barren, only to catch 

 breath in astonishment and drop to cover behind a 

 scrub spruce. Away up the barren my caribou, a 

 big herd of them, were coming like an express train 

 straight towards me. At first I could make out only 

 a great cloud of steam, a whirl of flying snow, and 

 here and there the angry shake of wide antlers or 

 the gleam of a black muzzle. The loud clacking of 

 their hoofs, sweeping nearer and nearer, gave a snap, 

 a tingle, a wild exhilaration to their rush which made 

 one want to shout and swing his hat. Presently I 

 could make out the individual animals through the 

 cloud of vapor that drove down the wind before them. 



