TUE CARIBOO. 29 
the like; especially for the moccason to be used under 
snow-shoes. 
As to its habits, while the Lapland ox Siberian Rein- 
deer is the tamest and most docile of its genus, the 
American Cariboo is the fiercest, fleetest, wildest, shy- 
est and most untameable. So much so, that they are 
rarely pursued by white hunters, or shot by them, ex- 
cept through casual good fortune; Indians alone having 
the patience and instinctive craft, which enables them 
to crawl on them.unseen, unsmelt—for the nose of the 
Cariboo can detect the smallest taint upon the air of 
anything human at least two miles up wind of him—and 
uususpected. If he takes alarm and start off on the run 
no one dreams of pursuing. As well pursue the wind, 
of which no man knoweth whence it cometh or whither 
it gocth. Snow-shoes against him alone avail little, for 
propped up on the broad, natural snow-shoes of his long, 
elastic pasterns and wide cleft clacking hoofs, he shoots 
over the crust of the deepest drifts, unbroken; in which 
the lordly moose would soon flounder, shoulder deep, if 
hard pressed, and the graceful deer would fall despair- 
ing, and bleat in vain for mercey—but he, the ship of the 
winter wilderness, outspeeds the wind among his native 
pines and tamaracks—even as the desert ship, the drom- 
edary, outtrots the red simoon on the terrible Zahara— 
and once started, may be seen no more by human eyes, 
nor run down by fleetest feet of man, no, not if they 
pursue him from their nightly-casual camps, unwearied, 
