Dec. 21, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
779 
The Caribou Barrens of Newfoundland—IV. 
Pictures and Text by the “Judge." 
FOUR VIEWS TAKEN BY THE JUDGE. 
C OMMENTING upon our favorable situation, 
with plenty of wood and water, said Lionel: 
“This would just suit old Esau, the trapper; 
so long he’s got meat an’ tea he’s camp where- 
ever he’s fin’ an oat sack to stick he’s head 
into.” Lionel declared he could camp out 
without any tools whatever if he had only a 
pan in which to bake bread. Ralph thereupon 
guaranteed to bake bread without implements 
if Lionel would make tea without cup or kettle. 
Accepting the challenge, Lionel got a piece 
of birch bark, bent up the corners to make a 
dish, set it neatly up on stones banked about 
with clay, put water and tea into it, and built 
beneath it a small fire. The tea boiled hand¬ 
somely, the fire being unable to get around the 
stones and clay and attack the dry birch bark. 
It being now up to Ralph to produce bread 
without tools, he made a birch bark dish, mixed 
his dough in it with a stick, pulled it out into 
a long white snake, which he wound neatly 
around a freshly peeled pole. This he laid on 
two crotched sticks before the fire, and by ro¬ 
tating it constantly produced a beautiful brown 
twisted bread stick. 
The evening came on, clear, blue, cold and 
beautiful. Lionel climbed a high dead pine to 
spy across the bog, and then reported that a 
stag was following along the edges of the 
woods about a thousand yards from camp. Bob 
and I made haste to seek him, taking along a 
camera, but at five hundred yards the glasses 
showed him to possess only a twenty-point 
head, though his horns were well peeled and 
polished. Leaving Bob, I crawled across the 
bog toward him, taking advantage of every 
little hummock, and finally by means of a small 
shrub getting up within thirty yards of him. 
Nearer approach being impossible, I exposed 
the film. At the click he changed instantly 
from a very domestic cow-like looking creature 
into a wild beast, alert and thoroughly alarmed. 
Another click, and he sprang away for a dozen 
yards. I uttered two or three low rough grunts 
and saw the hair raise upon his shoulders. 
Shaking his head, he charged up to within 
fifteen or twenty yards of the bush, but would 
not come nearer, and finally made off at top 
speed. 
We put in two days of reconnaissance about 
the bogs, great and small, which ran in and out 
among the peninsulas of spruce about camp. 
The weather remained clear, the nights were 
cold, with the stars all out. Mount Peyton 
was due compass north, true north appeared to 
be about 22 degrees east of compass north. 
Lionel left to go down again to main camp. 
Upon being pressed for a prophecy as to the 
weather, he looked the sky over, smelled of the 
wind, and finally opined: “P’r’aps rain, mebbe 
so snow, prob’ly fine day, I’m not know.” 
Followed an ideal week upon the high 
bogs of Newfoundland. I quote from my 
diary: 
“Monday.—Two big stags and a small one 
crossed the bog northwest of camp last evening 
at sunset, but the horns of the largest, while 
large, had thin tops, and so we spared him. 
Bob and I off northeast early to-day, on to a 
great big bog, seeing first thing a doe and very 
white fawn, very cautious, the doe. We 
watched the bog from a white rocky mound. 
The sun shone brilliantly, creating thin waver¬ 
ing heat waves across the bog, and making it 
difficult to use the glasses. 
“About noon Bob thought he spied a band 
of deer about two miles southeast down the 
bog. I doubted it, concluding that it was 
merely spots of white moss or stones. An 
hour later Bob said: ‘That is certainly deer; 
the grouping has changed,’ and I was obliged 
to agree with him. So we made off down the 
bog, and finally, arriving within five hundred 
yards, made a careful crawl through the cari¬ 
bou leads up nearly to the edge of a little 
plateau upon which the deer lay. Nearest to 
us was a doe. She finally rose. I could just 
see over the edge of the bog the tip of a great 
red horn. Crawling ten yards further, I could 
see half the horn and the round white side of 
a big stag. Another doe got up. Lying very 
close and pushing along with my toes, I could 
see that there was indeed a big stag, with a 
fine head, lying asleep back toward me, his head 
twisted awkwardly over by the great horns. 
Two more does got up and began to walk 
about nervously. I rose then, turned around 
and sat up, with my rifle upon my knees. The 
does made off, but still the great stag lay there 
asleep, seventy-five yards away. Bob broke a 
stick, then whistled, then shouted, and still the 
old fellow snored along. Then we both shouted 
at him to wake up and look out for his harem, 
which had decampel in toto, but he minded us 
not. 
“Then I made a number of wrong moves. 
I crawled up fifteen or twenty yards nearer, 
then got up and ran in toward him. Bob called 
to me sharply, and it occurred to me that pos¬ 
sibly I might get in so near that he would 
attack me if wounded. Fearful of breaking his 
horns, I shot quartering into his rump, expect¬ 
ing to break his back, but to my astonishment 
he sprang to his feet and started away; then, 
half falling, I thought he was down, but he 
got up and started off again, and I shot him 
again. He half fell, but got up once more and 
went on; just as I fired again, he stumbled in 
a soft place, and I missed him. A little rise 
obscured him, and I missed him again, expect¬ 
ing every moment to see him fall down; but he 
got away, with his left hip going down at every 
jump. 
“It really semed incredible that such a 
thing could happen. I must have shot him 
through the fleshy part of the hip, without 
breaking the bone. His left hind foot struck 
out of the trail at every jump, and we followed 
him for a full mile, expecting all the while to 
find him dead, but without success. I was in¬ 
tensely mortified and chagrined, and we both 
returned to camp feeling mighty blue. Four¬ 
teen deer seen to-day. 
“Tuesday.—Bob, Ralph and I off early to 
pick up trail of the wounded deer. Several 
deer on the bog, one pretty good stag, not 
quite good enough the glasses say, his horns 
curved partly in and very red. Nine deer seen 
up to noon. I slept but little last night, tor¬ 
tured by visions of that wounded stag, which 
Bob declares carried a forty-point head. The 
boys tracked him two miles and then were 
obliged to give up, hoping that he might work 
out on to the bog again before the end of the 
month. Upon thinking it over more carefully. 
