forest and stream 
<)f,9 
to kill I felt fairly confident of getting a third 
stag. I realized however that it would be impos¬ 
sible for me to pick and choose under condi¬ 
tions as they existed and I decided that I would 
take the first respectable head that offered. 
Accordingly, the next morning Dan, Ned, Tom 
and I started toward Millais Lake, with the floor 
cloth and a pack of bedding and provisions. I 
had my sleeping bag which consisted of an oil 
silk cover with one camel’s hair blanket and an 
eiderdown quilt inside of it. It was a very good 
bed, light and very warm. 
We started out toward Millais Lake and less 
than two miles from camp we suddenly came 
on the body of a caribou cow lying with the back 
horn out and fox traps set around it. Dan was 
furious and said that there had been strange 
trappers in the country spoiling his hunting 
ground and killing the caribou and this was the 
reason that there were not more caribou. In fact 
it seemed the general censensus of opinion in 
New foundiand that the high prices given for fox 
furs had caused such an amount of trapping and 
illegal killing of caribou for bait that most of 
the caribou 'had been driven into the interior. 
W e had further proof of this about an hour 
later. We were going toward the place where 
Smith had killed his first caribou, walking along 
a caribou trail, when I heard a clash behind rat. 
My first thought was that I had stepped on and 
broken a bottle. On investigation I tound that I 
had stepped into a fox trap set in the middle of 
the trail. It was unconcealed and without bait an., 
certainly would never have caught even the most 
foolish of foxes. Who had set it and with what 
vain hope we never learned. 
About six miles further on we picked out a 
camping place in a grove of Spruce and Birches. 
There we left Tom to put up the lean-to while 
Dan and I started out across the marsh. We 
went directly to the place where Smith and Dan 
had seen the caribou the day before and saw four 
doe and a small stag. Then v. e pushed on across 
a high ridge with a broad marsh on the top of it. 
There were no caribou, and, as it was getting late 
we turned homeward. Almost at once a cold, 
persistent downpour set in. Just when we were 
thoroughly soaked we saw a small stag and soon 
after caught sight ot a very big gray stag walk¬ 
ing across the marsh about six hundred yards 
away. We ran for all we were worth about a 
quarter of a mile and crouched down behind 
some little Spruce for we could see the stag com¬ 
ing toward us across the marsh. He came to 
within a couple of hundred of yards and we then 
saw. that although he was a handsome beast, he 
had very slight and small horns. I took out my 
camera and focused it as well as I could con¬ 
sidering the hopeless weather conditions. The stay 
continued to walk slowly across the marsh, feed¬ 
ing rs he came and making straight toward us 
while the rain continued to pour down. He had 
approached us within thirty feet of our hiding 
place and was about to pass ten feet to our left 
when suddenly he caught sight of something sus¬ 
picious behind the bushes and stopped. 
He stood there and started with the rain drops 
running down his face and I watched through a 
httle aperture in the bushes while the water ran 
down the back of my neck and began to soak 
the bellows of the camera. After a few minutes, 
which seemed hours, it became perfectly evident 
that the stag intended to stay and look at us for¬ 
ex er, and, as I feared the camera would be ruin¬ 
ed, I stood up behind the bushes. I did this very 
suddenly with exactly the same effect as though 
a person had opened a jack-in-the-box before an 
unsuspecting ch.ld. The stag jumped straight 
into the air, and could he have screamed, he cer¬ 
tainly would have done so. It seemed as though 
he jumped as high as his own shoulders, tie 
then turned and made a number of bounds across 
the marsh, and, as he turned, I took one picture 
but the weather was so bad that when it was de¬ 
veloped he merely showed as a gray blur. 
After this stag disappeared over the horizon, 
Dan and I kept on to the place where we had 
seen the caribou in the morning. It was getting 
very dark and was still raining hard when we 
came on a bunch of six or eight caribou with one 
stag. We walked around fairly close to them 
and looked them over with the glasses as well 
as we could. I was somewhat in doubt whether 
I should shoot the stag but he was not a good 
head and I decided to spare him. 
On arriving at our camp we found that Tom 
had the lean-to up and a roaring fire in front of 
it. We were soaked to the skin but managed to 
get our outside clothes dry by hanging them 
under the roof of the lean-to. Our underclothes 
dried quickly from the heat of the fire which was 
about eight feet long and as close to the lean-to 
as was safe. Our dishes consisted of a frying 
pan, a tea pot, one plate, cups, spoons and our 
sheath knives. With these we made a hearty 
supper of fried bacon, caribou meat and pan 
cakes. Tom mixed the batter for these in a 
birch bark pan which he had made during the 
day. After this stylish meal we smoked until 
our clothes were dry, and then went to bed with 
the rain still pounding on the roof. I thanked 
Heaven the floor cloth was waterproof and slept 
the sleep of the weary. 
Next morning it was still raining when we had 
Wait Till He Comes Out! 
breakfast but presently it stopped and Dan and 
started out for a full day’s hunt. Unfortunate!; 
a fog had shut down and we could not see mor 
than two or three hundred yards. Where we ha< 
seen the last stag the night before we found ; 
couple of cows in the marsh. We could not bi 
sure there were no stags with them so we sa 
down on a little hill and waited for the fog tc 
lift. To pass the time I ate my full of partridgi 
berries, which were very plentiful. 
An hour later the fog broke and we could se< 
the marshes but no caribou so we started ovei 
the ridge toward Millais Lake. It was a long, 
hard pull, and we were soaked to the skin by the 
wet bushes which deluged us as we pushed 
through them. When we reached the top of the 
ridge near Millais Lake we saw two caribou cows 
crossing the marsh half mile away. Then we 
saw another cow and a fawn standing looking at 
us about three hundred yards ahead. In a mo¬ 
ment they ran over the crest of the ridge and a 
big stag ran out of the woods a quarter of a mile 
in front of us. Evidently he had been disturbed 
by the doe and fawn. I passed Dan the glasses 
and he reported that the stag had long, straight 
spikes for horns and was of no value. 
As this seemed to be a pretty good place for 
caribou we decided to lunch and soon Dan had 
succeeded in getting some dry wood and we had 
a fire burning in the marsh. We made tea and 
cooked steak and I took off my boots and wrung 
out my socks and made an attempt to dry them 
before the fire. 
The motto of the Newfoundland guides should 
he Tea And Plenty Of It. At breakfast every¬ 
one had three or four cups of tea; when hunting 
we always stopped early in the day and built a 
fire and had two or three more cups, and if the 
return to camp was going to be long, we would 
stop three or four miles from camp and have a 
