Not long after she had disappeared, we got a fleeting glimpse of two caribou cows; they lacked the impressive ungainliness of the moose, and in the distance might easily have been mistaken for deer.
It was a very cold morning, and throughout the day it snowed and sleeted at intervals. We spent the time wandering from hill to hill.
For the next week we hunted industriously in every direction from the Popple Cabin. In the morning and the evening we shifted from hill to hill; the middle of the day we hunted along the numerous brooks that furrowed the country. With the exception of one or two days, the weather was uniformly cold and rainy; but after our first warm sunny day we welcomed rain and cold, for then, at least, we had no black flies to fight. On the two sunny days they surrounded us in swarms and made life almost unbearable; they got into our blankets and kept us from sleeping during the nights; they covered us with lumps and sores—Bill said that he had never seen them as bad.
A noonday halt on the way down river, returning from the hunting country
It was lovely in the early morning to stand on some high hill and watch the mist rising lazily from the valley; it was even more lovely to watch the approach of a rain-storm. The sunlight on some distant hillside or valley would suddenly be blotted out by a sheet of rain; a few minutes later the next valley would be darkened as the storm swept toward us, and perhaps before it reached us we could see the farther valleys over which it had passed lightening again.
We managed to cover a great deal of ground during that week, and were rewarded by seeing a fair amount of game—four caribou, of which one was a bull, a bull and three cow moose, and six does and one buck deer. I had but one shot, and that was at a buck deer. We wanted meat very much, and Bill said that he didn’t think one shot would disturb the moose and caribou. He was a very large buck, in prime condition; I never tasted better venison. Had our luck been a little better, I would have had a shot at a moose and a caribou; we saw the latter from some distance, and made a long and successful stalk until Wirre, on his way from the main camp with some fresh supplies, frightened our quarry away.
On these trips between camps, Wirre several times saw moose and caribou within range.
After a week we all foregathered at the main camp. Clarke had shot a fine bear and Jamieson brought in a good moose head. They started down-river with their trophies, and Thompson and I set out for new hunting-grounds. As Bill had gone with Jamieson, I took his son Willie, a sturdy, pony-built fellow of just my age. We crossed the river and camped some two miles beyond it and about a mile from the lake we intended to hunt. We put up a lean-to, and in front of it built a great fire of old pine logs, for the nights were cold.