With the trees all heavily laden with snow, some of the birches and pines bent almost double under the burden, it was a beautiful scene by which the two boys found themselves surrounded. Phil admired everything as he went along. X-Ray seemed to be thinking only of the chance they might have to come up with the caribou, and wondering if they would have the good luck to bring it down in case they did sight it.
He had never seen a caribou in his life, though he knew they were a species of deer inhabiting the barrens of New Brunswick and Canada, where they are often run across in herds of hundreds.
The snow was deep enough to give considerable trouble to the animal they were following, though it seemed that he kept persistently on. He was possibly heading for a certain rendezvous where he knew he would find others of his kind assembled, to pass the severe weather in company, as a protection against roving wolves that would soon bring a straggler down, yet dare not attack a herd.
X-Ray was more or less excited. Every little while he would in a whisper ask his companion what he thought about it, and if they were drawing up on the caribou.
“Seems to me the trail is getting a heap fresher,” X-Ray suggested; though truth to tell that was put forward as a “feeler” to draw out an opinion from Phil, and not because he knew much about the tracks.
“Yes, it is getting fresher all the time,” admitted Phil; “which shows that we are making much better time than the caribou. But it remains to be seen whether he can put on a burst of speed when he sights us that will leave us far in the lurch. He may be taking it easy along here.”
“And what if he does flicker away and out of sight before we can drop him, Phil; do we keep up the good work, or drop out?”
“If he once gets going good and hard,” Phil declared, “we might as well say good-day to him, and head back toward the camp.”
“The camp! Well, if you asked me now, I couldn’t tell you which way we’d have to go to get there; but of course you know, Phil? You always were a great hand to keep tabs of things.”
“Yes, I’ve been watching our course all the while,” Phil told him, confidently.