“Now just what Ben wanted was to get those horns himself. He wanted to do the shooting himself, and the hunting himself; and he did not want any one around to patronize him, and deride his mistakes. Ben was off on a holiday, and he felt himself entitled to make mistakes if he wanted to.
“At length he met a harum-scarum little Irishman named Mike Slohan, who said he doted on hunting, but couldn’t hit anything smaller than a barn door, and wouldn’t know—to use his own phrase—‘a spruce caribou from a bull pa’tridge.’
“Ben took him to his heart at once, and without delay the pair made ready for their expedition. Inextinguishable was the mirth of all the experienced hunters, and grievous were the mishaps they prophesied for our amateur Nimrods till at last Ben’s keen blue eyes began to flash dangerously, and they judged it prudent to check their jibes.
“Whatever Mike Slohan’s inefficiency as a hunter, he was as fearless as a grizzly, and he understood to its minutest detail the art of camping out with comfort. He armed himself only with a little muzzle-loading shotgun, but in other respects the two went well equipped.
“When Mike declared that all was ready, he and Ben embarked in a canoe they had hired in the settlement, and started gayly up the river.
“After ascending the main stream some fifty or sixty miles, they turned into a small tributary which flows into the Codroy from the northward. This stream ran between precipitous banks, often more than a hundred feet in height. Its deep and gloomy ravine was chiselled through a vast table-land without landmark or limit, scourged by every wind that blows.
“This inexpressibly bleak region Mike declared to be ‘the barrens,’ where they would find the caribou. Into its depths they penetrated till their way was barred by fierce rapids, at the foot of which they made their camp in a warm and windless cove.
“It was well on in the autumn, a season when the bull caribou are very pugnacious, whence it came that Ben Christie had not long to wait before finding himself face to face with the object of his desire.
“The first day’s hunting, however, was fruitless. Leaving the camp after a by no means early or hasty breakfast, Ben and Mike climbed the great wall of the ravine; and no sooner were they fairly out upon the level waste than they descried three caribou feeding about half a mile away. This to Ben seemed quite a matter of course; nevertheless, he was exhilarated at the sight, and set out in hot pursuit, followed by the laughing Mike. They made no secret of their approach, but advanced in plain view, as if they were driving cattle in a pasture. And the caribou, being in a pleasant humor and willing to avoid disturbance, discreetly withdrew.
“After pursuing them for three or four miles, Ben gave up the chase, much disappointed to find the animals so wild.