FAIL TO FIND OUR BULLS 159

I said. ‘‘ It’s an enormous bull. I can even make out
his horns from here. He must be a grand beast.”

*“ By Jove, I can see him and make out his horns, too,”
answered the Colonel; ‘‘ can we get him to-day ?”

But getting near him that afternoon was out of the
question. We had no idea where we could find a place
to camp with feed for our horses. There was no suitable
place in sight, and as far as we could see it seemed the
most inhospitable country. So, instead of my striking
out with the Colonel and having a try for them right off,
it seemed safer to push the pack train along and then,
when we found a place to camp, we would go after them
if there was still time. Unfortunately this was not to
be. We had trouble in getting along at all for the next
mile, so that when at last we did find a place to camp
we were still nearly three miles off where we had seen
the caribou, and it was too late in the afternoon to either
go any farther or do any hunting.

The next day we were off soon after daylight with a
long, bad wall ahead of us, and plenty of stiff climbing,
for it was by no means an easy country to hunt, as is the
main Caribou Range. All that day we tramped steadily.
We came to where the caribou had been and tried to
follow their tracks, but the ground was rough and rocky
and it was utterly impossible to do so. Not a glimpse
of them could we get either on our side of the range or
on the other side of the valley. Here and there were
places where a few old caribou tracks could be made
out, but apart from the tracks made on the hill where
we had seen them the day before, there was nothing to
indicate that there were any near. That day we found
one fresh ram track, plenty of moose sign, and saw a cow
and a calf, but not a caribou could we find. Then, late
in the afternoon when we had worked our way miles
from camp, down came rain in torrents and we had a
long, weary tramp over soft, wet, spongy ground that was
deadly tiring, back to the camp, which we eventually
reached long after dark. It seemed that the Colonel’s
luck had deserted him.