eT
mr

Se a ae
a 5]

ener gt oe ae I mt
: = ~ em

: =
ot cceaniremraian se
RRR ri rence airtel gure cor Rcilemaniaren

mati
See ee cee

160 CARIBOU

The following morning, feeling the effects of his exertion
of the previous day, the Colonel did not get up very
early, nor, when he did, was he inclined for another such
fatiguing day, though the sun was once more shining.
Now while we were away the day before the cook had
seen some moving objects high up on the mountain
opposite our camp, and at the time, as he had no glasses,
thought it was us he saw. It was not very far up to the
place, and as he thought there were three animals, there
was a chance that they might have been our caribou, and
so I suggested that we make a short day of it and try up
there. To this the Colonel agreed and promised to be
ready in about an hour, While waiting for him I began
to think the thing over, and for some reason or other I
got it into my head that those caribou had crossed the
valley and were making back over toward where we had
killed the goats. The more I thought of it the firmer
became my conviction that this was the case. Finally
I told the Colonel what was in my mind, and gave him
his choice of going up with one of the men to where the
cook had seen the game the day before or coming with
me away up over the range back of our camp. The first
would be an easy trip, the other a long, hard one. He
choose the easy one, so I grabbed some lunch and started
off alone, taking my rifle with me, as on our way in I had
seen a black bear not very far from where I was going,
and the Colonel wanted me to shoot it if a chance occurred.

Before leaving camp the Colonel and Murphy, the man
who was to take him out, chaffed me a bit about hiking
off for a long, hard climb on a wild-goose chase. ‘‘ There
is nothing up there,” they said; “‘ why, we spied it all
yesterday and must have spotted them if they had gone
that way. You see, we are going to kill them up on the
other side. That must have been them that Jack saw.”
However, in spite of the fact that what they said really
appeared most likely, my mind was made up to try, as
I had a feeling, that almost amounted to a premonition,
that I was going to find what we were looking for.

It was a stiff climb up to the top of the range, and as I