Wilderness Ways | Page 4

sign attracts attention. You
stop to examine it a moment. Something gray, dim, misty, seems to
drift like a cloud through the trees ahead. You scarcely notice it till, on
your right, a stir, and another cloud, and another--The caribou, quick, a
score of them! But before your rifle is up and you have found the sights,
the gray things melt into the gray woods and drift away; and the stalk
begins all over again.
The reason for this restlessness is not far to seek. Megaleep's ancestors
followed regular migrations in spring and autumn, like the birds, on the
unwooded plains beyond the Arctic Circle. Megaleep never migrates;
but the old instinct is in him and will not let him rest. So he wanders
through the year, and is never satisfied.
Fortunately nature has been kind to Megaleep in providing him with
means to gratify his wandering disposition. In winter, moose and red
deer must gather into yards and stay there. With the first heavy storm of

December, they gather in small bands here and there on the hardwood
ridges, and begin to make paths in the snow,--long, twisted, crooked
paths, running for miles in every direction, crossing and recrossing in a
tangle utterly hopeless to any head save that of a deer or moose. These
paths they keep tramped down and more or less open all winter, so as
to feed on the twigs and bark growing on either side. Were it not for
this curious provision, a single severe winter would leave hardly a
moose or a deer alive in the woods; for their hoofs are sharp and sink
deep, and with six feet of snow on a level they can scarcely run half a
mile outside their paths without becoming hopelessly stalled or
exhausted.
It is this great tangle of paths, by the way, which makes a deer or a
moose yard; and not the stupid hole in the snow which is pictured in the
geographies and most natural history books.
But Megaleep the Wanderer makes no such provision he depends upon
Mother Nature to take care of him. In summer he is brown, like the
great tree trunks among which he moves unseen. Then the frog of his
foot expands and grows spongy, so that he can cling to the
mountain-side like a goat, or move silently over the dead leaves. In
winter he becomes a soft gray, the better to fade into a snowstorm, or to
stand concealed in plain sight on the edges of the gray, desolate barrens
that he loves. Then the frog of his foot arches up out of the way; the
edges of his hoof grow sharp and shell-like, so that he can travel over
glare ice without slipping, and cut the crust to dig down for the moss
upon which he feeds. The hoofs, moreover, are very large and deeply
cleft, so as to spread widely when his weight is on them. When you
first find his track in the snow, you rub your eyes, thinking that a huge
ox must have passed that way. The dew-claws are also large, and the
ankle joint so flexible that it lets them down upon the snow. So
Megaleep has a kind of natural snowshoe with which he moves easily
over the crust, and, except in very deep, soft snows, wanders at will,
while other deer are prisoners in their yards. It is the snapping of these
loose hoofs and ankle joints that makes the merry clacking sound as
caribou run.
Sometimes, however, they overestimate their abilities, and their
wandering disposition brings them into trouble. Once I found a herd of
seven up to their backs in soft snow, and tired out,--a strange condition

for a caribou to be in. They were taking the affair philosophically,
resting till they should gather strength to flounder to some spruce tops
where moss was plenty. When I approached gently on snowshoes (I
had been hunting them diligently the week before to kill them; but this
put a different face on the matter) they gave a bound or two, then
settled deep in the snow, and turned their heads and said with their
great soft eyes: "You have hunted us. Here we are, at your mercy."
They were very much frightened at first; then I thought they grew a bit
curious, as I sat down peaceably in the snow to watch them. One--a doe,
more exhausted than the others, and famished--even nibbled a bit of
moss that I pushed near her with a stick. I had picked it with gloves, so
that the smell of my hand was not on it. After an hour or so, if I moved
softly, they let me approach quite up to them without shaking their
antlers or renewing their desperate attempts to flounder