Wilderness Ways | Page 6

"Bye, baby bunting; bye, baby
bunting--Hello!"
A dark mass loomed suddenly up before me on the open barren. The
storm lightened a bit, before setting in heavier; and there were the
caribou just in front of me, standing in a compact mass, the weaker
ones in the middle. They had no thought nor fear of me apparently;
they showed no sign of anger or uneasiness. Indeed, they barely moved
aside as I snowshoed up, in plain sight, without any precaution
whatever. And these were the same animals that had fled upon my
approach at daylight, and that had escaped me all day with marvelous
cunning.
As with other deer, the storm is Megaleep's natural protector. When it
comes he thinks that he is safe; that nobody can see him; that the falling
snow will fill his tracks and kill his scent; and that whatever follows
must speedily seek cover for itself. So he gives up watching, and lies
down where he will. So far as his natural enemies are concerned, he is
safe in this; for lynx and wolf and panther, seek shelter with a falling
barometer. They can neither see nor smell; and they are all afraid. I
have often noticed that among all animals and birds, from the least to
the greatest, there is always a truce when the storms are out.
But the most curious thing I ever stumbled into was a caribou school.
That sounds queer; but it is more common in the wilderness than one
thinks. All gregarious animals have perfectly well defined social
regulations, which the young must learn and respect. To learn them,
they go to school in their own interesting way.
The caribou I am speaking of now are all woodland caribou--larger,
finer animals every way than the barren-ground caribou of the desolate
unwooded regions farther north. In summer they live singly, rearing
their young in deep forest seclusions. There each one does as he pleases.
So when you meet a caribou in summer, he is a different creature, and
has more unknown and curious ways than when he runs with the herd
in midwinter. I remember a solitary old bull that lived on the
mountain-side opposite my camp one summer, a most interesting

mixture of fear and boldness, of reserve and intense curiosity. After I
had hunted him a few times, and he found that my purpose was wholly
peaceable, he took to hunting me in the same way, just to find out who
I was, and what queer thing I was doing. Sometimes I would see him at
sunset on a dizzy cliff across the lake, watching for the curl of smoke or
the coming of a canoe. And when I dove in for a swim and went
splashing, dog-paddle way, about the island where my tent was, he
would walk about in the greatest excitement, and start a dozen times to
come down; but always he ran back for another look, as if fascinated.
Again he would come down on a burned point near the deep hole where
I was fishing, and, hiding his body in the underbrush, would push his
horns up into the bare branches of a withered shrub, so as to make them
inconspicuous, and stand watching me. As long as he was quiet, it was
impossible to see him there; but I could always make him start
nervously by flashing a looking-glass, or flopping a fish in the water, or
whistling a jolly Irish jig. And when I tied a bright tomato can to a
string and set it whirling round my head, or set my handkerchief for a
flag on the end of my trout rod, then he could not stand it another
minute, but came running down to the shore, to stamp, and fidget, and
stare nervously, and scare himself with twenty alarms while trying to
make up his mind to swim out and satisfy his burning desire to know
all about it. But I am forgetting the caribou schools.
Wherever there are barrens--treeless plains in the midst of dense
forest--the caribou collect in small herds as winter comes on, following
the old gregarious instinct. Then each one cannot do as he pleases any
more; and it is for this winter and spring life together, when laws must
be known, and the rights of the individual be laid aside for the good of
the herd, that the young are trained.
One afternoon in late summer I was drifting down the Toledi River,
casting for trout, when a movement in the bushes ahead caught my
attention. A great swampy tract of ground, covered with grass and low
brush, spread out on either side the stream. From the canoe I made out
two or three waving lines of bushes where some animals were making
their way