Wilderness Ways | Page 8

others whirled with a _ba-a-a-ah_, and scampered round the tree and up
to their mothers, who had turned now and stood watching anxiously to
see the effect of their lesson. Then it began over again.
It was true kindergarten teaching; for under guise of a frolic the calves
were being taught a needful lesson,--not only to jump, but, far more
important than that, to follow a leader, and to go where he goes without
question or hesitation. For the leaders on the barrens are wise old bulls
that make no mistakes. Most of the little caribou took to the sport very
well, and presently followed the mothers over the low hurdles. But a
few were timid; and then came the most intensely interesting bit of the
whole strange school, when a little one would be led to a tree and
butted from behind till he took the jump.

There was no "consent of the governed" in that governing. The mother
knew, and the calf didn't, just what was good for him.
It was this last lesson that broke up the school. Just in front of my
hiding place a tree fell out into the opening. A mother caribou brought
her calf up to this unsuspectingly, and leaped over, expecting the little
one to follow. As she struck she whirled like a top and stood like a
beautiful statue, her head pointing in my direction. Her eyes were
bright with fear, the ears set forward, the nostrils spread to catch every
tainted atom from the air. Then she turned and glided silently away, the
little one close to her side, looking up and touching her frequently as if
to whisper, _What is it? what is it?_ but making no sound. There was
no signal given, no alarm of any kind that I could understand; yet the
lesson stopped instantly. The caribou glided away like shadows. Over
across the opening a bush swayed here and there; a leaf quivered as if
something touched its branch. Then the schoolroom was empty and the
woods all still.
There is another curious habit of Megaleep; and this one I am utterly at
a loss to account for. When he is old and feeble, and the tireless
muscles will no longer carry him with the herd over the wind-swept
barrens, and he falls sick at last, he goes to a spot far away in the woods,
where generations of his ancestors have preceded him, and there lays
him down to die. It is the caribou burying ground; and all the animals
of a certain district, or a certain herd (I am unable to tell which), will go
there when sick or sore wounded, if they have strength enough to reach
the spot. For it is far away from the scene of their summer homes and
their winter wanderings.
I know one such place, and visited it twice from my summer camp. It is
in a dark tamarack swamp by a lonely lake at the head of the
Little-South-West Miramichi River, in New Brunswick. I found it one
summer when trying to force my way from the big lake to a smaller one,
where trout were plenty. In the midst of the swamp I stumbled upon a
pair of caribou skeletons, which surprised me; for there were no hunters
within a hundred miles, and at that time the lake had lain for many
years unvisited. I thought of fights between bucks, and bull moose, how
two bulls will sometimes lock horns in a rush, and are too weakened to
break the lock, and so die together of exhaustion. Caribou are more
peaceable; they rarely fight that way; and, besides, the horns here were

not locked together, but lying well apart. As I searched about, looking
for the explanation of things, thinking of wolves, yet wondering why
the bones were not gnawed, I found another skeleton, much older, then
four or five more; some quite fresh, others crumbling into mould. Bits
of old bone and some splendid antlers were scattered here and there
through the underbrush; and when I scraped away the dead leaves and
moss, there were older bones and fragments mouldering beneath.
I scarcely understood the meaning of it at the time; but since then I
have met men, Indians and hunters, who have spent much time in the
wilderness, who speak of "bone yards" which they have discovered,
places where they can go at any time and be sure of finding a good set
of caribou antlers. And they say that the caribou go there to die.
All animals, when feeble with age, or sickly, or wounded, have the
habit of going away deep into the loneliest coverts, and there lying
down where the leaves shall presently cover them. So that one rarely
finds a dead bird