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 or animal in the woods where thousands die yearly.
Even your dog, that was born and lived by your house, often
disappears when you thought him too feeble to walk. Death calls him
gently; the old wolf stirs deep within him, and he goes away where the
master he served will never find him. And so with your cat, which is
only skin-deep a domestic animal; and so with your canary, which in
death alone would be free, and beats his failing wings against the
cage in which he lived so long content. But these all go away singly,
each to his own place. The caribou is the only animal I know that
remembers, when his separation comes, the ties which bound him to the
herd winter after winter, through sun and storm, in the forest where
all was peace and plenty, and on the lonely barrens where the gray
wolf howled on his track; so that he turns with his last strength from
the herd he is leaving to the greater herd which has gone before
him--still following his leaders, remembering his first lesson to the
end.

Sometimes I have wondered whether this also were taught in the caribou
school; whether once in his life Megaleep were led to the spot and
made to pass through it, so that he should feel its meaning and
remember. That is not likely; for the one thing which an animal cannot