I. MEGALEEP THE WANDERER.

[Illustration: Megaleep]


Megaleep is the big woodland caribou of the northern wilderness. His
Milicete name means The Wandering One, but it ought to mean the
Mysterious and the Changeful as well. If you hear that he is bold and
fearless, that is true; and if you are told that he is shy and wary
and inapproachable, that is also true. For he is never the same two
days in succession. At once shy and bold, solitary and gregarious;
restless as a cloud, yet clinging to his feeding grounds, spite of
wolves and hunters, till he leaves them of his own free will; wild as
Kakagos the raven, but inquisitive as a blue jay,--he is the most
fascinating and the least known of all the deer.

One thing is quite sure, before you begin your study: he is never
where his tracks are, nor anywhere near it. And if after a season's
watching and following you catch one good glimpse of him, that is a
good beginning.

I had always heard and read of Megaleep as an awkward, ungainly
animal, but almost my first glimpse of him scattered all that to the
winds and set my nerves a-tingling in a way that they still remember.
It was on a great chain of barrens in the New Brunswick wilderness. I
was following the trail of a herd of caribou one day, when far ahead a