strange clacking sound came ringing across the snow in the crisp
winter air. I ran ahead to a point of woods that cut off my view from
a five-mile barren, only to catch breath in astonishment and drop to
cover behind a scrub spruce. Away up the barren my caribou, a big herd
of them, were coming like an express train straight towards me. At
first I could make out only a great cloud of steam, a whirl of flying
snow, and here and there the angry shake of wide antlers or the gleam
of a black muzzle. The loud clacking of their hoofs, sweeping nearer
and nearer, gave a snap, a tingle, a wild exhilaration to their rush
which made one want to shout and swing his hat. Presently I could make
out the individual animals through the cloud of vapor that drove down
the wind before them. They were going at a splendid trot, rocking
easily from side to side like pacing colts, power, grace, tirelessness
in every stride. Their heads were high, their muzzles up, the antlers
well back on heaving shoulders. Jets of steam burst from their
nostrils at every bound; for the thermometer was twenty below zero,
and the air snapping. A cloud of snow whirled out and up behind them;
through it the antlers waved like bare oak boughs in the wind; the
sound of their hoofs was like the clicking of mighty castanets--"Oh
for a sledge and bells!" I thought; for Santa Claus never had such a
team.

So they came on swiftly, magnificently, straight on to the cover
behind which I crouched with nerves thrilling as at a cavalry
charge,--till I sprang to my feet with a shout and swung my hat; for,
as there was meat enough in camp, I had small wish to use my rifle,
and no desire whatever to stand that rush at close quarters and be run
down. There was a moment of wild confusion out on the barren just in
front of me. The long swinging trot, that caribou never change if they
can help it, was broken into an awkward jumping gallop. The front rank