Their noise
increased so that I awoke, and then I heard unaccountable caterwauls.
They were very loud and near, at least one of the creatures was. At
length I got up to see. Here on the lake a few yards from the tent
was a loon swimming about, minutely inspecting the tent and uttering
at intervals deep cat-like mews in expression of his curiosity.
The south wind had blown for some days before we arrived, and the
result was to fill the country with Caribou coming from the north.
The day after we came, the north wind set in, and continued for
three days, so that soon there was not a Caribou to be found in
the region.
In the afternoon I went up the hill to where Weeso left the
offal of his deer. A large yellowish animal was there feeding. It
disappeared over a rock and I could get no second view of it. It
may have been a wolf, as I saw a fresh wolf trail near; I did not,
however, see the animal's tail.
In the evening Preble and I went again, and again the creature was
there, but disappeared as mysteriously as before when we were 200
yards away. Where it went we could not guess. The country was open
and we scoured it with eye and glass, but saw nothing more of the
prowler. It seemed to be a young Arctic wolf, yellowish white in
colour, but tailless,
Next day, at noon Preble and Billy returned bearing the illusive
visitor; it was a large Lynx. It was very thin and yet, after
bleeding, weighed 22 pounds. But why was it so far from the forest,
20 miles or more, and a couple of miles from this little grove that
formed the last woods?
This is another evidence of the straits the Lynxes are put to for
food, in this year of famine.
CHAPTER XXXI
GOOD-BYE TO THE WOODS
The last woods is a wonderfully interesting biological point or
line; this ultimate arm of the forest does not die away gradually
with uncertain edges and in steadily dwindling trees. The latter
have sent their stoutest champions to the front, or produced, as
by a final effort, some giants for the line of battle. And that
line, with its sentinels, is so marked that one can stand with
a foot on the territory of each combatant, or, as scientists call
them, the Arctic Region and the cold Temperate.
And each of the embattled kings, Jack-frost and Sombre-pine, has
his children in abundance to possess the land as he wins it.
