g a plan
of descent; then he lifted the rifle beside him, and jammed some fresh
cartridges into the magazine.

Ere a dozen long breaths had been drawn, he was stealthily moving
towards the valley, slipping from spruce to spruce--an arrowlike,
unnoticeable figure in his dark gray tweeds.

He was close to the foot of the hill when the three breathless fellows
above saw him raise his rifle, just as the unfortunate little caribou,
after many efforts to escape, had been beaten to its knees.

"He'll drop one, sure! He's a crack shot--is Cyrus! There! he's drawing
bead. Bravo!... he's floored the biggest!"

Herb's gusty breath blew the sentences through his nostrils, while the
sudden, explosive bang of the Winchester cut through all other sounds,
and set the air a-quiver.

Twice Cyrus fired.

The largest bull-caribou leaped three feet upward, wheeled about,
staggered to his knees. A third shot stopped his bullying forever.

"Hurrah! I guess you've got the leader--the best of the herd. That other
bull was a buster too! You might ha' dropped him, if you'd been in the
humor!" bellowed the guide, springing to his legs, and letting out his
pent-up wind in a full-blast roar of triumph.

He well knew that Cyrus, "being a queer specimen sportsman," and the
right sort after all, would be satisfied with the one inevitable deed of
death.

As their leader fell, the caribou raised their heads, stared in
stiffened wonder for a few seconds, offering a steady mark for the
smoking rifle if it had been in the grasp of a butcher. Then, as though
propelled by one shock, they cut for the wood at dazzling speed.

A minute--and they were in the distance as tufts of hair blown before a
storm-wind.

The half-killed weakling sought shelter more slowly in another
direction.

"Well done, Cy!"

"Congratulations, old man!"

"You've got a trophy now. You'll never leave this splendid head behind.
My eye, what antlers!"

Such were the exclamations blown to Garst's ears by the hot breath of
his English friends, as they reached his side, and stooped with him to
examine the fallen forest beauty.

"No; I guess we can manage to haul the head back to camp, with as much
meat as we need. You'll have your 'chunk of caribou-steak as big as a
horse's upper lip,' to-night, Herb, and bigger if you want it. I'm
tickled at getting the antlers, especially as I didn't shoot this beauty
for the sake of them. I'll hook them on my shoulders when we start ba