plenty. In the midst of the swamp I stumbled upon a
pair of caribou skeletons, which surprised me; for there were no
hunters within a hundred miles, and at that time the lake had lain for
many years unvisited. I thought of fights between bucks, and bull
moose, how two bulls will sometimes lock horns in a rush, and are too
weakened to break the lock, and so die together of exhaustion.
Caribou are more peaceable; they rarely fight that way; and, besides,
the horns here were not locked together, but lying well apart. As I
searched about, looking for the explanation of things, thinking of
wolves, yet wondering why the bones were not gnawed, I found another
skeleton, much older, then four or five more; some quite fresh, others
crumbling into mould. Bits of old bone and some splendid antlers were
scattered here and there through the underbrush; and when I scraped
away the dead leaves and moss, there were older bones and fragments
mouldering beneath.

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-