I'm goin' to get mad at these thievin' red, skins some day," he
said gruffly. The expanse of his chest heaved slightly, like the slow
swell of a calm ocean, but there was no other indication of unusual
exertion.

Jones laughed, and again gave thanks for the comradeship of this
strange man.

Shortly afterward, he went out for wood, and as usual scanned the
expanse of the lake. The sun shone mistier and warmer, and frost
feathers floated in the air. Sky and sun and plain and lake--all were
gray. Jones fancied he saw a distant moving mass of darker shade than
the gray background. He called the trapper.

"Caribou," said Rea instantly. "The vanguard of the migration. Hear the
Indians! Hear their cry: "Aton! Aton!" they mean reindeer. The idiots
have scared the herd with their infernal racket, an' no meat will they
get. The caribou will keep to the ice, an' man or Indian can't stalk
them there."

For a few moments his companion surveyed the lake and shore with a
plainsman's eye, then dashed within, to reappear with a Winchester in
each hand. Through the crowd of bewailing, bemoaning Indians; he sped,
to the low, dying bank. The hard crust of snow upheld him. The gray
cloud was a thousand yards out upon the lake and moving southeast. If
the caribou did not swerve from this course they would pass close to a
projecting point of land, a half-mile up the lake. So, keeping a wary
eye upon them, the hunter ran swiftly. He had not hunted antelope and
buffalo on the plains all his life without learning how to approach
moving game. As long as the caribou were in action, they could not tell
whether he moved or was motionless. In order to tell if an object was
inanimate or not, they must stop to see, of which fact the keen hunter
took advantage. Suddenly he saw the gray mass slow down and bunch up.
He stopped running, to stand like a stump. When the reindeer moved
again, he moved, and when they slackened again, he stopped and became
motionless. As they kept to their course, he worked gradually closer
and closer. Soon he distinguished gray, bobbing heads. When the leader
showed signs of halting in his slow trot the hunter again became a
statue. He saw they were easy to deceive; and, daringly confident of
success, he encroached on the ice and closed up the gap till not more
than two hundred yards separated him from the gray, bobbing, antlered
mass.

Jones dropped on one knee. A moment only his eyes lingered admiringly
on the wild an