<h2 id="c12"><span class="small">CHAPTER XII</span> <br/>A BAD FOLLOW UP</h2>
<p>Having covered half the distance between
himself and the brown spot on the horizon,
Curlie decided to drop down below the crest of
the hill. By going up a narrow ravine for a
half mile, then creeping over the ridge and following
down the bend of a second ravine, he
would, he was sure, come out close to the feeding
animal, quite close enough for a shot.</p>
<p>Stealthily he carried out his plans. When at
last he reached the end of this little journey and,
with finger on the trigger, slowly rose from the
ground where he had been creeping for the last
hundred yards, he was so surprised that for a
second he felt paralyzed.</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</div>
<p>There, not twenty yards away, with his back
to the boy, feeding like some contented domesticated
creature in a pasture, stood as fine a buck
caribou as one might ask to see. The wind being
away from him, and toward the boy, he had
neither smelled, heard nor seen Curlie. He did
not even know of the boy’s presence there.</p>
<p>To say that Curlie was suddenly stricken with
buck fever, would be putting it mildly. His
fingers trembled. Cold perspiration stood out
upon his brow.</p>
<p>This lasted but a second, then he was himself
again. It was a tense moment. The fate of
their expedition might hang upon his shot; the
question of going on or turning about must be
decided by their ability to procure food.</p>
<p>“How,” he whispered, “how in time do you
shoot a caribou when he’s got his back to you?”</p>
<p>He hesitated. A shot fired now might not
reach a vital spot, yet the creature might at any
moment sense his presence and go crashing
away over the hard-crusted snow.</p>
<p>At this moment he was startled by a loud
“ark-ark-ark” to the right and above him.</p>
<p>“Two of ’em,” he whispered as he dropped
behind his snow bank.</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</div>
<p>The thing he now witnessed both surprised
and amused him. A second caribou had appeared
at the crest of a steep hill. Having
paused there long enough to call to his companion,
instead of racing away to a place of
gradual descent, he spread out his snowshoe-like
hoofs and with a loud “ark-ark,” went scooting,
toboggan-fashion, down the hill. So fascinated
was Curlie with the sight of this performance
that for a moment he forgot his duty to his
friends and himself. But just in time he
brought himself up with a snap. The rifle went
to his shoulder. Just as the second buck, the
larger of the two, reached the bottom and stood
at attention, the rifle cracked. The buck leaped
high, to plunge back upon the snow.</p>
<p>Crack-crack-crack went the hoofs of the first
caribou as he raced away, and the crack-crack-crack
answered the rifle.</p>
<p>It took not a second glance to tell Curlie that
his first shot had reached its mark.</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</div>
<p>“Think I hit the other. Two’s better than
one,” he muttered as he raced away over the
fresh trail. True enough, there were drops of
blood here and there on the snow.</p>
<p>“Went over the ridge. I’ll get him!” Curlie
snapped a fresh cartridge into his magazine as
he went zig-zagging his way up the hard-packed
and slippery hill. Twice he lost his footing and
narrowly escaped a slide to the bottom, but each
time he escaped by digging into the snow with
fingers and toes.</p>
<p>At the top he breathed a sigh of relief. For
a few seconds he could catch no sight of the
caribou, then he saw it disappearing over the
next ridge. Just as it dropped from sight, it
appeared to stumble and fall.</p>
<p>“Done for!” exulted the boy. “Just one
more ridge and I’ve got him.”</p>
<p>For a second he hesitated. It was growing
dark.</p>
<p>“Ought to go back,” he mumbled. “But
there’ll be a moon in an hour and I can get along
without light till then.”</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</div>
<p>Hurriedly sliding down the ridge, he made his
way up the other. Arrived there, he glanced
straight ahead, expecting to see the caribou lying
at the bottom of the ravine. But not a brown
speck marred the whiteness of that snow.</p>
<p>“That’s queer!” he exclaimed. “I was sure
he was done for.”</p>
<p>By looking closely, he was able to see four
sharply-cut paths in the snow crust.</p>
<p>“He tobogganed down and I thought he fell,”
Curlie grinned. “That’s one on me. Well,
there’s no use to follow him. If he is well
enough to go tobogganing, he’s not greatly in
need of attention. I better get back and tend
to the other one.”</p>
<p>Darkness had fallen. It was with the greatest
difficulty that he made his way back to the spot
where the dead caribou lay.</p>
<p>Once there he proceeded to cut up the meat.
Then, having built a cache out of blocks of snow
which would keep the meat out of reach of
wolves and foxes, he shouldered one hind quarter
and turned to go.</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</div>
<p>Then and not till then did he realize that he
did not exactly know the way back to camp. He
had come a considerable distance, and in the
eager excitement of the hunt had failed to take
note of each turn in his trail or to fix in his
memory the shapes of the hills about him that
they might serve him as guide posts.</p>
<p>“Pretty pickle!” he told himself. “Here I’ve
got a heavy load and I’ll likely as not have to
walk ten miles to make five. Going to storm,
too,” he told himself as he studied the hazy
horizon. “The mountains were smoking with
snow forty miles away this afternoon. Ho, well,
guess I’ll make it some way.”</p>
<p>Shouldering his burden, he went slipping,
sliding down the hill. He had not been going
many minutes before he realized that he was
not going to “make it someway”—not that
night at least.</p>
<p>A playful breeze began throwing fine snow in
his face. As he approached the crest of a ridge
this breeze grew rude. It gave him a shove
which landed him halfway back down the hill.</p>
<p>“Stop that, you!” he grumbled as he gathered
himself up and attempted the hill anew.</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</div>
<p>But the thing did not stop. It grew in violence
until the boy knew he was facing one of
the sudden, severe blizzards known only on the
Arctic hills, a storm which no man can face for
hours and live.</p>
<p>“It’s no use,” he told himself. “I’d just
blunder round till I’m hot and exhausted, then
sit down and freeze. Better sit down here while
I’m still all here.”</p>
<p>Making his way to a spot somewhat sheltered
by a cut bank, he placed his burden on the
ground, then set to work with his sheath knife
cutting blocks from a snow bank. Out of these
he built a snow-fort-like affair which protected
him on two sides.</p>
<p>“Wish I knew how to build a snow-house,”
he told himself. “But I don’t, so what’s the use
to try?”</p>
<p>Having accomplished this much, he cut thin
strips of meat from the caribou carcass. These
he placed upon the snow. When they had frozen
he ate them with relish.</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</div>
<p>“M-m!” he murmured. “Most as good as
cooked and a whole lot better than dried fish.”</p>
<p>Having eaten, he gathered his garments close
in about him and sat down upon the ground.</p>
<p>Presently he rose suddenly and, having drawn
several small articles from pockets in his belt,
proceeded to wind a coil antenna. This when
completed he hung to the top of his Alpine staff
which he had stuck upright in the snow. Then,
having thrust a pair of receivers over his head,
he sat down again.</p>
<p>In the belt there was arranged a complete
radiophone receiving set with a range of two
hundred miles.</p>
<p>“Might hear something more interesting than
the storm,” he told himself. “B’r’r’r! It’s sure
going to be bad.”</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</div>
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