And looking, he discovered in the distance a dark, moving
mass slowly drawing down another hillside. For a moment he was
speechless with joy, but it was for only a moment, and then he shouted:
"_Tuktu! Tuktu! Tuktu!_" (Caribou, or reindeer.)
Bobby's excited cry brought Jimmy up on a run, and when he looked and
saw, he, too, shouted, and was no less excited than Bobby.
"Caribou! The caribou are coming!"
That was enough to send them back on a run for Abel and Skipper Ed and
their rifles and all the ammunition they could muster, and then all four
turned back to meet the caribou.
On and on came the great herd, in a far-reaching, endless mass,
thousands upon thousands of them, and they were heading directly for the
hill where the four eager hunters waited.
At length the mass reached them, and what followed was not a hunt but a
slaughter, and when they were through more than a hundred caribou lay
stretched upon the snow, and still the caribou came.
The period of starvation was at an end. Comfort and plenty had appeared
at their very door.
The dogs were harnessed, and as many of the carcasses as they could use
for man and dog food were hauled down, some to Abel Zachariah's cabin
and some to Skipper Ed's. And bright and early the following morning
Abel set out to the mission station and Skipper Ed to Abraham Moses'
cabin, to bid the starving people come and help themselves and feast,
and in the end not a caribou of all those that were killed was wasted.
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