"
The doctor smiled, in his quiet way.
"Yes," he said. "One feels as if one could understand the true purpose of
living, which should be the constant effort to attain something ever so
glorious that lies beyond, always beyond."
I wonder just what he meant by that, Aunt Jennie?
Soon our little caravan went on, and we began to see many tracks of
caribou, chiefly does and fawns. In low swampy places we several times
came across old wind-and rain-bleached antlers, shed in the late fall of
the previous year.
We had traveled for a couple of hours since luncheon when we stopped for
another breathing spell. Sammy was explaining the lie of the country to
the doctor, who nodded. Then the latter showed me a tiny valley where
ran, amid a tangle of alders and dwarf trees, a large brook that wandered
slowly, with many curves, to join the river far away on our right.
"At this time of the year there is not much chance of finding a stag in
the open," he said. "They remain in places like that, hidden in the
alders until it is time for them to wander off and make up their family
parties. Are you very tired, Miss Jelliffe?"
I assured him that I was still feeling ever so fit.
"We are only about a mile and a half from the place where we are to camp
for the night," he told me. "The others will go there and get things
ready. Frenchy can return here for my pack. If you would like to come
with me and hunt along the brook we should make it a somewhat longer
journey, owing to the many bends, but we should have a chance of getting
a stag.
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