In rather less than twenty minutes the four were scanning with wide eyes
certain fresh foot-marks, plainly printed on a patch of soft oozing
clay, midway on the boggy tract.
"Whew! Bless me! Those caribou-tracks?" Cyrus caught his breath with
amazement while he crouched to examine them. "Why, they're bigger than
any moose-tracks we've seen!"
"Isn't that great?" gasped Dol.
"Well, come to think of it, it is," answered the guide, in the stealthy
tones of an expectant hunter; "for a full-grown bull-caribou don't stand
so high as a full-sized moose by two or three feet, and he don't weigh
more'n half as much. Still, for all that, caribou deer beat every other
animal of the deer tribe, so far's I know, in the size of their hoofs,
as you'll see bime-by if luck's with us! And my stars! how they scud
along on them big hoofs. I'd back 'em in a race against the smartest of
your city chaps that ever spun through Maine on his new-fangled 'wheel,'
that he's so sot on."
Garst, who was an enthusiastic cyclist, with a gurgle of unbelieving
mirth, prepared to dispute this.
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