Therefore by woodsmen, whether white or red-skinned, he is never followed. Indians by hundreds in the provinces, and many loggers and hunters in the Eastern states, can take and keep his trail in suitable weather—the best _time_ is the latter end of February or the beginning of March; the best _weather_ is when a light, fresh snow of some three or four inches has fallen on the top of deep drifts and a solid crust; the fresh snow giving the means of following the trail; the firm crust yielding a support to the broad snow-shoes and enabling the stalkers to trail with silence and celerity combined. Then they crawl onward, breathless and voiceless, up wind always, following the foot-prints of the wandering, pasturing, wantoning deer; judging by signs, unmistakable to the veteran hunter, undistinguishable to the novice, of the distance or proximity of their game; until they steal upon the herd unsuspected, and either finish the day with a sure shot and a triumphant whoop; or discover that the game has taken alarm and started on the jump, and so give it up in despair. One man perhaps in a thousand can still-hunt, or stalk, Cariboo in the summer season. He, when he has discovered a herd feeding _up wind_, at a leisurely pace and clearly unalarmed, stations a comrade in close ambush, well down wind and to leeward of their upward track, and then himself, after closely observing their mood, motions and line of course, strikes off in a wide circle well to leeward, until he has got a mile or two ahead of the herd, when very slowly and guardedly, observing the profoundest silence, he cuts across their direction, and gives them his wind, as it is technically termed, dead ahead. This is the crisis of the affair; if he give the wind too strongly, or too rashly, if he make the slightest noise or motion, they scatter in an instant, and away. If he give it slightly, gradually, and casually as it were, not fancying themselves pursued, they merely turn away from the remote danger, and instead of flying, merely _feed_ away from it, working their way _down wind_ to the deadly ambush, of which their keenest scent cannot so inform them. If he succeed in this, inch by inch, he crawls after them, never pressing them, or drawing in upon them, but preserving the same distance still, still giving them the same wind as at the first, so that he creates no panic or confusion, until at length, when close upon the hidden peril, his sudden whoop sends them headlong down the deceitful breeze upon the treacherous rifle.