Like a flash the thought shot through Roger's mind that if they once started to run he would not be able to stalk them again that night, and determining to risk a long shot, rather than none at all, he laid his rifle across a boulder which he had been using as a cover, and taking a careful aim, fired. The distance seemed to him tremendous, and as the rifle cracked the four leaped into full career, but the one at which the boy had fired gave a jump, which, to his excited idea, seemed to show that he had been hit. Away started Roger at full tilt after them, but they were speedily out of sight. Tearing along at topmost speed over the uneven ground, Roger's breath began to give out and little black spots danced before his eyes, but when he reached the trail of the fleeing caribou and found a spot of blood in the tracks of one of them, he would not have changed places with the Director of the Survey. On he went, following this track, and noting that the leaps were growing shorter and shorter, but his endurance was beginning to give out, when he saw before him, not more than half a mile away, a solitary caribou. Knowing that those which had not been hit were probably four or five miles distant at this time, and that they would not stop under fifteen miles or so, the boy knew that this was his victim and he redoubled his energies. The sight of the pursuer seemed to revive the flagging energies of the deer, and for half an hour he increased the distance. Then Roger saw that he was gaining, although the dusk was coming on fast. Fearing to lose his game, he decided for another long shot, and was again successful, for at the crack of the rifle the caribou fell, staggered to his feet, gave a few convulsive leaps, and fell again, and when, ten minutes later, the boy stood beside the object of his quest, a magnificent Barren Ground Caribou, the animal was dead. Roger knew that it was no use trying to skin the caribou, and greatly though he desired its head, he had been told that the party could not bother with it, so cutting off as much of the meat as he could carry, he started for the camp, which he reached four or five hours later, and displayed his evidence, and told his hunting story with infinite zest and relish. A couple of days later, while the men were enjoying an after-dinner smoke, Roger noticed Rivers stooping by the edge of one of the river bars, flicking water out of a gold pan in regular cadenced jerks. Seeing the boy, he beckoned to him, and carefully pointing to two or three tiny particles of metal that lay on the rock beside him, he held out his hand to the boy. [Illustration: SKINNING A CARIBOU. Within the Arctic Circle, animals are slain for food, rarely for sport. _Photograph by U.S.G.S._] "Gold!" he said. "You have found a gold mine?" Roger inquired excitedly. The geologist smiled at the boy's sudden conclusion that unimagined wealth lay exposed before them.