What years these corresponded with
one could not guess, as the tree was a long time dead.
Another, a dwarf but 8 feet high, was 12 inches through. It had
205 rings plus a 5-inch hollow which we reckoned at about 100 rings
of growth; 64 rings made only 1 3/8 inches; the outmost of the 64
was 2 inches in from the outside of the wood. Those on the outer
two inches were even smaller, so as to be exceedingly difficult to
count. This tree was at least 300 years old; our estimates varied,
according to the data, from 300 to 325 years.
These, then, are the facts for extremes. In Idaho or Connecticut
it took about 10 years to produce the same amount of timber as took
300 years on the edge of the Arctic Zone.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE TREELESS PLAINS
On August 7 we left Camp Last Woods. Our various specimens, with a
stock of food, were secured, as usual, in a cache high in two trees,
in this case those already used by Tyrrell seven years before, and
guarded by the magic necklace of cod hooks.
By noon (in 3 hours) we made fifteen miles, camping far beyond
Twin Buttes. All day long the boat shot through water crowded with
drowned gnats. These were about 10 to the square inch near shore
and for about twenty yards out, after that 10 to the square foot
for two hundred or three hundred yards still farther from shore,
and for a quarter mile wide they were 10 to the square yard.
This morning the wind turned and blew from the south. At 2 P. M.
we saw a band of some 60 Caribou travelling southward; these were
the first seen for two or three days. After this we saw many odd
ones, and about 3 o'clock a band of 400 or 500. At night we camped
on Casba River, having covered 36 miles in 7 hours and 45 minutes.
The place, we had selected for camp proved to be a Caribou crossing.
As we drew near a dozen of them came from the east and swam across.
A second band of 8 now appeared. We gave chase. They spurted; so
did we. Our canoe was going over 6 miles an hour, and yet was but
slowly overtaking them. They made the water foam around them. Their
heads, necks, shoulders, backs, rumps, and tails were out. I never
before saw land animals move so fast in the water. A fawn in danger
of being left behind reared up on its mother's back and hung on
with forefeet. The leader was a doe or a young buck, I could not
be sure which; the last was a big buck.
