But no matter how much he stressed it, I couldn't get my head around how quickly caribou cover ground.

"They look like they're just ambling along, but they're moving, believe me," said Belvin. "They can cover 30 miles a day. You will never catch them from behind. You've got to get in front of them and be ready to take a long shot."

I was starting to get the idea after Joe and I failed to cut off the group on that ridge, but we got burned again a day later. We were high on the open tundra, in a spot where we figured we could see for miles. When we spotted caribou, however, they popped out of an unseen fold in the land about 170 yards from us, walked across 10 yards of open space, and then disappeared into a finger of timber.