[_Extracted from the home correspondence of George Slade Methuen,Esq., which was written at his hired place on the Foldenfjord._]
CHAPTER I.
BIG GAME.
... The first shot was just a rib too far back, and though it staggeredhim, he didn't stop to it. Out tinkled cartridge number one and in wenta second, and "_cluck_" said the breech-block. And then as he slewedround, I got the next bullet home, bang behind the shoulder. That didit. He tucked down his long Roman nose, and went heels over tip like ashot rabbit; and when a big elk that stands seventeen hands at thewithers plays that trick, I tell you it shows a new hand something hehadn't much idea of before.
We ran up eagerly enough. "_Meget stor bock_," shouted Ulus, andwhipped out his knife, and proceeded to do the offices, being filledwith strong glee, which he imparted to the driving rain, the swishingtrees, and my dripping self.
And, by Jove, his highness was a beauty too! Antlers in velvet, ofcourse, as is the fashion with all Norwegian deer at this time of year;but there were eight points on each, and they've got the most approved"impudent" downward curve. What with no _rype_ and few trout, I'dbeen feeling rather down on my luck all these long weeks till now; butthis big elk turned the scale. Glad I came.
September nights drop down early here, and day was getting on, so wehurried up with the work, and loitered not for tempting admiration. Offcame the coarse-haired pelt, pull by pull; and away dropped head andneck, after a haggle through sinew and vertebrae; and then we got heavystones and built in the meat securely, lest the lynxes should thievethe lot. It all took time, and meanwhile the weather worsened steadily.The rain was snorting down in heavy squalls, and often there werecrashes from amongst the pines. But the _stor bock's_ trophiesrepaid one for these things.
At last we got through the obsequies, shouldered the spoils between us,and started.
It was slow passage. On this primaeval ground one is so constantly beingbaulked. There are so many knotted jungles of splintered rock, suchfrequent swamps, so much fallen timber. And, moreover, the watercoursesand torrents were all new-bloated with the rain, so that we had to castabout for fords, and then to grip one another at stiff arm's length, soas not to get swept adrift whilst wading amongst the eddying boulders.And when at last we did come to the lake, we saw there in the gray duska thing which caused Ulus to offer up hot words in Norsk, which werenot words of prayer.
To remind you again of where we were:--
Some eight miles distant in crow-flight was the salt-water fjord. Fromit two mountain walls sprout out towards the north. At first the valleybetween these is filled with land which is mostly forest. Then comes alake, hemmed by two precipices. Then another two-mile-wide strip offorest. Then another lake, with shiny granite walls running up sheertwo thousand feet, so that of the fosses which jump in cream over thebrinks above, only the stouter ones reach more than half-way down.
We were on the farther side of this last sheet of water, and across itlay our only practicable way to the coast--to home, dinner, dry things,and other matters longed for. And on this lake a lake-sea was running,short, quick, and steep, which is the wettest of all seas for smallcraft to tackle. The boat which had carried us up was one of those_retrousse_-nosed punts peculiar to the country, the very worstpossible breed of craft for the weather. She would not face it forthirty seconds. Her turn-up snout would fall off the moment we left theshingle, she would fill and swamp, and we should be left a swim withouthaving in any degree furthered our cause. Wherefore I also bowed to theinevitable, but like Ulus I said things. There was no chance ofreaching the abodes of men by any other route. We were booked till thegale chose to ease--at any rate till morning; and for myself, Icontemplated a moist bivouac under streaming Jove, with one clammyelk-skin for a joint coverlet.
But luckily Ulus was a man of the land besides being a vagrant hunter.He led back into the forest. A score of yards from the margin, in anovergrown clearing, was an abandoned _saeter_ hut. It was in noneof the best of repair, was seven feet square inside, and held five feetof head-room under the roof-tree. It was about half filled with driedbirch-bark, piled up against the farther end. It also contained a rudewooden trough and ball for pounding up coffee, three sections ofpine-stem for seats, and a rusted old stove which had not been worthcarrying away.
Four words made a division of labour. Ulus set off to revisit the_stor bock_, Se going with him in case there should be any doubtabout the track. It was my task to create a blaze with the dry,spluttering birch-bark, and collect a stack of solider fuel to feed itwith. Afterwards I went and stopped the more obvious gaps in the roofwith turf and logs, and by the time these things were done hunter andhound had returned. Then we wrung the supersaturation of wet from ourclothes, and Se had a centrifugal shake; and so prepared, we wentinside. Thanks to wasteful use of an absent person's store ofbirch-bark, the place was warm as an oven. Such an atmosphere wasgrateful and comforting. Se indeed revelled in the heat too much atfirst, and pressing over near its source, thrust out a moist blacknose, and got the full effect. There followed a hiss and a howl, and asulky retreat to the farther angle. Then we two bipeds hacked offgobbets from the venison, and taking us sharpened sticks, roasted andcharred and toasted the meat in the doorway of the stove and over thegap in its lid. And in time we made a satisfying meal, though thecourses straggled, and their texture was savage. And so on to pipes,and water boiled in a pewter flask-cup with whisky added, whilst theinjured Se champed over juicy rib-bones in his corner.
The hum and crackle from the stove, the grinding of the gray dog'steeth, the bumping and hissing of the gale outside, the boom of thecascades at the precipices, made up most of the sounds for thatevening. Of chat there was a paucity. My knowledge of Norsk extends tofew parts of speech beyond the common noun; and Ulus, ignorant personthat he is, has no Sassenach: pantomime makes our usual phrase-book.Talk under these circumstances is a strain, and we were too tired forunnecessary athletics. So we smoked, and pondered over the slaying ofthe great deer.
In a while we discarded the stump-stools and trundled them aside. Abunk ran along the farther side of the hut where the bark had beenstowed, but I had my doubts about its vacancy, and surrendered it toUlus. His hide is tough; he had no qualms. I spread for myself a springmattress of birch-bark upon the floor. Se annexed the clammy skin. Andso we were all satisfied.
One does not wind up watches in these regions, and as time isarbitrarily marked off by the cries of the gastric juices, I cannottell you how the hours were reckoned up that evening. I think we twohumans verged into a semi-torpid condition after that barbaric meal.Repletion, heat, and fatigue were too strong a combination for completewakefulness; and though perhaps not exactly asleep, we were, likehibernating animals, very dully conscious of passing events. Se'scondition was inscrutable. His eyes were closed, but that is nocriterion. He may have been asleep. But yet he possessed certain sensesmore keenly active than ours. As evidence of this, when the night hadworn on to a tolerable age, we heard him give a growl in_crescendo_, and then a short yap.
Se in general is undemonstrative to a degree. Hence the shortculminating bark, which might have been overlooked if emanating fromanother dog, in his case commanded attention.
I rose on an elbow, but could hear no new sound except the soft rustleof Ulus's wet clothes. He was moving too. There was a pause. Presentlyhe whispered "_Bjorn_," and I saw in the stove's faint glow the butt ofthe Martini steal across to me.
You can lay your life to it I was awake enough then. What sportsman inNorway would not tingle with delight at the chance of getting a bear?Ulus had slipped a thong round Se's throat, and that wily hound wasmute. He was as keen on _bjorn_ as either of us, and being gray,and vastly experienced, he knew better than to bay or otherwise createa disturbance.
"_Patron?_" whispered Ulus.
I loaded cautiously, not sending the lever quite home, so as to avoid aclick, and nodded. Then we slipped our knife-sheaths round to thehip--for a shot in the dark is apt to wound only and cause
ared-mouthed charge--and then the door was opened.
We stooped and went outside. The rain was tumbling in sheets; the nightwas dark as the pit, and very noisy; we could make out nothing. Sestrained forward in the leash, neck thrust out, nose on high, up windtowards the lake shore. As we neared the edge of the clearing a fallingbranch struck me across the face. The pine-needles stung, and Istopped, blinded for the moment. Then Ulus gripped my shoulder and Iwiped the tears away, and saw dimly a dark shape coming out of thetrees. The Martini swung up, and I squinted along the barrel. Amountain-ash was in the line of fire, swishing, swaying, so that it wasimpossible to aim; but the animal was coming along bravely--had notseen us probably--and so I determined to hold the shot till I couldmake sure.
The beast came nearer, dodging amongst the stems.
Suddenly, as it got into an opener space, I noted that it was erect.This surprised me, for I had heard that bears never reared on to theirhind feet till wounded. Still you can bet that I intended to shootfirst and inquire afterwards.
But just at that moment Ulus screamed "_Nei bjorn_," and hittingup the rifle barrel, brought my finger sufficiently hard on the hairtrigger to cause explosion. The shot went Lord knows where. I swore,and when the echoes had finished bellowing, I heard the bear swearingtoo. Then I began to sweat, for it dawned upon me that I had beenwithin an ace of deliberately potting a man.
Ulus also used powerful language, and by letting drop the word"_Finne_," gave me to understand that he supposed the intruder tobe a Laplander; but it seemed to me that the shape that loomed throughthe trees was too big for one of those dwarfish aborigines. And,moreover, although I only caught the import of the stranger's words bytone and not by literal meaning, I could have taken affidavit that noneof them were Norsk.
However, we did not stay in ignorance long. Before the powder smoke hadbeen all driven away by the rain the intruder was out of the trees, andhad pulled up in front of us, chuckling. Then--"Hallo! an Englishman?How we islanders do get to out-of-the-way chinks of the globe!"
He paused, and I began to apologize--to say how sorry I was, and workup a neat speech generally--when he cut me short.
"Nearly sent me to the happy hunting grounds, sir? Well, perhaps so,p'raps not. I've seen men missed at shorter rise."
I was a bit piqued at this, and said something about being prettyuseful with a rifle.
He laughed again. "We won't quarrel over it, sir, anyway. I expectwe're both of us satisfied as it is. My hide would have been no use toyou; and for myself, I'm quite content to wear it a bit longer. It fitstolerably enough. But you've a camp somewhere hereaway, haven't you? Ithought I caught the gleam of a flying spark from down by the shingleyonder. That's what brought me up."
I explained how we had got pinned in by the gale, and the quartette ofus went back to the _saeter_ hut. The newcomer feasted there offelk-venison (contriving to cook it, I noticed, much more cannily thanwe had done, though with exactly the same appliances), and betweenwhiles he was told of the chase of the _meget stor bock_--thetracking, the view, and the place of the bullet wounds. Afterwards,when we got to pipes and the last drainings of the grog, he explainedhis presence.
"I expect the wandering Englishman is about as scarce up here as thehoopoo, even when he's got a rifle or a rod in his fist; and as I'veneither the one nor the other, I must be very much of a _rara avis_,and quite the sort of animal to shoot on sight. Fact is, I was round onthe fjord there with my boat, and from what my eyes showed me, and fromwhat a local _topografisk_ chart told, the country on the norrard sidewas much as God stuck it together. I wanted to see a strip of that sortup here, so I fixed a rendezvous and slipped ashore. As it turned out,the map is a pretty bad one, and I lost time in _culs-de-sac_. Finallycame this lake with the steep flanks. I couldn't see to prick outanother course, and I was just casting about for a rock that held a drylee when I saw your light. And now, as I hear you chaps yawning and asI'm about spun out, 'twouldn't be a bad notion to turn in."