6 WITH CARL OF THE HILL 



never seen one (he has never left his own country), and 

 in all that can be said about its habits and the ways of 

 hunting it, his interest is prodigious. 



Of what did we not talk that night ? Of birds and 

 beasts and flowers, of skiddor versus Indian snow- 

 shoes, of ways of life in this and other lands. 



" Sleep well," said Carl as he bid me good-night ; 

 " remember, to-morrow we hunt the elk." 



As if I was likely to forget it. 



, ^ , . The Elk. 



US''-' • 



How big the forest is one cannot say. For days a 

 man may wander there and never see its outer rim. 

 There are no roads — none, that is, except here and 

 there a cart-track cleared between the trees. 



The elk is not a mountain creature ; his part of the 

 forest, taken as a whole, is flat, lying round about the 

 risings of the sudden hills. 



We are out this morning, September 17th, Justin 

 time to see the sunrise at a quarter to six. " An elk," 

 says Carl, "must be killed to-day, for it is the last 

 V day of the season, and we shall want this winter all 

 the food we can get." The reports about wolves, 

 the movements of waterfowl, the early flocking of 



