U WITH CARL OF THE HILL 



birds of prey. Below this on a shred of green velvet 

 were the lonely saters and the smoke wreathing up 

 into the amber sky. After this there was nothing 

 rugged, all was very soft. For beyond them three 

 little lakes were lying — steel-blue in the inlets, white 

 under the finger of the shifting breezes, red in the eye 

 of the sun. And again one caught the glitter of 

 winding water in the passes and the hollows of the 

 hills. On the left the scene rose to a sublimer 

 beauty — in line upon line of pine-fringed ridges, piled 

 as the steps to a stupendous temple, till they lost 

 themselves in the summit called the Cap of Odin, 

 cold cut against the eastern sky. 



The day following we left the sater, and after the 

 promised feast at Olaf Christensen's, started with the 

 cariole for the drive home. It was a drive I shall 

 never forget. 



Nora was a very fast and very beautiful Norwegian 

 mare, with a mouth of iron, and the temper of a fiend. 

 As she was a confirmed kicker and bolter Carl had 

 bought her for a song, for, as her owner was wont to 

 say, " It was only a question of time — and she would 

 kill a man some day." And this was the animal we 

 were to sit behind, going back to her stable on a 

 down-hill journey with a two days' rest and her belly 

 full of corn. 



