HAPPY HUNTING GROUNDS. 261 



hundred yards to go, but we stopped to wait for Bay and Schei, 

 who had not kept up with us. This, however, did not suit 

 the dogs, who wanted to set on the cattle at once, and pulled 

 impatiently at their traces. I tried to hold them in, but they 

 began to howl, and made such a clamour that I was afraid 

 they would put the oxen to flight, so, choosing the lesser evil, I 

 let them go, when they flashed like rockets up the hillside, and 

 across the level ground at the top. The oxen were rather scattered, 

 but quick as lightning they formed a square, and stood side by 

 side, so close together, that the whole herd looked like one black 

 mass. 



We should have liked to wait till the others came up before 

 beginning to shoot, but as only one team was attacking the 

 square, we were afraid the cattle might break the ranks and make 

 off to the mountains, so Fosheim walked to within suitable range 

 and began the slaughter ; for by no other name can the shooting of 

 a drawn-up square be called. 



During the few minutes that it took to do this, the animals 

 made their regular sallies after the dogs. How proud they looked, 

 those sturdy animals with their formidable horns, as they galloped 

 snorting across the plain, the breath from their nostrils looking 

 like jets of steam a couple of yards long in the cold air. 



Fosheim walked round the square and took such good aim 

 that, as a rule, one shot was enough for each animal. He aimed at 

 the forehead, under the horns, and fired as the ox was lifting its 

 head to its highest pitch. Twice or thrice it happened that an ox 

 with a bullet in its head did not fall, but burst out from the square 

 in fury, and then, for a moment, things looked bad for Fosheim. 

 But each time the dogs came to the rescue ; though, as a matter of 

 fact, the animals had had so much that their strength was broken. 

 When Bay and Schei came up, Fosheim had shot all the cattle 

 except two or three young animals and about five calves. 



It was ten o'clock when we first caught sight of the herd, and 

 by eleven the misdeed was finished. How distressed I felt, 

 as I stood there, looking on, that we should be obliged to do such 

 a thing ! I would rather hang a criminal, if such a thing fell to 

 my lot, than shoot down a herd of defenceless animals, which had 



