470 NEW LAND. 



shooting fever shook me so that my gun and glasses rattled as I 

 looked at them. There I stood, trembling and wondering; the 

 wind was between me and the animals, but we were each on our 

 separate hills, so that it was impossible for me to stalk them across 

 the level depression which divided us. The reindeer were seven 

 or eight hundred yards away, and I thought of trying to find cover 

 and crawl across to them, but hardly had I begun to move than 

 they winded me, stood still a while to gaze, and then away on 

 the other side of the knoll. I ran up it, and saw them a few 

 hundred yards below me. They had stopped, and were looking 

 up ; they caught sight of me at once, although I immediately lay 

 down on the ground. When I peeped up again they were 

 trotting in my direction, looking inquisitively at me. Then they 

 stopped and began to graze ; but their curiosity was too much for 

 them, and they had to take another little run to find out what this 

 dark object might be which lay bobbing up and down on the 

 hilltop ; but again they stopped and looked, then ran back, and at 

 last- settled down to graze quietly, only glancing up at me now 

 and then. 



' Meanwhile I lay ready to shoot with my little stump of a 

 rifle, looking up now and then, partly in order to keep an eye 

 on the animals, and partly to animate them. But' at last they 

 would come no nearer, and although I thought the range pretty 

 long, I crawled as far forward as I dared, and with the case 

 of the field-glasses for a rest and the sight at two hundred and 

 twenty yards, full sight, I possessed myself with courage and 

 let blaze. 



' The reindeer merely looked up, sniffed, and went on grazing. 

 I loaded and shot again again and again ! Then I half raised 

 myself and saw that the range was short, put down the sight, and 

 tried again. The animal sprang into the air and galloped away 

 downhill. Furious, I shouted to the second one as it set off at a trot 

 after the other, that it might have that for a farewell, and flung a 

 shot after it. The animal fell ! Yes, really, fell ! I rushed down 

 to it, and finished it off with a shot in the nape of the neck then 

 gazed long after the first one. Great was my astonishment when 

 I saw that it had lain down ; I approached it, but it did not appear 



