176 HUNTING CAMPS. 



for this purpose I accompanied him. We had walked 

 for some hours, when the dog picked up the wind and 

 led us to the fairly-fresh tracks of a cow and calf, and a 

 little later brought us quite noiselessly within two hundred 

 yards or so of the animals. Kristian was greatly pleased 

 with this success, and on the strength of it took the 

 dog out regularly. It was over this dog that later 

 Geoffrey Gathorne- Hardy killed the right and left I 

 have alluded to. Of course, as the hound is always on 

 leash, and thus under control, there are but two qualities 

 necessary for him to possess a good nose and a silent 

 tongue. 



The most famous elk-hound of recent years in 

 Namdalen was Kristian's Bismarck, which in 1905 had 

 to be carried ah 1 the long distances from place to place, 

 but would still lead his master to elk. In the hands 

 of a good trainer it is more than probable that an 

 average elk-hound might be educated into an almost 

 perfect ally in the chase of the great deer. 



Although on the whole the Norway elk do not suffer 

 greatly from out-of-season killing and year by year 

 they are, I hope and believe, steadily increasing in 

 numbers, yet but for the game laws they could and 

 would certainly be exterminated. For towards the 

 beginning of winter, upon the ground where we hunted, 

 there arise occasional little groups of drab dwellings, 

 which are presently over-laid by the all-whitening 

 storms, and passing men on ski see flat Lapp faces, 

 grimed with the smoke of upland fires, peering at them 

 from behind the trees. To escape the rigours of the 

 cold the Lapps desert their summer haunts on the high 

 fjeld and drive their reindeer herds into the lower 

 ground, and even in spite of the legal restrictions which 



