TODAL AND LILLEDAL 171 



done myself, from wasting his time on such a forlorn 

 hope. Although my sons had many times slept out on 

 the fjeld, lured away from the river by similar messages, 

 they had never got a shot at a bear, or even a glimpse 

 at one. However, on this occasion the wise men were 

 wrong, for that night the bear came straight back to 

 the dead sheep within fifty yards of the farmer's son 

 who was watching with his military rifle, and fell 

 an easy victim. 



On another occasion a little further up the valley 

 a dark-coloured bull had strayed, and a party 

 went in search of him. They had not got very 

 far when they spied what they imagined to be the 

 truant in an open glade. They surrounded the 

 spot, but when they came to close quarters found 

 themselves face to face with a big brown bear, and 

 having no rifles with them were obliged to let him 

 alone. In the City such a confusion between bulls 

 and bears might have led to more disastrous results. 

 Had they carried glasses, as Scotch mountaineers 

 generally do, they would certainly have got an easy 

 shot, but in Norway even the professional reindeer 

 hunters very seldom use them. 



Not far from Sundalsoren a narrow ledge some 

 3000 feet above the sea forms the only passage 

 between two wooded valleys, and here the natives 

 constructed a rough bear-trap by obstructing the 

 passage with a thick fence of bushes, leaving only 

 a small hole, round which they put a rough snare 

 of rope. When my sons visited this spot on one 

 of their wild-goose chases, they found the body of a 

 bear which had been caught in the snare suspended 

 by the rope over the precipice ; but it had been 



