The Legend of the White Reindeer 
another Simlé, a doe Reindeer, uneasily wan- 
dering by itself. But the Varsimlé wished not 
for company. She did not know why, but she 
felt that she must hide away somewhere. 
She stood still until the other had passed on, 
then turned aside, and went with faster steps 
and less wavering, till she came in view of Utro- 
vand, away down by the little stream that turns 
old Sveggum’s ribesten. Up above the dam 
she waded across the limpid stream, for deep- 
laid and sure is the instinct of a wild animal to 
put running water between itself and those it 
shuns. Then, on the farther bank, now bare 
and slightly green, she turned, and passing in 
and out among the twisted trunks, she left the 
noisy Vand-dam. On the higher ground be- 
yond she paused, looked this way and that, 
went on a little, but returned; and here, com- 
pletely shut in by softly painted rocks, and 
birches wearing little springtime hangers, she 
seemed inclined to rest; yet not to rest, for she 
stood uneasily this way and that, driving away 
the flies that settled on her legs, heeding not at 
all the growing grass, and thinking she was hid 
from all the world. 
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