216 A SPRING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



uppermost in iny mind. From my little experience 

 I could see that the elk is a tame unsuspecting 

 animal, and there was something very cowardly in 

 the way I had assaulted these two. Perhaps, had I 

 been lucky enough to kill the cow and calf, a 

 feeling of triumph would have outweighed any other; 

 but as it was I had sent her away probably to die 

 a lingering death in the forest where no one would 

 find her, and I grieved for the fate of the poor calf, 

 which, if it escaped the other guns, would wander 

 alone and unprotected through the deep forest, or 

 probably stand through the chilly autumn night 

 moaning over the dead body of its mother. But 

 I had little time for such reflections. Three more 

 bangs to my left told me that they had reached 

 the other guns, which soon commenced a dropping 

 fire, for I had counted seven more shots and all 

 was still. The beaters were now close up, and I 

 left my stand to join the other guns and see how 

 the battue had ended. I soon found when I 

 came up that some of the shots had taken effect, 

 for there lay the calf riddled with three balls. I 

 was glad of this, for the loss of its mother would 

 now matter nothing. "But there were two," I 

 exclaimed ; upon which one of the foresters, with a 

 grin of exultation in his face, led me away three 

 or four hundred yards into the wood, and there 

 lay the body of the cow. "Who killed this?" 



