AN ELK SEASON. 147 



me with a cariole, as I had decided to start by hunting the 

 Gartland Forest where the big bull had been seen by the 

 saeter girl. After putting up the horse at Gartland Farm, 

 we commenced a laborious climb to reach high ground, for 

 although later in the year elk were found in the lower pine 

 forests, at the time I write of boys were herding cattle in 

 them, and they were consequently useless. This long pre- 

 liminary climb to reach the elk-grounds, when undertaken 

 daily, makes a very definite addition to the call upon the 

 physical energy that is needed for the direct purpose of 

 hunting. In dull, quiet weather we ascended, but we were 

 met on the ridges by a strong wind, which whistled through 

 the spreading thickets of dwarf -birch and ruffled the sur- 

 face of the upland waters. Under foot mosses made a carpet 

 of pile a foot deep and of colours beyond imagination, 

 reindeer moss threw its lace of yellow and white over hills 

 and hollows, and the ground was everywhere starred with 

 golden maltebaere. It is on such ground as this that the 

 Norwegian elk passes the hotter part of summer, until 

 stress of weather drives him to take shelter lower down 

 among the trees. Yet even in September, when the sun 

 shines out after a night of storm or of frost, he is apt to 

 climb away from the fringes of the forests and to spend the 

 day on the higher levels lying in some marshy hollow. 



On that first day we patrolled the sombre woodlands 

 and the breezy open, but not a sign of elk did we see, and 

 the evening closed upon the non-fulfilment of Peder's fore- 

 cast. This went on for four days, during which Bismarck 

 stalked ahead in his leash, for the most part with listless 

 indifference, only once raising our hopes by a more alert 

 demeanour, which, however, ended in nothing more ex- 

 citing than a glimpse of a spike-bull already skr&mt upon a 

 distant hillside. 



Half the charm of elk-hunting centres on the dog, with- 

 out whose aid, except on the very high and open fjeld where 



