172 SHORT STALKS 



with this, he presses down the limher saplings by the 

 weight of his body, and standing over them browses them 

 to the top. In hot still weather the elk sometimes leave 

 the dense covert and frequent the more open fjeld. Once, 

 when my son was shooting grouse on such ground, his 

 setter drew up to a bunch of young spruces, but suddenly 

 leaving his point began barking furiously. As the sports- 

 men hurried up, expecting to find some wild cat, or pos- 

 sibly a bear, a large bull elk rose up and calmly trotted 

 away. Of course it was the day before the opening of 

 the season. 



My first experience w^as all very well for a beginning, 

 but we wanted a wider range and more unsophisticated 

 quarters. ]\Iy Norw^egian servant had already been sent 

 on with the luggage up the fine valley which here falls 

 into the Selbo Vand. I was assured that the Tydal had 

 not been visited by Englishmen for several years. The 

 accommodation was said to be too rouoh for ladies, but 

 they protested against the assumption, and we started in 

 a stolherre and three karjole on the following day. The 

 road is in the old-fashioned style, that is to say, like 

 General AVade's roads in the Hio;hlands, it o-oes over hill 

 and dale instead of contourinsf them. This means finer 

 scenery with diminished speed. At the second station 

 where we changed horses, we noticed the head and skin of 

 a freshly-killed elk, shot, as we were told, l)y a Swede who 

 was hunting in the valley. A few miles fjirther on we 

 encountered a cart with the huQ-e carcase of another, the 

 handiwork of the same man, and the farther we advanced 

 the thicker grew the rumours of the prowess of this mys- 

 terious hunter. At each station we found that Dahl, the 



