98 MY SPORTING HOLIDAYS 



failure or the joy of the success is theirs as well as 

 ours. And as we, in the common endeavour of the 

 sport, quickly learn their characters, so they often, in 

 the hunt amid the mountains, read our very souls. 



Rudyard Kipling put the matter clearly and with 

 insight when he wrote : 



' Who shall meet them at those altars who shall light them to 



that shrine ? 



Velvet-footed, who shall guide them to their goal ? 

 Unto each the voice and vision : unto each his spoor and sign 

 Lonely mountain in the Northland, misty sweat-bath "neath 



the Line 



And to each a man that knows his naked soul ! 

 White or yellow, black or copper, he is waiting as a lover, 

 Smoke of funnel, dust of hooves, or beat of train 

 Where the high grass hides the horseman, or the glaring flats 



discover 

 Where the steamer hails the landing, or the surf-boat brings 



the rover 

 Where the rails run out in sand-drift. . . . Quick ! ah, heave 



the camp-kit over ! 



For the Red Gods make their medicine again P 



Ole Svanamyr and I were close companions for a 

 week, and we parted the best of friends. The party 

 of us, four in number, went up to a f jeld hut about 

 twelve miles distant from Hoolaker, and stalked in 

 couples in different directions every day with varying 

 success. Our stay was necessarily short, owing to 

 the late period of the season, and the possibility that 

 a snowstorm might find us out, interfere with sport, 

 and even make return to the valley difficult. It so 

 happened on this occasion that, in coming across deer, 

 I had a run of 4 duffer's luck,' Buxton and Jordhai 

 naturally took the choice of ground, for the origin of 

 the expedition was theirs, and I was merely partici- 

 pating in it by mere accident of meeting with them, 

 and as an afterthought. All the conditions for such 



