MY SPORTING HOLIDAYS 



or even a season, without a shot or a kill has not been 

 an unheard-of occurrence among Norwegian elk- 

 hunters. It was as well, therefore, to be prepared 

 for disappointment. 



We were a syndicate of three a quadruped and 

 two bipeds. First and most important there was 

 Rover the clog, a prick-eared, curly-tailed, silk-coated 

 Norske collie, whose keen nose and quiet sagacity 

 found the game with unerring instinct. He was held 

 in leash by Ivor the hunter, who knew the ground 

 and had eyes like a hawk for hair or sign ; while the 

 writer, the third of the trio, did the shooting with a 

 double *500 express rifle when opportunity, at un- 

 certain intervals, came. Johan, the landlord, whose 

 house overlooking the river was our headquarters and 

 base of operations, also occasionally accompanied us. 

 He knew the forest, wanted a supply of winter meat, 

 and was desperately keen for blood. 



Our stalking- ground was a large tract of Govern- 

 ment land, about twenty miles long by ten broad, 

 which I had somewhat unexpectedly secured at the 

 last moment, carrying the right to kill four elk. It was 

 not in a well-known elk district, and had not, so far, 

 been regularly stalked ; nor had it as yet yielded the 

 limit of four elk in any one season. The previous 

 year a friend of mine Lord Newton had killed a 

 good bull on the ground ; and it was through him that 

 I first heard of the district as being good for elk. 



The opening day saw us in the forest at an early 

 hour. From the river-banks the valley was clothed 

 with dense spruce-woods, gradually mingling with 

 birch and mountain-ash, until, some miles back and 

 2,000 feet upwards, the forest changed to birch-wood 

 and scrub. Here and there were open yellow marshes, 



