ELK-HUNTING IN NORWAY 115 



anathemas follow them. Ivor begins to eat berries, 

 and I follow his example. Our hearts sink low. My 

 rifle is twice the weight it was. 



A little farther we proceed, and now the wood 

 opens ; it is possible to see 100 yards or more, here 

 and there. Now Rover quickens into unmistakable 

 animation. Every fibre of his handsome dark-gray- 

 coated body, his pricked ears, and sniffing nostril, tell 

 us in language as plain as a printed book that he has 

 winded, not spoor, but elk. Our advance is more 

 cautious still. Suddenly, ' See here !' says Ivor, in 

 a hoarse whisper, standing a yard in front of me and 

 pointing past a spreading fir-tree with his finger. I 

 spring a yard in front of him, and see through the 

 trees, 160 yards or more down the hill, the great 

 dark body we have for days been looking for. A 

 single stride will take the elk out of sight. For- 

 tunately, his head is behind a tree, and he has not seen 

 us, though he may have heard something ; I control 

 with difficulty the impulse to shoot standing, on sight. 

 I sit down, elbow on knee, and draw a full sight on 

 the black side. The distance is too great to take 

 a free shot from the shoulder. I will run, for three 

 seconds, the chance of his moving. It seems ages 

 before I can get the bead steady on his side, before 

 I can or will press the trigger. The smoke clears. 

 Surely he moved very slowly away. We Ivor, 

 Rover, and I run down the hill a neck-and-neck race 

 to where he stood when I shot, and on through thick 

 cover for 100 yards or so. ' Der han er !' says Ivor 

 eagerly, as a great bull staggers out from under 

 a thick pine straight towards us, with : the will, though 

 not all the power, to charge. The half-inch expanding 

 bullet, driven by 5 drachms of ; black powder through 



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