ELK HUNTING 
showers. Spent a long day round the shoulder of the mountain and up 
the branch valley where the lakes are, as they are a sure find for cow elk, 
and the bulls should now have come in to join them. About 12 o’clock we 
took a rest on the summit of a cliff commanding a magnificent view of the 
whole ground; for that there would be anything moving about at this 
time of day was hardly likely, and after a long climb we were glad to sit 
down for a bit where we could smoke and spy out the land in lazy content- 
ment. All at once Bismark who for some time past had been alternately 
yawning, stretching and scratching, raised himself on to his forelegs and 
gazed earnestly down hill towards a little tarn into which we could have 
thrown a pebble some 500 feet below. A quiet whimper, and the good dog 
cocked his tail at a businesslike angle and showed his anxiety to be off. 
Except himself, all was now dead still, not a breath of air was passing, 
so I had little hope of getting up to the game, whatever it might be. We 
must chance it, however. So down the rugged slope we went with the 
utmost caution, only to find ourselves in a dense tangle of birch, fir, and 
swamp in which it was impossible to see twenty yards ahead. The dog now 
became extremely excited, but quite uncertain in which direction to 
proceed, and as we were equally in the dark, there was nothing for it but to 
go blundering on, as we did, until, as luck would have it, we reached an 
open space beside the lakelet. Here Bismark suddenly looked up from the 
spoor and gazed intently into the dark wood above us, and at the same 
moment I became aware of two great shadows followed by two pairs of 
white stockings flitting out of sight about seventy yards away. “ The last 
is the bull,” said Kristian hurriedly as I took a quick snap shot. Instantly 
there was a great crash, followed by an interval of silence, and then a more 
prolonged breakage of sticks as a heavy body rolled a few yards down hill 
and came into view. A young two -year-old bull, by all that is unlucky! 
Meat was not the object of our chase — we did not want it — and as I had not 
yet secured a good head, the slaying of a beast as big as a carriage horse 
but with small horns was no subject for rejoicing; so after lunch we set 
forth again to try and find something better, to atone for this mistake. 
Worse luck, however, was yet in store for me, and this time through no 
fault of my own. 
About four in the afternoon we struck the fresh spoor of a good bull and 
cow which, with Bismark’s steady assistance, led us through a maze of 
ravines always upwards towards the high and open fjeld. Two and a half 
hours of slow tracking, climbing nearly all the time, had somewhat 
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