316 
LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
us was the game he had bagged, we seized our guns 
—I took a rifle in case of a possible bear—and set our 
faces toward the hill. After a good hour’s pull we 
reached the shoulder which Fitz had indicated as the 
scene of his exploit, but a patch of snow was the only 
thing visible. Suddenly I saw Sigurdr, who was re¬ 
markably sharp sighted, run rapidly in the direction of 
the snow, and bringing his gun up to his shoulder, point 
it—as well as I could distinguish—at his own toes. 
When the smoke of the shot had cleared away, I fully 
expected to see the Icelander prostrate; but he was 
already reloading with the greatest expedition. Deter¬ 
mined to prevent the repetition of so dreadful an attempt 
at self-destruction, I rushed to the spot. Guess then my 
relief when the bloody body of a ptarmigan—driven by 
so point blank a discharge, a couple of feet into the snow 
—-was triumphantly dragged forth by instalments from 
the sepulchre which it had received contemporaneously 
with its death wound, and thus happily accounted for 
Sigurdr’s extraordinary proceeding. At the same 
moment I perceived two or three dozen other birds, 
brothers and sisters of the defunct, calmly strutting 
about under our very noses. By this time Sigurdr had 
