46 
WILD NORWAY. 
he went down that moraine, faster than ever; while so 
sick and humiliated did I feel—missing a beast as big 
as a donkey at thirty yards—that I was too ashamed to 
use the other barrel, and turned away. Again a rattle 
on the rocks attracted attention, and looking round, the 
buck was pitching headlong, stone dead, down the steep 
moraine. The bullet, after all, had gone right through 
both shoulders, and I 
could not have made a 
better shot had I dwelt 
ten seconds on the aim. 
This proved to be 
my last deer of 1893. 
The next day was very 
wet, and on the morrow 
we set out, in a gentle 
drizzle, on our return. 
The swollen rivers we 
crossed in safety; but 
in the region of cloud 
which overspread the 
“ mountains of the 
moon,” we lost the way. 
Vainly we cast to right 
and left. Nothing but 
precipice and glacier confronted us on every side. Lars 
left me with the pony while he sought a path. That 
wise little beastie knew all about it, and while I lighted 
a consolatory pipe, moved off to show us the way. Ere 
I could catch him, he was crossing a steep snow-slope. 
Here his instincts, too, were at fault, for the undermined 
snow gave way, and amidst an avalanche of rocks, ice 
MEMENTOS OF THE HIGH FJELD. 
