REINDEER-STALKING IN RYFYLKE. 
2 7 
special turn of luck. And my first day’s experience on 
Ryfylkan heights proved no exception. For three 
hours we scrambled and climbed over rocks and snow, 
balancing on boulders or crawling up ragged biting 
crags; anon crossing screes which sloped from underfoot 
into bottomless abyss or lake, without seeing deer. 
Then Lars’ eyes were focussed on a distant snow-slope. 
I could see nothing, but seven deer had crossed the 
snow that morning. The deer were going due east, 
following the change of wind, as Lars explained ; hence 
their course was nearly straight, and we had but little 
difficulty in picking up the trail again and again after 
the game had traversed wide intervals of high bed-rock 
where, of course, no spoor could be seen. We had 
followed their break-neck course for some hours, when 
Lars became perplexed by the seven tracks having 
increased to nine. He left me sitting on the edge of a 
small glacier while he cast back, presently returning to 
report that he had found the spoor of the two, which 
had evidently joined the original herd, all nine proceeding 
together. 
We followed with increased caution, “ spying ” 
every glen and corrie, and at frequent intervals search¬ 
ing out the more distant slopes with the glass. It was 
now noon, and Lars remarked, “the rens will not be 
much further off, for they will now be lying down to 
rest.” No habit in wild animals is more fixed and 
regular than this midday siesta of reindeer. It lasts 
from one to two hours, and I have never seen them 
neglect it. Still, the most careful scrutiny revealed no 
living creature upon the wastes of rock, snow, and 
stony ridges, when, on our front and not a mile ahead, 
