26 
WILD NORWAY. 
all over the tiny space. The cold at night was 
penetrating, and at an early hour (4 a.m.) an excru¬ 
ciating noise aroused us. Lars was grinding coffee 
by crushing the roasted berries under a beer bottle. 
Sleep being impossible, we turned out, and found that 
ablutions were equally so. The ground lay white with 
snow, and every pool and stream was frozen, though 
we were still in August. The burn that last night 
danced hard by our hut had ceased to be; every 
evening it was there when we returned from stalking, 
but every morning it was gone. The night frosts were 
fatal to its existence. Not till midday was a dip 
possible; and to finish off the subject at once, let us 
confess that during our whole sojourn at Breiava we 
never were undressed nor enjoyed a decent wash. 
A word as to our living. Having only one kettle, it 
was necessary first to boil our trout (having previously 
caught them), before the coffee could be similarly 
treated ; then the little' stove was called upon to fry a 
ptarmigan or venison-steaks, and, when extra luxurious, 
sardines or tinned peaches or pine-apple wound up the 
feast. Dinner was necessarily constructed on precisely 
the same lines as breakfast, though beer replaced coffee 
as long as our stock of “ ol ” lasted. 
At half-past five we were off, Lars and I, in the 
keen morning air. The wind having shifted during 
the night, and now blowing fresh from the eastward, 
we took that direction. To me, in big-game hunting, 
fortune had ever been chary ; with two or three grateful 
exceptions, arduous expeditions in foreign lands had 
been but ill-rewarded, and hard-earned trophies secured 
more by solid work and “ sticking-in ” than by any 
