SUMMER RAMBLES ON THE SURENDAL FJELDS. 119 
eaten away down to the shoulder, the ribs exposed and 
each bone carefully picked. The carcase lay within sixty 
yards of a wooden hay-shed, in which I found ensconced 
three Norsk gunners. The right to the bear having 
been assigned to me by Sverka (in whom it vested as 
the owner of the killed sheep), the natives at once gave 
me precedence, though they remained in the shed “ in 
case I should miss.” I afterwards heard that my 
“ supports ” were the laughing-stock of the district. A 
short time previous, a bear having killed a cow on a 
neighbouring fell, the re¬ 
doubtable trio waited up 
for his return. On the 
third night he came and 
finished the cow before 
their eyes, they asserting 
that as “ he was as big as 
a horse ” it was not pru¬ 
dent to fire. 
These men having, as 
their habit is, converted 
the hay-shed into a spit¬ 
toon, and, neither caring for such close proximity nor 
for shooting through the chinks of rotten timbers, I 
decided to form an ambush outside ; and, after a survey 
of the situation, made a screen of cut bushes by some 
rocks that commanded the kill to windward, at about 
thirty-five yards’ distance. The bear, by the way, had 
pounced on his victim from the cover of some hazel-bushes 
about forty yards higher up the hill, and the marks of 
the struggle, and the track along which he had dragged 
his prey down the boggy grass-slope, were very distinct. 
