ELK-HUNTING IN NAMDALEN. 
227 
knoll ; but the change of wind had shifted him, and he 
had sought more sheltered quarters in a steep wooded 
face where (though twice we thought we heard him) the 
dense timber made it unsafe to follow. Ole reckoned 
that the beast would not stay here. Having once been 
disturbed in his siesta—though by the change of wind 
only, not by us—it was improbable at that hour (2 p.m.) 
that he would lie down again, but would keep on 
moving. 
By a detour we avoided the thick timber and gained 
the higher ground. Here our hunters forecast was 
amply verified. The spoor showed that the deer had 
passed on, and was proceeding slowly but straight, as 
though travelling. The trail led through ravines wdiich 
written words would fail to describe—suffice it that we 
sometimes fell back a mile to leeward in order to cross 
places where the great deer had gone straight ahead. 
Presently the spoor led across a high shoulder (two 
thousand three hundred feet), the top barren fjeld, and 
while descending the reverse slope, Ole dropped on his 
knee, and we knew he had sighted game. In front was 
a wide valley, its floor, five-hundred-feet below, occupied 
by a string of black-looking tarns. The elk was on the 
opposite face, at least a mile away, and in the midst of 
a chaos of crags, waterfalls and scattered trees. 
Little time was allowed for contemplation. Hardly 
had I focussed the binocular exactly upon that indis¬ 
tinct and distant object—a mere point amid the shade 
of rocks and trees—than down came the hail, and a 
blinding storm, driving up the glen, shut out every¬ 
thing from view. Off we set, helter-skelter down that 
rough slope, trusting to the cover of the hail; but 
