ELK-HUNTING IN NAMDALEN. 
235 
despairing, blit, it may so befall, never getting a chance 
to score. But the dominion is in him : sooner or later 
pluck and perseverance prevail, and it is then—when he 
finds himself at length three points to one better than 
the wildest beast on earth —then he should bear in mind 
this humble bit of advice and make the most of a hard- 
earned opportunity. Depend upon it a cool head at 
critical moments, and calm judgment, represent more 
points even than the most brilliant rifle-practice. 
Next morning early, while powdery snow still clothed 
the heights, the men were off at dawn to skin and cut 
up the game, and the usual meat-traffic commenced. 
A half-way camp was established where coffee simmered 
on a pine-cone fire, and for a week to come men, setting 
out with sacks and ropes, or returning with gory 
burdens, traversed those leagues of forest, fjeld and 
lake, till every ounce of those two thousand pounds 
wa/s safely housed. 
On cutting up the elks, all my five bullets were 
recovered—three in the black bull, two in the white. 
All but the second fired (which was a foot too far back) 
had struck within an inch or two of the points selected. 
The first ball had traversed both shoulders of the black 
bull and broken his far foreleg. The elk is a tough 
beast, and requires a terrible blow. 
The flesh, I should explain, belongs to the proprietor 
on whose land it was killed, only the head, horns, and 
such meat as he may require for his own use being* 
retained by the hunter. Elk-beef is of excellent quality, 
brown, but tender and of delicate flavour, with strata 
and lines of fat. "We had been well supplied, for on the 
