268 
WILD NORWAY. 
bullet, and the elk, staggering a few steps, plunged 
headlong to earth, apparently dead. No movement was 
visible above the scrub; but, after crossing an interven¬ 
ing gorge, we found he had recovered and gone on. 
With a hot scent and a sprinkling of blood, we followed 
at top speed, but though we twice sighted the elk slowly 
travelling, and fired several random shots (three of which 
told), we failed to come up before dark. 
With the dawn next morning we resumed the pursuit, 
taking a Lapp as a guide in crossing the rivers. Again 
we found the elk, within a mile or two of where we had 
left him, but the frequent rivers (including one passage 
of the main Luru, there waist-deep and forty yards wide) 
deprived us of the satisfaction of handling our trophy 
that night, though we did not leave the chase till, after 
four more shots, the bull had at length fallen dead on a 
rocky islet, to us inaccessible. This, after half an hours 
struggle with a tearing torrent, breast-deep, Johannes 
and the Lapp succeeded in reaching and reported the 
bull to carry twenty-two spears. 
Leaving them, we made for home under solid rain, 
and without the guidance of our Lapp. In the morning 
we had contemptuously concluded that where that little 
Bandicoot could go, we could follow; but the day’s 
experience had early shaken that conviction, and now we 
reached an obstacle that utterly stopped us. This was 
a series of fosses, falls, and cataracts, varied by lake¬ 
like intervals, that looked fathomless. We followed 
the stream up the fjeld, in hopes of finding a fordable 
spot; but the further we went, the bigger and more 
impassable it seemed to grow. One hour before dark 
we were three miles up the mountain-side, nothing in 
