stances slip their dog, which remains absolutely mute even when the elk is in sight a few yards off.
We had some awful weather at this time and a heavy fall of snow took place, which melted as it fell, and made the rivers impassable in many places. The day after this snow I started late with Larsen and his dogs, sending a pony with food and blankets on to a saeter called Skarpdal, four or five hours’ walk from Aune, to which we intended to hunt our way. Neither of us had been to this saeter before, but there was a pony track which led up the valley, and I thought that with the help of the excellent map, than which no better exists in any country for showing the features of the district, we should be able to find it. About three in the afternoon, when we were more than half-way, following the tracks of the pony in the slushy snow, we came on fresh tracks of four elk, which led up to a thicket of birch above timber line. If I had been alone or with a dog used to hunting in leash, I dare say I could have got up to them, but Larsen seemed to think that the covert was too thick to get a shot in. As soon as his dogs got wind of the elk, he slipped them. Off they dashed, and in three minutes appeared close to a big bull which had separated from the others. He ran and I ran, and the farther we went the farther I was left behind, but in a mile or two the elk stood, and Larsen crept up and shot him, a twenty-two pointer with small points, looking like a head that was going back. I ran up as quick as I could, and when we had gralloched the elk, and Larsen had refreshed himself with a double handful of warm blood, which he drank with as much gusto as if it had been whisky, we began to think we should hardly reach the saeter before dark. For though we followed the pony's track as long as we could see it in the melting snow, the path was quite hidden, and when it got dark, though we had forded the three streams which I knew we had to cross, I could see no light, nor had the least idea how to find the Avay. Larsen, however, opened the breech of his rifle and blew a note through the barrel which sounded something like that of a hunting-horn, saying that if his other dog, which had gone on with the pony, could hear it, he would bark. Sure enough, in a little while we could just hear a distant bay, and stumbled on in that direction as best we could. At last I fired a shot, and got an answering hail from the saeter, of which we at last saw the light on the hillside half a mile off. When at last Ave got close to it, we found another stream so swollen by the melting snows that without the help of the pony, which the lad brought out to help us, I do not think I could have crossed in the dark. And never was warmth and shelter more welcome than that saeter afforded after a long hard day in the snow; after fresh elk kidney and liver for supper Ave slept as well as possible, instead, as I expected, of having to bivouac under a tree in the snow.
Next day I hunted my way back to Aune without seeing any tracks worth following, but I had a lucky shot on the day following. It happened in this way. I had hunted over the top of the hill on the other side of the river, and in the afternoon slipped one dog in hope of his finding an elk which had been moving about in the early morning, but which had gone down into the forest. The dog went oft and found him, but we could not
