{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_51771/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_51771","id":"gutenberg_51771","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51771","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Novels","Hunters -- Fiction","Moose -- Fiction","Norway -- Fiction","Norwegian fiction -- Translations into English"],"text":"TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTE:\n\n\u2014Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n                         The Trail of the Elk\n\n[Illustration: THE R\u00c9 VALLEY SWEDE]\n\n                         The Trail of the Elk\n\n                _from the Norwegian of_ H. Fonhus\n                      _illustrated by_ Harry\n                               Rountree\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n                             Jonathan Cape\n                      Eleven Gower Street, London\n\n\n\n\n                      _First published 1922_\n\n                      _All Rights Reserved_\n\n\n\n\n                         The Trail of the Elk\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nThe Trail of the Elk\n\n\n\u00a7 1\n\nTHIS is the story of a wizard elk\u2014Rauten, as people called him. He was\na human being in animal guise.\n\nThe story begins in R\u00e9 Valley, which lies like a yawning gap between\nmountains, long and flat with borders of forests so dark that they look\nas though part of the blackness of night lingered in them. A river\nmoves sluggishly along the bottom of the valley, making its way slowly\nand carefully between stretches of light-red sand. It runs northwards,\na rare thing in Norway.\n\nThere are bogs along the banks of the river, bearing tall, stiff sedge,\nand when the weather is calm they appear to be bristling. But in\nsunshine and wind they sway to and fro like undulating carpets of silk.\nSometimes a long neck appears, and a crane moves with his measured\nstride, in which there is peace and contentment. For the crane does not\ntrouble himself about the past or the future. The present with its\nlong round of days suffices for him.\n\nAn ancient mountain farm lies there with its fence all tumbled down.\nThe thin pasture is covered here and there with copses. The houses rot\nand are never rebuilt. At one time bears were so troublesome round\nabout Tolleiv Mountain Farm that it was impossible to remain there, and\neven to-day it often happens, especially in the autumn, that a bear is\nseen feeding on berries far up the mountain side.\n\nBut in the spring, life seethes in all the animals of the valley.\nThe capercailzie stretches his neck, shuts his eyes, and hisses\npassionately towards the sunrise. Each night is a time of fierce\nunrest. Wings flap, claws tear and rend, and slavering rows of teeth\nsnarl angrily at each other in the purple moonlight. Above the forests\nthe R\u00e9 Mountains rise like white swans.\n\n\n\u00a7 2\n\nIt was in the summer-time a good many years ago. On the slopes between\nSvart Mountain at the upper end of R\u00e9 Valley there might have been seen\nan elk with her calf. The strange feature of the calf was that it had\nlost half one of its ears. I will tell you later on how this happened.\nThe calf was born amongst the patches of hard snow below the region\nwhere the snow melts in spring, and at the time of which we write\nhe was still quite small. But as by degrees the weeks passed by he\ndeveloped gristle, he gained in bulk, marrow formed in his bones, and\nhe grew heavy. That calf was bound to grow into a giant elk if only he\nwere allowed time enough.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nEven the elk oxen with their seven-tined antlers, who scrub the young\ntrees in R\u00e9 Valley, were once young calves like this.\n\nHe is feeding from his mother; the warm milk, trickling slowly from her\nbody into his, gives him his first sensation of pleasure. Consciousness\ngrows clear just as the clouds roll away and leave the blue sky above\nhim. He gains his first notions of time, which is made up of light and\ndarkness. He learns that still water is silent, and that running water\nmakes a sound, and may lick his legs as with wet and cool tongues\u2014and\nthat when the wind rises the trees wail like young fox cubs. He also\nlearns how to distinguish the shrill call of the hawk and falcon that\nhover beneath the sky like shivering leaves. At night countless little\neyes gleam from the vault above him; they are stars. But stars may\ngleam even from dark copses and gullies, from marten and from fox, from\nall the animals that rise when the sun sets.\n\nThe nights of midsummer draw their soft veil over the valley, and the\nglaciers, forgotten and abandoned in the mountains, light their shining\nsilvery lamps. Deep down in the Gipsy Pond a golden cloud has gone to\nrest like a pyre in the night, a sacrificial fire to the god of peace\nand loneliness. And above its flames the leaves of the waterlilies\nsway on the face of the water like great green hearts. Some days bring\nthunder and lightning, as if the heavens would be rent asunder, and\nafter the storm the sun gleams on showers of rain trailing over the\nmountains like dew-wet shimmering cobwebs.\n\nBut on autumn nights the earth seems to be wrapped up in a golden\nfleece and the moon glares from the sky like a yellow eye.\n\nAbout this time the elks of R\u00e9 Valley grow strangely restless. Old\nbulls stand snorting against the wind, and they may be observed to veer\nround for nothing more than the fresh tracks of a man. What ails them?\nThey do not know. But here and there spoors of dog and man form, as it\nwere, zones of terror across the wilderness.\n\nThere they go, the man and his dog, across the bogs along the R\u00e9 River,\nwhere tufts of dying dwarf birch lie blood-red like open wounds. The\nman and his dog walk for an hour. They go on for another hour.\n\nThe man is short and compactly built, and people never call him\nanything but Gaupa (The Lynx). His beard is long, dark, and bristling\nlike lichen. His eyes have almost the same colour as his beard, and\nthey are so piercing and cold that a glance from them seems to give\nphysical pain, and so small that they appear to be on the point\nof disappearing. Around the left corner of his mouth the skin is\neverlastingly twitching; it started years before when he was a lad, but\nit still goes on whether he is awake or asleep.\n\nGaupa wears grey homespun, with real silver buttons on his waistcoat.\nThe buttons gleam in the sun, becoming in their turn tiny shining suns.\nOver his shoulder hangs his rifle, which he has named the \u201cTempest\u201d and\nthe dog he leads is large, dark and shaggy, and his name is \u201cBj\u00f6nn\u201d\n(The Bear).\n\nGaupa does not walk like other people, he is always half on the run.\nWhen his path is barred by a fallen tree or such like he does not\nstride across it, he jumps. He seems to be in incredible haste, and yet\nfew people have more time to spare.\n\nWherever he goes he reads the signs before him. A bog to him is a\nwritten page, a short story written by the animals themselves with\ntheir hoofs or claws. There is the spoor of an elk, but somewhat old,\nfor dry weather has fallen in and the grass has straightened itself.\nBj\u00f6nn puts his nose to it, but remains indifferent.\n\nAnd the man and his dog walk on and on.\n\nLate in the day a rumble is heard from the R\u00e9 Mountains, long and\nheavy. The lesser mountains catch the sound and send it on. It floats\nalong the slopes from one side to the other till it dies away behind a\nshady hill far to the south. One might imagine it was Silence itself\nmoving only to listen for more. And throughout the valley startled elks\nraise their heads. That is how things were when the shot cracked.\n\nThe warm evening sun glows on a pine-clad hillock on the western slope.\nMoss grown rocks take a deeper tint. Two elks come running out of the\nforest, a cow and a calf. A shaggy deer-hound follows, his dripping\ntongue lolling. The cow starts walking again, but stops as if suddenly\nremembering that there is no longer any hurry. She sways a little and\nnearly falls, but regains her balance. Her flanks work furiously and\nwith each breath golden-red clouds emerge from her nostrils, falling\nlike a red rain on the little calf frisking before her. He seems to be\nruddy all over his back from his mother\u2019s breath.\n\nStanding thus the cow begins to nod her head. Her eyes are moist,\nshiny, living, like mirrors catching the picture of the little calf\nbefore her\u2014oh, so clearly, as if they would fain take the memory of him\naway with them far away into the land of shadows.\n\nIn a little while she falls on one side, felling a young pine with\nher weight, and now the animal has no more soul than a tree-stump, a\nmonstrous heap of flesh and bones devoid of life.\n\nBj\u00f6nn follows the calf, baying deeply. After a while he is heard once\nmore, more shrill and eager. Then once again the evening sun throws a\npeaceful glow over the pine-clad hill. The huge grey heap on the moss\ndoes not move.\n\nVery soon Gaupa is there; he leans his rifle against a tree and draws\nhis knife, and whistles softly, coaxingly, for Bj\u00f6nn.\n\n\n\u00a7 3\n\nIt is night, and cloudy weather; no stars twinkle coldly over the R\u00e9\nMountains. Outside a tiny wooden hut on the eastern banks of Gipsy\nLake Gaupa stands, his hands covered with blood. The tree-tops crowd\ntogether against a background of cloudy sky, and somewhere in the\nwestern mountain a brook murmurs.\n\nGaupa is bareheaded and his hair is raven black. With his hand on the\ndoor handle he stops suddenly in the act of entering. Was there a\nsound in the silent darkness? He thought he heard something, but could\nnot decide from which direction it came. Yes\u2014there it is, quite clear\nnow. From somewhere up in Black Mountain a strange animal cry reaches\nhis ears. It is not a bear or fox\u2014it is most of all like a despairing\nmoan of a human being. Icy waves seem to run down his spine. He remains\nimmovable, listening for more cries from the Black Mountain. But\nnothing more is heard and the man enters his hut, locking the door.\n\nSoon after he is outside again, listening. But there is nothing to be\nheard, and he re-enters the hut.\n\nThe Gipsy Lake Hut is cosy and warm. The roaring stove devours the\nlogs, and from the draught-hole in the iron stove door a light steals\nout to flit in ever-changing play over the timber walls. Gaupa and\nBj\u00f6nn lie on the bed side by side, the dog barking in his sleep once in\na while.\n\nFor a long time nothing is heard but the deep contented muttering from\nthe stove.\n\nThen Gaupa rises with a start and sits immovable.\n\n\u201cThere it is again,\u201d he thinks. But soon he sees clearly that no animal\ncry could possibly have reached him from the Black Mountain through\nthose walls of timber.\n\nHe understands what animal it was that uttered the cry. It was the elk\ncalf whose mother he had killed. Now that poor mite was searching the\nwood calling upon his mother. Gaupa had heard such calves in distress\ncall often enough, but the cry from the Black Mountain that night made\nhim shiver. No ordinary elk calf could wail like that.\n\nGaupa lay down again. Sleep had left him, and strange memories visited\nhim instead.\n\nSome ten to twelve years before a half-demented old Swede roamed about\nin R\u00e9 Valley. People called him the R\u00e9 Valley Swede. For two whole\nsummers he wandered about with a divining rod and a pickaxe, looking\nfor the R\u00e9 Valley treasure. According to an ancient old legend, seven\npack-horses loaded with church plate passed up the Valley at the time\nof the Black Death. Four men led them. When they reached the bogs near\nthe Tolleiv Mountain Farm, the plague overtook the men. They had barely\nthe strength to bury the silver, before they lay down to die with the\nname of Our Lady on their lips.\n\nThis treasure lived like a ghost in the imagination of the people.\nSomewhere in the R\u00e9 Valley lay the plate, that much was certain. When\nthe half-witted old Swede heard of it he commenced haunting the R\u00e9\nValley from end to end. He used his pickaxe diligently enough. Every\nwound in the bogs bore traces of his exertions.\n\nThus he went on one whole Summer. During the Winter he went\ntimber-cutting in the lower valley, but Spring saw him in R\u00e9 Valley\nonce more wielding his divining rod and his pickaxe untiringly.\n\nPeople met him when they happened to pass that way. At times he was\nstarved to the point of exhaustion; but when they gave him to eat of\nthe food they carried, the old Swede grew strong and full of energy\nonce more. He would half bury his pickaxe in the earth, then straighten\nhis huge body, saying: \u201cTo-day I am as poor as a church mouse. But\nto-morrow I shall be as rich as the King at Stockholm.... I am pretty\ncertain of the treasure now.\u201d\n\nAnd his voice, which began in a deep bass, would rise upwards to the\nshrillest falsetto.\n\nOnce some lads placed a few bits of an old stove in a pit where the\nSwede was digging. He found them, and the next day he went home to the\nLower Valley delirious with joy. When he understood that it was not the\nreal Treasure after all, he wept like a child, but went straight back\nto R\u00e9 Valley and resumed his digging.\n\nThe R\u00e9 Valley Swede suffered from epilepsy. Sometimes when he reached\nthe summer mountain farms he fell down in a fit. Therefore people\neither expected some day to find him dead up in the lonely valley or\nelse never to see him again.\n\nDuring the third summer of the mad Swede\u2019s digging Gaupa stayed near\nGipsy Lake fishing. One night he took his road northwards across\nR\u00e9 River. A few stars twinkled. A glacier shimmered in the Western\nMountains, long and narrow like a white bird with wings outstretched.\nGaupa moved slowly, slowly northwards along the River.\n\nTowards morning he observed a light coming from a small pine-covered\nmound, and he went to investigate. A few sparks flew up, and the pine\nneedles were still pink in the glow from a burning log.\n\nHe heard a noise, the loud though not unmusical sound of iron on stone,\nand he thought, \u201cThere is the Swede.\u201d\n\nA moment later he saw him. He was bent towards the earth, digging, and\nGaupa could not help thinking of a bear digging his winter shelter,\njust as he had seen one some years before about Michaelmas time. Gaupa\nadvanced and the Swede straightened himself, his face streaming with\nperspiration.\n\nGaupa greets him with \u201cEvening.\u201d \u201cNow I shall soon have the Treasure,\u201d\nmutters the Swede. \u201cIt is in here, and to-morrow I shall be a rich man,\nas rich as the King at Stockholm.\u201d\n\nThen he tells his tale, how the night before he was sitting on the\nslope resting, when he suddenly saw a tiny blue light moving along the\nbanks of R\u00e9 River, bounding along till at last it stopped at the mound,\nwhere he saw as it were a bluish shimmer for a long time, much like a\nfirefly on a summer night. He at once understood that this was a sign\nto him. He went round the mound with the cleft birch wand, and when\nhe reached the spot where he was then digging an invisible hand seemed\nto pull the wand downwards, until it seemed to writhe in his hands,\npointing to earth like a finger.\n\nGaupa saw that there was a small cellar where the R\u00e9 Valley Swede had\nbeen digging, with reddish sandy soil and small round stones heaped up\nround about. Gaupa gave the old man food, which he wolfed down like a\nstarving dog, but he had no time for rest, for as he said, when the sun\nrises, it will sparkle on the R\u00e9 Valley Treasure, which has not been\nexposed to the light of day for hundreds of years.\n\nGaupa remained near the fire watching the Swede as he dug. He wore an\nold pair of sheepskins, stiff with dirt like dried deerskin. He would\nnever leave R\u00e9 Valley though, he said. When he got rich he was going to\nbuild a small palace on Black Mountain, and there he would sit drinking\nfine wine and gaze upon the earth stretched out before him.\n\nThen he straightened himself, the pickaxe hung loosely in his right\nhand, and with his left he wiped the perspiration from his bald head,\nand the hand left a mark, it was so dirty with digging. The red bearded\nface worked itself into a half-witted smile, the eyes grew large, lost\nall keenness and became troubled. Then he said: \u201cAnd when once I die,\nthen I will return to R\u00e9 Valley in the shape of a beast.\u201d\n\nGaupa saw how the Swede was becoming strange, as if he were listening.\nThen he uttered an ugly roar, and fell on his face almost into the fire.\n\nQuick as lightning Gaupa pulled him away, and there lay the old Swede\nprostrate in a fit. His hand held the shaft of the pickaxe too tightly\nfor Gaupa to wrench it open, but he succeeded in forcing a stick\nbetween the teeth of the sick man to prevent him from biting off his\nown tongue. His legs were pulled up crooked under his body, a muffled\ngroan from the depths of his throat was heard off and on, his mouth was\nsmothered in foam.\n\nAt last the body twitched no more, the Swede began to breathe evenly\nand heavily; he slept like a man tired to death.\n\n\u201cHe\u2019ll soon be himself again,\u201d thought Gaupa. He had seen epileptics\nbefore and knew that such attacks most often end in deep sleep.\n\nBut the Swede slept on and on, and Gaupa noticed how his breathing grew\nfainter. At last he had to lie down close beside the body to catch it\nat all. The time came when the R\u00e9 Valley Swede did not breathe any\nmore. He lay crouching over the plate which was to have been the great\nadventure of his life. But the pine-log fire burned on beside him red,\nresinous, and alive.\n\nAfter that night Gaupa was unable to rid himself of the last words of\nthe old man with the glassy troubled eyes: \u201cin the shape of a beast.\u201d\n\nWhen evening spread her dark mantle over the sky, when the tree-trunks\nceased to be, and he saw the wild beasts gliding like living shadows\nacross the wooded glades, then he heard it: \u201cin the shape of a\nbeast\u2014beast.\u201d And however much he willed it not to happen, his heart\nwould beat in his breast like the sound of far-off muffled guns.\n\nWhen at dawn he waited for the capercailzie\u2019s love song, the mystical\npeals of bells of the forest, he heard what he had noticed since\nhis earliest youth: although the silence was absolute, there seemed\nto be someone talking somewhere, far away in no particular direction\nonly far away. He had often thought of the People of the Hills, for\nGaupa believed in them most sincerely; he had both seen and heard\ninexplicable things, but ever since the death of the R\u00e9 Valley Swede\nthe low distant murmur became words, \u201cBeast, Beast, Beast....\u201d\n\nGaupa was constantly expecting something to happen. The tension of\nit was like music to his soul. Ever since that time when he watched\nthrough the night beside the dead Swede, felt his hands growing cold,\nsaw his lips growing blue, ever since that time the night and the\nforest seemed to attract him even more strongly than before. The\npossibilities hinted at by that one word \u201cbeast\u201d ran through his brain\nlike an icy trickle, became a sweet pain\u2014\u201cBeast, Beast....\u201d\n\nGaupa had never known fear in the woods, not even when once he killed\na bear cub and the mother bear rushed straight towards him with huge\nleaping strides\u2014even then he was not afraid. He just sent a bullet\nthrough the head when she was four paces away. And it is easy to\nunderstand that the last words of the R\u00e9 Valley Swede did not frighten\nhim.\n\nOnly he acquired a strange habit. After shooting an animal he\ninvariably looked into its eyes. It had become such a confirmed habit\nthat he did not think about it, for ten or twelve years had elapsed\nsince the corpse of the R\u00e9 Valley Swede had been carried away to\ncivilisation on the back of a horse, and in Gaupa\u2019s thoughts the memory\nhad grown somewhat blurred. All the same he could at will recall the\nface of the dead man in the glow of the fire, a face as red as the\ntrunk of a pine tree in the evening sun.\n\nThe old Swede had said he would return to R\u00e9 Valley in the shape of a\nbeast.... Gaupa remembered what had happened some time before on a farm\nnorth in the Lower Valley, a farm where the outlying meadows mingled\nwith the highest birch copses just below the bare mountain.\n\nThe farmer\u2019s son married the prettiest maid in all the valley\u2014oh, what\na beauty she was!\u2014but pale and delicate as a winter\u2019s moon. And just\nas the moon dies and vanishes before the light, so life ebbed out of\nher slowly, oh so slowly. But she clung to life, and she said that if\nshe died she would return to her boy husband in the shape of a bird.\nAnd she did die.\n\nThe following summer the people of the farm were astonished to see\na mountain grouse amongst the poultry. At first she was shy and\ndisappeared every night, but she was always there in the morning. At\nlast the bird grew so tame that the lad who had lost his girl-bride\ncould hold it in his hands.\n\nWhen winter came the grouse changed her feathers and became snowy\nwhite, and one day she flew to the mountains straight towards the sun.\nThe shimmering sunshine absorbed her, and to the lad she seemed to be a\nwhite angel flying into heaven.\n\nWhen Gaupa first heard the story he felt himself start. The girl had\nkept her word. Would the half-witted Swede keep his?\n\nThen in the Spring, something happened. Gaupa was stealing through the\nwooded slopes of R\u00e9 Valley one morning about four o\u2019clock. The surface\nof the snow, thawed once and frozen to hard ice afterwards, bore his\nweight. Big socks outside his boots allowed him to walk without a\nsound, for the capercailzie is easily alarmed.\n\nA tiny fluffy cloud flamed red in the eastern sky. Water from melting\nmasses of snow rushed down the mountain-sides, making a sound like\ngusts of wind in the forest-clad mountains.\n\nThen he heard a raven croaking above him, and he raised his face to\nthe sky in search for it. What might the black bird be crying out for?\nGaupa saw warnings in many things, and he knew that a raven\u2019s croak\ngenerally means something sinister. He remembered an autumn night when\nhe was spearing trout somewhere west in Three Valley Mountain, how in\nthe moonlight he saw such a bird fly up from the ground. Gaupa went\nup to the group of young spruce out of which the raven came and there\nhe found the skeleton of a man, with a half-rotten leather pack lying\nbeside him. It was the wandering pedlar who many years before had\ninsisted on crossing the mountains to the next cultivated valley, and\nhad never been seen again.\n\nGaupa felt quite convinced that the raven is a sinister bird. What\nmight that black eater of carrion be croaking about now? wondered Gaupa\nas he stole along lightly on the Black Mountain slopes. The raven was\nsure to have seen something down there in the forest, quite sure.\n\u201cArrp!\u201d he cried\u2014\u201carrp!\u201d\n\nGaupa continued his way southwards, stopping once in a while to use\nhis ears when the snow did not crunch under his feet. He had not known\nsleep since the evening before, when day fled from the horizon and he\nthrew a lump of snow on to his fire farthest up the valley and walked\ninto the darkness, for Gaupa preferred the darkness to broad daylight.\nHe loved night.\n\nDawn was approaching and he was growing sleepy, a heaviness in his head\ntook away his interest in everything about him. But when he reached a\nridge overlooking Gipsy Lake, all drowsiness left him instantly, for\nbefore him in the pearly dawn he saw an enormous grey elk cow bending\nover and licking a newborn calf. He stopped short, but the elk cow\nseemed to think that Gaupa himself was nothing more than an animal,\nblack as soil, with hairless skin round eyes and nose. Terror engulfed\nher, and when Gaupa drew near the cow fled. He went up to the calf. The\nlittle animal was wet and warm, steaming in the cool air of the dawn,\nits breathing laboured, uneven\u2014it was newly born.\n\nGaupa caught his eyes and gave a start; he felt an icy chill run\nthrough his being, and he remained kneeling holding the animal\u2019s gaze.\nThose eyes were not soulless and empty like those of other newly-born\nanimals. They were human eyes, plainly and undoubtedly the eyes of a\nhuman being.\n\nAbove him the raven circled round and round croaking its steady \u201cArrp,\u201d\n\u201carrp\u201d until the bird turned westward and the cry died away, an ugly\nthreatening sound amongst the dark clouds.\n\nGaupa held the elk calf with both his hands. He felt the pulse shaking\nits frail body, and he noticed that it was a bull. Once more he had\nvisions of the R\u00e9 Valley Swede, and heard the ugly roar that opened the\nepileptic attack, heard that last gasp\u2014\u201cBeast, Beast....\u201d\n\nGaupa felt for his hunting-knife, wrenched it out of its sheath, and\ndrew it straight across the left ear of the calf. Then he walked away\nwith crackling steps.\n\nThe sun reached the pine-clad ridge behind him, played softly round the\nlittle calf\u2019s head, kissed him and wished him welcome to life and to\nthe forest.\n\n\n\u00a7 4\n\nBut Gaupa lay awake in Gipsy Lake Hut, full of memories. The dog was\nlying silent in sleep. Once Gaupa struck a match to light his pipe, and\nin one corner his rifle reflected the glow. \u201cThe Tempest\u201d had roared\nonce that day, and there was one elk less on the slopes of R\u00e9 Mountains.\n\nBut what Gaupa saw that morning, when aiming at the elk cow, was the\ncalf\u2019s left ear\u2014it was only half an ear. It was the same calf he had\nhandled the spring before, the elk calf with human eyes. It was he who\nhad just cried out so uncannily like a human being under the Black\nMountain, more weirdly than Gaupa had ever heard a beast cry before.\n\nThere was also something strange about the calf\u2019s spoors that day. The\nclefts were not side by side as elk clefts usually are. They spread out\nobliquely from each other. He knew he would be able to distinguish that\nspoor from a thousand. Gaupa had seen many elk spoors in his life, but\nnever any like these.\n\nThe stove in the hut ceased muttering. The flue cooled down with tiny\ndry cracking sounds.\n\nBelow the hut a fox stopped to smell the smoke which still lingered in\nthe air.\n\nUp in the mountain the brook murmured incessantly. Under the Black\nMountain an elk calf was licking the skin of his mother which was hung\nup on a pole fastened to two trees. The calf kept poking at it with his\nmuzzle, but the skin was dead, lifeless, with no warmth of blood in it,\nand the young elk raised his head and whimpered plaintively, hoarsely\nand brokenly.\n\nIn Gipsy Lake Hut Gaupa was on the point of going to sleep when he\nsuddenly became wide awake again. The hut was quiet as the tomb, but\nthe silence slowly grew pregnant with that inexplicable murmur which\nGaupa knew so well. It was as if spirits were whispering around him.\n\u201cBeast, beast, beast.\u201d\n\n\n\u00a7 5\n\nThe next day Gaupa went northwards to Lower Valley, where people were\nliving. They struggle through life as best they can, and when they die\nthey are taken to the ancient tarred wooden church that calls them back\nto earth with dismal deep-toned bells.\n\nGaupa\u2019s home was a timber hut on a stony birch-clad ridge, jutting out\ninto the river. The building was so near to the water\u2019s edge that if\nthe spring flood was unusually high the water almost lapped against its\nwalls.\n\nThere Gaupa and Bj\u00f6nn lived alone. Gaupa was a confirmed old bachelor,\nover fifty years of age. He had reached the evening of life, and women\nand love had never been anything to him. No one had ever heard him sigh\non account of a petticoat.\n\nHis real name was Sjur and he hailed from a spot far north in the\nvalley, a crofter\u2019s place called Renna. His parents died when he was\nyoung. Sjur was not cut out for a crofter, and so he built the little\nhut for himself down by the river, and it stands there to this very day.\n\nSjur was believed to be a shoemaker by trade and he was handy both with\nawl and thread. But what use was it to take your shoes to him when\nhe never finished them? If you left them with him during the potato\nharvest in the autumn you could not expect to get them back until the\ncuckoo was heard in the following spring. Therefore work grew more and\nmore scarce, and heaven only knew what he lived upon. But Gaupa would\ngorge like a dog when there was food, and could starve like a dog when\nfood grew scarce.\n\nPeople gave him his nickname \u201cThe Lynx\u201d because of his strange habits.\nHe slept during the day and was up and about at night, like a wild\nbeast\u2014like a lynx in fact.\n\nWhen the dalesman locked his door, blew out his candle, and crept into\nhis sheepskins, then the light gleamed as bright as ever from Gaupa\u2019s\nhut. About midnight he would often steal out into the forest only to\nreturn at day-break, when he would creep into his hut, lie down and\nsleep as a wild animal does in its lair after its hunt for food. Gaupa\nwas indeed a strange man.\n\nThere was an old schoolmaster in the valley, who went from one farm to\nanother teaching for a time at each place. He wore spectacles and was\nexceedingly learned, and he always sang the corpse out of the house\nat funerals. He was the oracle of the valley. He knew everything, and\ncould tell you why Gaupa slept by day and went out by night.\n\nThere were two kinds of people, he used to say. Some were born by day\nand some by night. Those born by night often had a strange longing for\ndarkness. \u201cLook,\u201d he would add, \u201cat that singular being at the Lynx\nHut. He was born by night and avoids the day.\u201d\n\nThe schoolmaster was quite right about that. To Gaupa the sunshine\nwas not warm, but cold, while the moon was quite different. In the\nmoonlight the shadows in the forest moved like the shades of dead\nanimals, a steady movement, hardly noticeable and yet unmistakable.\nThen Gaupa felt as if he himself were stealing about on hairy soles.\nWhat a delightful thrilling, silent restlessness there was around him!\nHe seemed to be watched by unseen eyes from the heaps of rocks and\nwooded copses, where soft paws trotted over the moss, sinewy bodies\ncrouched, the whole copse felt like one mighty enchanting mystery.\nThere was magic music in the air about him, a subdued melody, and he\nseemed to hear the burning stars sparkle in the firmament.\n\nOn such nights Bj\u00f6nn would often accompany him. The manner of Bj\u00f6nn\u2019s\narrival at Lynx Hut was as follows. One winter a dalesman from Lower\nValley was travelling towards the plains with a load of butter and\ncured fish. When he left the town of H\u00f6nefos on his return, he noticed\na large deer-hound following him. It was dark in colour with a grey\nhead and grey legs. The man drove on, wrapped in his black sheepskin\ncoat, with his old horse drawing the sledge. The dog followed.\n\nBut on the evening of the second day the dog disappeared, and a week\nlater the same animal, all skin and bones, crawled up to Lynx Hut.\nGaupa gave him food, and the dog remained there. No one asked questions\nabout him, and Gaupa named him Bj\u00f6nn.\n\nTowards the spring, in April, Gaupa happened to show the dog a huge\nspoor in the crusted snow under R\u00e9 Mountain. Bj\u00f6nn went absolutely mad,\nand the elk ox who was at the other end of that spoor was unprepared\nfor such a terrible pursuit by such a tiny animal as Bj\u00f6nn appeared to\nbe. The elk sank through the snow crust, but Bj\u00f6nn kept on top, and\nthree days later Gaupa carried home venison which no one was allowed to\nsee.\n\nFrom that day Bj\u00f6nn grew to be the best elk-hound in the valley.\nWonderful stories were told in the district of Gaupa and his dog. When\nthose two started to follow a spoor they never gave up. They had their\nmeals on the spoor, they rested, and even slept there. They followed it\nfrom one horizon to the other, from one county to another, till at last\nthe elk lay dead.\n\nGaupa and Bj\u00f6nn were like the animals they were called after, wild and\nferocious. People would say to Gaupa, \u201cYou\u2019ll kill yourself yet with\nsuch mad chase\u201d\u2014but the prophets fell ill and died, whilst Gaupa ran on\nas mad as ever.\n\nHe was a great teller of stories and a popular musician at dances.\nThen he played on a fiddle on the head of which the devil himself,\nhorns and all, was carved out. And when he had had a little brandy\nthe stories would come pouring out between his bearded lips. He was\ninexhaustible like a spring, and in everything he told there was an\nalluring mystery.\n\nOne night he was at a dance, telling of the R\u00e9 Valley Swede and the elk\ncalf from Black Mountain\u2014of the elk calf whose mother he had killed two\nweeks before and of the ugly cry he had heard the night afterwards,\nwhile he spoke silence reigned, and the young girls shivered.\n\nA few days afterwards these things were the talk of the Valley. Such\na story amongst those people was like leaven in dough. It grew and\ngrew. Old sagas and old superstitions were added, and even the Sacred\nWord of God. For in those days the people of Lower Valley had nothing\nelse to speak of but what actually took place within the limits of the\nmountain ridges before their eyes. Kings might die in the great world\nbeyond\u2014that was a matter of minor interest to them as compared with the\ndeath of a six-weeks-old piglet belonging to a crofter at Cool Hill.\n\nTherefore it is nothing to wonder at that when Gaupa told the story of\nthe elk calf of Black Mountain, the R\u00e9 Valley Swede was in a manner of\nspeaking resurrected from his tomb.\n\nThen suddenly everybody remembered a number of things about him. The R\u00e9\nValley Swede was not a true believer, he did not accept the Word humbly\nwith a Christian\u2019s heart. The Bible says that when people die they\neither go to heaven or hell, and no one in Lower Valley doubted for\none moment that as a rule they all went straight to heaven from their\nValley\u2014that is, if we may judge from their funeral sermons.\n\nBut the old Swede believed that many things might happen after death;\nhe even seemed to believe that the dead might return\u2014as beasts!\n\nThe schoolmaster explained that there was another religion which\ntaught such a belief. But people did not care two straws about other\nreligions. The R\u00e9 Valley Swede was a mocker, a free-thinker; a cold\nblast followed him wherever he went. Martin Ormerud recalled how when\nhe entered the barn where the R\u00e9 Valley Swede was laid out, a big\nblack bird rose from his head. \u201cMercy upon us!\u201d people cried.\n\nThus they gossiped; old wives eighty and ninety years of age,\nspectacles on nose and Bibles on their knees, read aloud with trembling\nvoices how \u201cthe Lord endures not a mocker.\u201d The old Swede was a living\ntestimony to the truth of the Word. As a punishment for his sins and\nhis mocking of God, his restless spirit was now condemned to roam about\nR\u00e9 Mountains imprisoned in an animal\u2019s body. God have mercy upon the\npoor soul when once the old sinner died, once more up there among the\npines along R\u00e9 River.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\u00a7 6\n\nYears passed.\n\nIn the wilderness between Gipsy Lake to the South and Lower Valley to\nthe north there roamed about a wizard elk that no dog and no marksman\ncould conquer.\n\nThe dalesmen called him Rauten; why, no one could say. Such names come\nfloating on the north wind, and have no origin. Perhaps the name stuck\nbecause when he was still a calf he would low, for all the world like\ncattle on an autumn evening.\n\nRauten wandered about R\u00e9 Mountains, not like an ordinary earthly elk,\nbut like a being half body and half spirit. No lead bullets could wound\nhim. He was rarely seen by human eyes.\n\nDuring the mating season, at dawn and in the gloaming, foresters\nsometimes heard his mating call. It sounded more human than animal, and\nit made the foresters realise that they had nerves after all.\n\nNow and then they happened to see his spoor, unlike all other elk\nspoors. The clefts pointed outwards, like the spoor of a man walking\ntoes outwards. The R\u00e9 Valley Swede had also walked toes turned\noutwards. When he went along the high road northwards one foot pointed\neast, the other west.\n\nLong-limbed men strode miles and leagues after Rauten, but his spoor\nnever ended. Dogs chased him, and returned limping and moaning.\n\nThere was a black-bearded man whom they called Gaupa. He and his dog\nBj\u00f6nn followed elk spoors from one horizon to the other, from one\ncounty to the other. But whenever they happened to see an elk spoor\nwith the clefts pointing apart they turned away. Chasing a spirit is\nlike chasing a shadow.\n\nYears passed.\n\n\n\u00a7 7\n\nOn Bog Hill, near the outskirts of R\u00e9 Valley, an elk bull was standing\nimmovable.\n\nIt was dawn, when light and darkness intermingle, when the wild animal\nthreads softly to his lair, tramples in a circle for a little while,\nand then crouches down and closes his eyelids. The few hours out of\neach twenty-four when death and life are locked in each other\u2019s arms\nhave come to an end. Here and there a drop of blood lies on the earth\nlike some moist red flower, or a heap of loose feathers seems to tell\nwhere a bird has undressed; only that particular bird no longer needs\nfeathers.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nStill the bull elk on Bog Hill did not move a muscle. His head stood\nout clearly against the dawn which flooded the eastern sky like a lake\nof yellow light. His antlers resembled young bushes, and between the\ntines a dying star twinkled in silvery paleness.\n\nIt was no mortal animal standing there; it was a ghost from dead\ngenerations, an animal spirit from the eternal hunting-grounds.\n\nDaylight grew more and more whilst the elk stood still. A grey film of\ndawn decked the side of the pine trunks turned to the east. The light\nfiltered through the pine needles as through a sieve. A bird chirped a\nwhile and then became silent again, like a life that dies just as it is\nborn.\n\nThen the elk\u2019s head turned, quite slowly from west to north. In his\nslightly curved muzzle there was the dreaming melancholy of wooded\ndells. His nostrils worked incessantly, expanding and contracting, the\ncold morning air running in and out of his nose. His eyes were large\nand wide awake. For the call of sex burned in his mighty body\u2014the call\nto mating which rises and falls from time to time in eternal rhythm,\nfrom generation to generation.\n\nOne ear of that elk was only half an ear. It was Rauten, the largest\nand wildest of all elks between mountain and valley. Mating time had\ncome, when bull seeks cow, and cow seeks bull, when angry eyes stare\ninto angry eyes in the fight for the female, when antler meets antler,\nbreaking the silence of the forest with mighty crashes.\n\nRauten sniffed and listened. Into his nostrils entered the smell of\nrottening leaves and boggy marshes. It was late autumn, and the life\nwhich spring had created was on the point of returning to earth. But\nno scent of the female was borne on the slight breeze from the north\nthat fills his nose. All the same he remained; now and then he cocked\nan ear, backwards and forwards, but no sound was heard from any living\nthroat.\n\nThen he lifted his head, opened his mouth and gave the mating call, a\ndeep nasal sound which floated over the bog and died away again.\n\nAgain Rauten listened. The western slopes took on a lighter shade, but\nthe valleys and gullies still yawned black.\n\nThen he turned and went northwards along the ridge, with long strides,\ncovering the ground at great speed. One cleft hoof splashes into a tiny\npool of water, the other crushes a small spruce which has been ages\nabout sprouting in the shallow soil, and might have grown to be a big\ntree.\n\nRauten knew of a cow living thereabouts. He had come a full league to\nfind her, and soon a strange scent greeted his nostrils\u2014a kind of burnt\nacrid smell, recalling a billy-goat at mating time.\n\nRauten went on till he found a marshy place with yellowing birches. On\na hill-top close by, a small hole had been dug out in the earth\u2014and not\nlong before, for a couple of torn roots appeared fresh and white where\nthey had been broken, not brownish as they are when they have been\nexposed for some time.\n\nThe hole had been dug out by mating-mad elk bulls, and the strong scent\nemanated from it. The hole seemed to breathe out that scent, and Rauten\nwas in the middle of it.\n\nHe nosed the earth, but there was no breath of a cow. Then he rubbed\nhimself against a small spruce.\n\nSuddenly a soft-eyed elk cow came out on to the marsh below, and both\nanimals stood still for a moment, heads raised eyeing each other.\nRauten felt as light as light; he ran\u2014no, he floated towards her.\nPassion was boiling inside him. He ran in rings round her, that shy\nfemale with lowered ears and patient, expectant eyes.\n\nThen he broke loose upon her: He followed the same almighty law of\nNature which compels the unconscious capercailzie and his cackling hen,\nthe valiant wood-cock\u2014yes, and even the little anemone which stealing\nthe blue of the heavens spreads new life out of tiny soft stamens.\n\nFor a short time silence reigned over the marsh, except now and then\nfor the crack of a breaking twig under the elks\u2019 hoofs.\n\nThen another elk appeared. It was a three-year-old, with slender horns.\nHe saw the two in front of him and made as if he would jump. In him\nalso the forces of nature were at work. Strength pulsated through\nhis young body, each muscle trembled impatiently with longing for\na contest. For that cow with Rauten belonged to him, to him alone.\nShe had gone with him the day before; she was his, his own. The\nthree-year-old grew large-eyed and wild-eyed, his withers bristled like\na brush. Rauten must be vanquished, Rauten must die.\n\nThe two elk bulls faced each other on Bog Hill like two living springs\nof force. There were four eyes full of madness, four antlers, and those\nantlers mean death.\n\nRauten was like one suddenly waking from a trance. He was quivering,\nwide awake; for the cow who was peeping at them curiously from behind\na crooked spruce was his. He had mastered her, he had floated with her\nthrough golden sunlit mists; she was his, his own. That youngster must\nbe conquered. The youngster must die.\n\nThe first war-cry was raised, a hoarse cry from a savage soul on fire.\n\u201cYah! Yah!\u201d\n\nThe younger elk lifted his upper body, a hoof was flung through the\nair, making a dark line across the pinewoods, stopped and fell.\n\n\u201cCrack!\u201d The sound was at once soft and firm. Rauten felt a fierce\nburning sensation under one ear, a slight mist shadowed his brain for a\nmoment, then all was clear again.\n\nIn that brief second the other hoof from the youngster struck his neck.\nHair and skin was flayed off, a fire licked Rauten where the hoof\nstruck, and then....\n\nThere he stood, half rampant, a thunder-cloud, a storm. He turned his\neyes, turned them slowly, threateningly. They were no longer brown,\nbut white. It was as if all madness raging in that huge body had\nconcentrated in the eyes, turning them white. Rauten towered as tall\nas the young pine beside him, his jaws opened, breath steamed out and\nhis tongue protruded, long, wet, slavering. Then Rauten struck back.\nHis forelegs were no longer skin and bones and muscles belonging to a\nbody. They were shadows, spirits, ghosts, sinister forebodings of blood\nand destruction. Lightning gleamed and thunder crashed. The storm had\nbroken loose and the three-year-old was there to meet it. The God of\nthe wilds have mercy on his body!\n\nThe sun had not yet risen, but was still resting somewhere behind the\nhills. But when Rauten struck, the three-year-old saw the sun all the\nsame, not only one, but a number of suns, a swarm of them. They danced\nin his head like round sparkling disks of wonderful colours. They\ngleamed green like fireflies, metallic like a bluebottle, copper-red\nlike the harvest moon.\n\nAnother blow fell on the heels of the first one. It struck above\none eye. And once more the tapestry of the firmament was rolled up\nbefore the sight of the youngster. There were no suns that time, but\nstars\u2014what a host of stars, as numerous as dewdrops on the grass,\nsparkling like snow in spring! They leapt and danced inside his head,\nwhirling madly together.\n\nThey went out suddenly, all of them, disappeared like a mist, and then\nhe saw the old sun peeping red-eyed from behind the eastern mountains.\n\nThe three-year-old went backwards and retreated, for this was so\nsudden. He had attacked a rocky wall and found it hard. But Rauten did\nnot let go; he followed, followed, and up from hot gorges and reeking\ninner bodies came the war-cry again: \u201cYah! Yah!\u201d\n\nTheir antlers met writhing into each other. Snouts touched the earth,\nthe bulls groaning as if to rid themselves of something. The sinews\nof their hind-quarters shivered, trembled, rage gave life to every\nhair in their manes, their stumpy tails were raised angrily. Two sharp\nbacks stood out against the sky like monsters. Every fibre of their\nbodies was taut, muscles writhed like worms and red-hot blood boiled\nrhythmically through their veins.\n\nTheir antlers were still interlaced in fierce contest; those of the\nyoungster pale grey, Rauten\u2019s brown, watered, lined like iceworn\nrocks, as if some unknown hand had written strange runes on them. They\nhammered and crashed, their hoofs cut gaping wounds in the moss, the\ndew fell like tears from the sedge, and dark spoors appeared on the bog\nwhere the mighty ones walked. But the three-year-old went backwards.\n\nTheir antlers released each other, their bodies rose, and once more\nlegs turned into fleeting shadows. The blows sounded as if someone\nwere beating sheepskins with a stick; hoarse sounds escaped from their\nthroats, hair flew in the air like driven snow.\n\nThe cow looked on, slightly dazed, nodding as it were her approval, for\nthat was what she liked. The tension between the bulls invaded her; she\ncould not remain calm any more, she leapt forwards, stopped, stamped a\nlittle, and once she lowed loudly, out of sheer excitement. It was for\nher they were fighting, for her their sharp hoofs made their bodies\nbloom red with blood.\n\nThe red rose over Rauten\u2019s shoulder grew and lengthened into a long\nnarrow leaf, changing shape continually, but not changing colour. The\nthree-year-old wore a number of such roses, which easily grew out of\nhis young, well-beaten body.\n\nThe cow\u2019s sympathies, however, were all for Rauten. He was the\nstronger, and she wanted the stronger. Even then she felt deliciously\nfaint after their mating.\n\nRauten\u2019s madness was that time sky-high, his muscles tautened and\nrelaxed and in their rhythmical movement made a wild song.\n\nBoth bulls had now begun to feel the strain. The mouths of both were\nwhite with bubbling foam, and their heads felt heavy, but their\nhaunches stood up like bushes, and Rauten\u2019s eyes were alight with\nsavage madness. It was as if he wanted to use to the fullest extent\nthat opportunity of working off all the superfluous vitality which had\naccumulated in him in the course of a long, long year.\n\nA few small bushes seemed to jump forward in the bog to see the fight.\nTree-tops stretched their necks one behind the other, staring. Sparks\nof light flew up from the grass; it was the cool breath of night which\nremained like dew on the earth.\n\nOnce more the cow lowed with excitement. A woodpecker sat on a dry,\nhollow spruce tree. She was green as the slimy stones in the brook. She\nturned her head, listening in shiny-eyed astonishment at all the noise.\nThen her beak hammered on the wood once more. \u201cKnrrr!\u201d said the hollow\ntree-trunk.\n\nRauten\u2019s skin was wet with sweat, and under his belly, on his flanks,\nflakes of foam boiled as if on a fleeing horse. And still his muscles\nsang their mad song, and again the three-year-old saw suns and stars.\nHe staggered, retreated to the edge of the bog, sank on his knees, but\nrose at once. He had fought and lost, he had become a smaller beast in\nthe woods. He was giving in, only he did not want to turn round and\nrun away until he was obliged to do so.\n\nAt the edge of the bog the unexpected happened. A little hill runs\ndown there, and a high stump of a tree stood close beside a spruce.\nThe stump was about the same height as an elk, and it looked as if a\nstorm had once felled a spruce. The younger bull retreated towards\nthis stump, and without giving warning Rauten ran his antlers under\nhim. Then he made a mighty effort which will not soon be forgotten\nin the Bog Hill forest. The three-year-old was raised on end, stood\nfor a second on his hind legs, was pushed over and fell down on his\nback\u2014between the tall stump and its neighbour the spruce tree, and was\nwedged in securely between them, fast as if in a vice.\n\nRauten stood with head uplifted looking at his helpless foe whose legs\nuselessly beat the empty air. Rauten wanted to use his antlers again,\nto kill, but he could not reach. The younger bull\u2019s legs worked like a\nwindmill, and a blow from them would hurt. Rauten remained there a long\ntime, the youngster on his back, mouth wide open, steaming.\n\nThen the cow joined him, and Rauten went to meet her. The storm within\nhim calmed down. For the cow began to lick him, and her tongue was\nsoft, so caressingly soft. His shoulder blazed red like the sunrise,\nand his neck wept warm tears on to the moist earth. Every touch of the\ncow\u2019s tongue was a reward, humble admiration of him only\u2014the greatest\nand the strongest among the elk bulls of valley or mountains, the\ncrowned king of elks in R\u00e9 Valley. Nothing could stand up before him.\nHe broke down everything before him like a falling tree in the bushes.\nHe trotted southwards with the cow by his side across Bog Hill, like\nVictory itself, even though one ear was but half a one, and his body\nwept blood. Round their legs the white heads of the bog down-grass\nmoved like fat white birds, while the elks ploughed their way, dark\ngrey under the sloping rays of the newly-risen sun.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe three-year-old lay on his back all the morning, wedged in between\nthe stump and the tree-trunk.\n\nThere was no possible means of getting out again. He could not turn,\nthe space was too narrow, and his legs could get no hold in the\nempty air. He worked till he grew weak. Then he lay still, knees bent\nheavenwards as if he were praying to the sun for help. His tongue\nlolled limply out of one corner of his mouth, and the sun burned his\nface pitilessly. Then he shut his eyes.\n\n\n\u00a7 8\n\nThat same day in the afternoon Bj\u00f6nn from Lynx Hut was following an elk\nspoor southwards through R\u00e9 Valley.\n\nBj\u00f6nn ran quickly, nose to earth. He crossed wide marshes and small\nbogs where the dwarfed pines spread their wide, flat crowns like noses.\nHe crossed ridges and valleys, and at last his course went towards Bog\nHill.\n\nThere his song grew wildly excited. Gaupa was half a league farther\nnorth, but he overtook the dog within an hour. He went straight up to\nthe helpless elk, whose legs still pawed the air. He aimed, pulled the\ntrigger, and the bull elk moved no more.\n\n\u201cH\u2019m\u201d\u2014Gaupa wondered.\n\n\u201cThat is an elk bull,\u201d he mused, \u201cbut in what a strange position! How\nin all the world did he happen to lie on his back between that stump\nand the spruce tree? It is inexplicable.\u201d\n\nHe investigated the bog, picked up a tuft of hair which was dark, and\nthen another which was lighter. But the whole bog looked as if someone\nhad driven a harrow from end to end, and from side to side criss-cross.\n\n\u201cH\u2019m,\u201d Gaupa mused once more. Lord, what a fight there had been! He\nwalked about studying the spoors. His eyes searched the earth. Two\nbulls had been here. One remained down there on the slope, and he had\nblown life out of him with his own \u201cTempest.\u201d But the other bull was\nlarger\u2014and why, of course it was Rauten, the wizard elk. The cleft\nspoors stood out with curved outer edges as the spoors of a bull\ngenerally are.\n\nGaupa raised his head reflectingly. Round about him the calm glow\nof autumn burned in the air and on the earth. The slopes were\nmulticoloured with pinewood and leafage intermingled, spotted like the\ncoat of a lynx.\n\nHe began to flay the dead elk; but as it was too late in the day to\ngo down in Lower Valley with the news that he had killed an elk, he\ndecided to go east and spend the night in the nearest highland farm.\n\nOn his way he meditated on Rauten, but he was not such a fool as to\ntry to trace him. That would be sheer waste of time. He was not such a\nfool as to try that. For many are the hunters who have returned with\nsore-pawed and worn-out dogs when they have had the wizard elk before\nthem.\n\nRauten had peculiar ways. He rarely ran faster than the dogs could\ngo, but he never really stopped, never long enough for the hunter to\novertake him. He sought out all the lakes and ponds in existence, and\ncrossed them. You might follow him for hours and hours if your dog did\nnot give up\u2014as he was sure to do sooner or later. Very eager dogs were\nknown to chase Rauten till they completely lost their way, and they\nhad been found in far-off districts past the mountain gap. Also all\nforesters in those parts agreed that bad luck went with the wizard elk.\nPetter Kleivaberget fell and broke his arm when chasing Rauten. Arne\n\u00d6igarden shot his own dog in mistake for the elk\u2014a fine dog, too, worth\na hundred dollars. And the man from Kr\u00f6dsherred who attempted to run\ndown Rauten on ski one winter broke both skis and as nearly as anything\ndied in the snow. He was so weak when he reached the Tolleiv Mountain\nFarm that he could not walk across the pasture\u2014he crawled on all fours\nand was a whole hour about it too, so it was clear to anybody how near\nto death\u2019s door he had been.\n\nNo, Gaupa would not follow Rauten.\n\nHe went east to Mors\u00e6ter. The house lies in a little valley branching\nout from the R\u00e9 Valley proper. As he walked he felt uneasy. His head\nwas heavy and he coughed now and then; he breathed heavily going\nuphill\u2014he who never used to notice a hill, he who could mount the\nslopes at a run. Presently he began to perspire also. Gaupa did not\nusually perspire for just nothing.\n\nIt was probably because he had sat down on a peak last night and felt\nexceedingly cold, after sunset. He had been running pretty hard just\nbefore, so that he was a little moist. And that mountain peak was\nquite bare, and such places are invariably rather cold.\n\nSome years before Gaupa had had pneumonia. An epidemic raged in the\ndistrict at that time, and there were many funeral parties and many\nsad-looking pine branches along all roads. And the young people did not\ndance again until Midsummer Eve.\n\nGaupa had really been very bad at that time, and Harald \u00d6vrejordet, the\nlay preacher of the valley, the high priest as they called him, came\nup to him and begged him to be converted from all his sins. Perhaps he\nwould have turned from his evil ways, if he had not felt that selfsame\nday that the sickness had taken a turn for the better, and that he was\ngoing to get well. Therefore he was in no hurry, he would wait and see.\nHe recovered completely and remained in sin for the time being.\n\nBut ever since then Gaupa found that if he ran really very hard a sharp\nneedle seemed to run through his right lung. That needle was a perfect\nnuisance. It had cost him several horse-loads of meat, for it had\nforced him to stop while the elk ran away.\n\nHe felt that needle now, but, curse it, it was sure to go away again.\n\nTowards evening the sky grew filmy, the sun dull-eyed, the earth grey.\nA lake to the north was just then gleaming pale under the wooded\nslopes. The fire went out and the lake was nothing but water.\n\nThe wet, naked rocks in the east mountains were also fiery while the\nsun shone. They seemed to be drops of fire which had fallen amongst\nmountain peaks and forests. They too went out.\n\nGaupa walked towards Mors\u00e6ter, Bj\u00f6nn on the lead. The needle in his\nlung was burning\u2014a confounded nuisance and no doubt about it. It came\nlike lightning, and so unexpectedly that it jerked his whole body. But\nit was sure to go away again.\n\nIn the gloaming he saw the flat pasture round the Mors\u00e6ter. The forest\nyawned, and he reached the fence. The roof had been freshly shingled,\nand looked very white and clean.\n\nHe searched for the key of the door. It was usually to be found in a\nhole in the wall, but not so that day. He tried other places, but there\nwas no key.\n\nAs a matter of fact Gaupa was man enough to open a lock. He also knew\nhow to take out window frames, so tenderly and carefully that they bore\nno mark of axe or knife. No house was locked to him, and if the worst\ncame to the worst he would crawl down the chimney!\n\nThe padlock was opened without trouble. Gaupa merely gave it a few\nmysterious taps with his sheath knife. The hook released the body of\nthe lock and seemed to say, \u201cPlease enter.\u201d\n\nWhile Gaupa was cutting wood for the night behind the house, the echo\nfrom his axe beat his ears like shots. The sky was sleepy and cloudy.\nPerhaps there would be rain.\n\nHe stood by the hearth cutting chips to start a fire, and felt his head\nreeling. But his will controlled the knife, so that the fat pine-root\nchips curled before him like small bouquets.\n\nThe fire was lit, and then three living things were in the hut\u2014Gaupa\nand Bj\u00f6nn and the Fire. Gaupa sat on the hearth stone, creeping close\nto the fire. For it was cold and shivery that night, ever so cold. The\nboiling-hot coffee helped a little against the cold, glowing inside\nhim for a little while, but very soon he shivered again. Cold blasts\nwent down his spine, and they made him start and say \u201cDamn\u201d to the fire.\n\nHe pulled his bed near the fire. Two sheepskin rugs were there, and he\nfound another in the next room. He went to bed with one under and two\nover him, but even then he felt cold. It was as if his body had ceased\nto produce warmth, he was cold from within, and a pang shot through his\nright side and would not leave him, however much he rubbed himself with\nhis hard hand.\n\nAfter a short time he fell asleep and dreamed\u2014that he was chasing\nRauten, running till he was quite winded\u2014it was quite absurd how very\nmuch he was out of breath. And Rauten with the half-ear stood before\nhim looking at him out of deep human eyes, but Bj\u00f6nn lay still beside\nhim licking his paw\u2014what an idiot of a dog! But when Gaupa fired he saw\nthe bullet leap out of the muzzle of the gun and run slowly through the\nair as if time was of no account, and when at last it reached Rauten\u2019s\nforehead the bullet rolled down as if it were a pea, which Rauten\nbending low picked up and chewed, very much as Bj\u00f6nn did when you gave\nhim sugar.... And at that moment Rauten was changed into a man, the R\u00e9\nValley Swede, only he had those enormous elk horns on his head. Gaupa\u2019s\nhand fumbled for another cartridge, but then he woke up, perspiring.\n\nMorning came\u2014after a long, long night. Gaupa wanted to go to Lower\nValley with news of the elk. He flung his legs out of bed and stood on\nthe floor. But what the devil was the matter? His head had grown so\nheavy; the floor rose, he had to stretch out a foot to keep it from\nupsetting him. He had never felt anything like it! Perhaps he was going\nto be taken ill out there! Perhaps he would remain in that bed as\nhelpless as a baby! \u201cNo,\u201d he muttered, \u201cI\u2019m damned if I do.\u201d\n\nHe sat down again and put his shoes on. That was better, but he could\nnot swallow a bite. The food seemed to grow in his mouth as soon as he\nhad bitten it. All the same he packed his sack and went outside.\n\nMist engulfed him like an enormous white wave. He saw the trees like\nshadows, and the little barn in the meadow was hidden from sight.\n\nWith Bj\u00f6nn on the lead he staggered across the meadow; and when he\nopened the gate in the fence, nature was so silent that the slightest\nnoise seemed to saturate the air with sound.\n\nHe crossed the brook that runs from the little lake, and a few fish ran\nback into the lake, their backs so high that they moved the surface of\nthe water. They are playing already, he thought; the trouts are laying\ntheir roe now about Michaelmas time.\n\nGaupa sat down. Bj\u00f6nn pulled at the lead as if wishing to investigate\nthe mist.\n\nGaupa felt that he was far from being well. For by that time there was\na hot pang in both his sides, and his chest seemed too small for his\nbreathing. It was four full hours\u2019 walk to the Lower Valley. He might\nmeet people before that. He had seen wood cutters at a place near\nSp\u00e6ende Lake, where he passed a couple of days before, but even that is\ntwo hours\u2019 walk, and Gaupa, the Lynx, was so uncertain of himself that\nhe doubted whether he could manage that little bit in two hours.\n\nIn fact he began to see himself as he was that winter with pneumonia,\na helpless man, whom his legs would not carry. At times he was in this\nworld and at times in another, where everything went awhirl and upside\ndown.\n\nIf now he should lie like that under a spruce tree between Mors\u00e6ter and\nSp\u00e6nde Lake, it would be anything but funny, No one would find him, for\nwho could know the ways of the Lynx? It would be better to crawl back\nto his bed of last night than risk a sick-bed under a spruce tree.\n\nAnd then Gaupa behaved in a strange way. As usual he was wearing his\nbrown cap with a very small peak, which he had worn for ever so many\nyears. It may seem strange that he should drag about such a rag of a\ncap, but there is nothing so strange about it after all, for it was\na Lucky Cap, and after Bj\u00f6nn and \u201cThe Tempest\u201d it was Gaupa\u2019s most\ncherished possession. Gaupa, it may be said, never went into the woods\nwithout that cap, and it showed signs of wear, for in the middle of the\ncrown there was a round hole all through to the lining. The branches\nhad made that when he moved about under the trees.\n\nGaupa took off his cap as solemnly and earnestly as if he were\nentering the Lower Valley Church on a Mass Sunday, but he was sitting\nby a mountain lake, bareheaded and black-haired in the mountain mist.\n\nThen he flung the cap through the air, watching its flight with tense\neyes. The cap turned a few somersaults, described an arch, struck the\nheather with a soft whisper, and lay still. Gaupa walked softly up to\nit and noticed very carefully the direction of the peak. It pointed to\nthe house, and Gaupa knew then that he would go back. There could be no\ndoubt about it.\n\nFor he believed in the power of the cap, and had never had cause to\nregret it. Many a time the cap had shown its remarkable power of giving\ngood advice. When uncertain about the direction to be taken in order to\nfind game, he had often thrown his cap, and where the peak pointed when\nit fell, there he went, and there the elks were, even when he could\nnever have dreamed of finding them there. The cap was as good as a dog\nwith a supernaturally fine scent.\n\nGaupa returned to the hut, and one need not laugh at him for that.\nAnyone living like he did sees many strange things which sound even\nstrange in the telling. Beasts and bird and fish, yea, even trees and\ngrass possess strange powers and may tell the future to those who have\nears to hear.\n\nInside the but Gaupa tore off some bits of stale bread, hard as stone,\nfor Bj\u00f6nn, and then he crept in under his sheepskins.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt cleared up later in the day. The earth changed her face and began to\nsmile, the last flakes of mist vanished in the air as if by magic.\n\nAt sunset a red eye seemed to shut among the peaks. A long ridge of\nshadows made its way up an eastern slope. It rose slowly, inexorably,\nlike water in a lock. The last rays of the evening sun covered a hill\nlike a red cap.\n\nDusk fell, but the yellow birches round the bogs seemed to have\ndrunk the sunshine and kept it in them, so that even in the gloaming\nthe silver birches stood out like patches of sunlight that had been\nforgotten. On the fence round the pasture a tiny bird poured forth\nclear ripples of song into the stillness of the evening.\n\nThere were no signs of life near the hut.\n\nInside, Bj\u00f6nn was crouching at the foot of the bed, his nose under\nhis tail and his ears flat. The hearth was black and dead, under the\nsheepskin rugs Gaupa lay, a quick breathing was heard. Once the dog\nrose to lick Gaupa\u2019s hairy head. Then a rough hand with black nails was\nextended to stroke him. \u201cPoor doggie,\u201d someone whispered.\n\nThen the dog curled up again at the foot of the bed, swallowed noisily\na few times, and then there was no sound but the laboured breathing\nfrom the bed.\n\nA silent fight was fought in that lonely mountain hut. A hardened body\nrose up against something intangible something that could not be hit,\na trembling of every muscle, a heaviness in head and chest not to be\nshaken off. At last he was conscious that his whole body noted every\nsingle sensation, and he could not ward off a feeling of dread. Nobody\nhad any errand up there at that time of the year. The manure had been\nspread over the pasture, and he could not think of any other work for\nthe people from the valley, knowing that they had no wood-cutting to\ndo.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThen he thought of Bj\u00f6nn, whom he could feel like a warm cushion across\nhis feet. Bj\u00f6nn was a wise dog. Often when the elk had fallen, far\naway, the dog returned to him to tell with eyes and gesture, and he\nfollowed him to where the elk lay. Would he not also be wise enough to\nfetch people, if his master rose no more?\n\nDusk came, even in Gaupa\u2019s brain. The sheepskins were so hot that he\nlonged to throw them off, only he knew it would be dangerous to do so.\n\nSometimes his eyes opened, and then they were moist as if he were moved\nto tears or as if he had done a long, hard sprint. The corner of his\nmouth worked incessantly; he was never without that, but it did not\ndisturb him then.\n\nA sharp gleam of light played upon a tin pan on the wall for a very\nlong time. Then the face of night lay close up to the window panes,\nlooking in, and the pan ceased to gleam! Only the newly-shingled roof\nof the cowshed stood out white in the darkness.\n\n\n\u00a7 9\n\nOn such September nights moonlight in the mountains seems like magic.\n\nThat night the moon was full and round, a glowing pupil in the blue\neye of heavens. A light mist floated over the lake, the outlines of\nthe mountains blurred like shadows. The western R\u00e9 Mountains looked as\nif they had opened to let out all their hidden treasure of silver. The\nstreamlets wormed their way like molten metal down the steep slopes;\nfar below they foamed like avalanches of snow. When the water went to\nrest in the lakelets down at the bottom of the valleys, the silver\ngleam moved lazily below the wooded slopes. A big animal crossed a\nmoonlit glade. It was not an animal at all, but a dream which the\nforest and the night see in their sleep. Long shadows fell on the glade\nand the deer waded in them. But the rays of the moon caressed its back\nwith soft, trembling touch, and its eyes were wet.\n\nNoiseless like a cat Rauten went forward, no sound under his hoofs, no\ncrack from a broken branch. He walked as if careful not to waken what\nsleeps about him; but he did not quite succeed. A capercailzie was\nperched in a tree just above him. Her head crept out from under her\nwing and her hairless eyelids opened; her neck hung down as she stared,\nbut Rauten disappeared, and the bird hid her head under the wing once\nmore.\n\nA hare jumped up\u2014a spirit in flight.\n\nNow and then Rauten\u2019s nose nearly touched the earth. He sought the\nscent of a cow elk. For he was alone again to-day. The cow he had\nfought for so valiantly the day before no longer wanted him. Cows are\nunstable like all females. Rauten was not the one and only elk for her\nany longer.\n\nBut Rauten might find other mates; he was never at rest, because of the\ncows. He wanted to fight for them all, to strike terror in the heart\nof every bull he met, beat them with his antlers till they would writhe\nlimply like willow twigs.\n\nHe stopped sniffing towards a faint movement in the air, his ears\neagerly caught a tiny sleepy murmur from the brooks. But there was no\nscent but that of bogs and woods.\n\nHe went on silently with enormous strides\u2014a fairy-tale walk towards\nsunrise.\n\nIn the mountain hut there was nothing but that laboured breathing from\nthe bed. Every once in a while Bj\u00f6nn would sigh deeply as if he were\ngreatly troubled. Then he would lick his jaws a few times and sleep on,\nwhile the moonlit square moved across the floor like a living thing.\n\nA breath of wind soughed round the walls\u2014hush\u2014sh\u2014sh; a loose window\npane let in a tiny draught.\n\nThen the dog\u2019s head was raised instantly, suddenly as when a wild\nanimal is disturbed in his lair. Bj\u00f6nn was awake and alert. Eyes\nglowing, nostrils alternately large and small. He smelt some scent\nwhich that breath of air had carried into the hut.\n\nHe jumped on to the floor with a soft thud and stood with both forepaws\non the window-sill. His triangular ears were stiff with eagerness;\nhe saw something out there, growled deep down in his throat as if in\nanger. What did he see?\n\nSuddenly he left the window and stood by the door. With an impatient\nbark he scratched the door to get out. Realising the futility of that,\nhe rushed back to the window and the floorboards groaned beneath his\nweight. Again he stood up, his forepaws on the sill, howling as if in\npain. What did he see out there?\n\nIn the bog below the pasture there was an elk. No bush could be more\nimmovable than he. The elk seemed to sleep or to listen for something.\nHis antlers appeared to float on the silvery lake below\u2014full of shining\nsilver bowls gently rocking on its surface.\n\nGaupa sat up in the bed. There must be something very special to make\nBj\u00f6nn carry on like that....\n\nHe could see through the window from where he sat, and it seemed to\nhim that never before were air and mountains so fiery yellow and so\nstrange-looking. They seemed to him to be burning with fever....\n\nFarthest away and highest up he saw the sky, blue and teeming with\nstars. Below there swam a mountain, revealing its bristling back, and\nthe slope was wrapped in a misty veil. Nearer to him at the bottom of\nthe valley the lake flamed so brightly as to hurt his eyes, and on the\nbog nearer still he saw ... he saw\u2014\u2014\n\nHe stroked his eyes with his finger and looked again.\n\nAn elk was standing on the bog between the pasture and the lake, asleep\nor listening.\n\nGaupa wondered whether he was losing his senses or beginning to see\nvisions.\n\nOnce more his hand touched his eyelids, and he felt how weak and\nlimp his arm was. He turned his head. There was Bj\u00f6nn, whining and\nscratching at the door, so the fever had not quite mastered him. There\nwas his rifle, \u201cthe Tempest,\u201d leaning against the wall. It had the same\nflashing steel trigger as always, and he saw the elk\u2019s head which he\nhimself had carved on the butt. These could not be mere visions. He was\nquite in his senses, and there _was_ an elk down there on the bog.\n\nHe threw off the sheepskin rugs, stepped out of the bed, leaning on the\nbedpost. He was no longer the Lynx, the man of muscles and sinews\u2014no,\nhe was a staggering uncertain thing, bereft of his strength. His head\nthrobbed as if a thousand little animals were trying to break out\nthrough his skull. His chest was too small, and he drew in air in short\nlaboured gasps....\n\nGaupa somehow managed to get across the floor and seize \u201cthe Tempest.\u201d\nHow delightfully cool the steel felt to his hot palms!\n\nAfter a while he reached the window and stared out. The elk remained\nimmovable, looking northwards towards the Big Bear which unceasingly\nruns along its azure path in the sky.\n\nThen Gaupa pushed the muzzle of his gun straight through the\nwindow-pane. A crisp clang of breaking glass followed, some pieces\nfalling on the window-sill, others on the floor.\n\nDead silence reigned in the hut once more. The dog stood erect beside\nthe man, his ears cocked, trembling with excitement, waiting for the\nshot.\n\nGaupa crouched, his knees bent, his chin pressed against the butt. How\nnice and cool it felt! He took aim, and when his eye caught the shining\nsight on the muzzle a calm relief seemed to fill his body, killing the\nfever....\n\nRauten stood down there. What was that he heard in the moonlight? The\nsound immediately begot a picture in his brain. He saw and heard an\nicicle breaking from a precipice and falling down on to the glacier\nbelow. It was broken to pieces and shattered with a shrill clang.... It\nwas the sound of the falling window-pane.\n\nUp in the hut Gaupa took aim. First his aim sought the starry flowers\nin the sky. Then it sank past the multitude of stars, sank lower and\nlower, crossed the mountain slope, skirted the lake, stole along the\nbog, fumbled for the elk\u2019s antlers and found them. There it rested\nawhile, only to glide downwards along the dark body, stopped again, and\nremained.\n\nGaupa\u2019s forefinger crooked. His eyelids did not move, nor did Bj\u00f6nn\u2019s.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nRauten was listening all the time for that icicle. Then a hot pang in\nhis left shoulder startled him, but the sensation was drowned in a\nroar of thunder which broke upon the stillness of the night. The elk\nstretched out and lay flat in the air, touched the earth, and stretched\nout in the air again. Moonlight streamed between the tines of his\nantlers when he ran, each leap double the length of his own body. He\nwas chasing a mad shadow in front of him, chasing it into the forest\nwhich swallowed shadow and elk alike.\n\nShortly afterwards something splashed in a lake to the north, and the\nwater spouted white before Rauten where he started to swim. He swam\nacross the lakelet, swam across molten silver. On the farther side he\nrose, dripping, and ran on.\n\n\n\u00a7 10\n\nGaupa lay in bed once more. The hut was filled with nauseating fumes\nfrom the powder, and Bj\u00f6nn ran from window to door and back again.\nFinally he stopped at the door, nose to the chink, scenting the draught.\n\nGaupa knew what elk that was. It had incredibly large shovel-shaped\nantlers, like Rauten was said to have. Few elks in these parts have\nshovel-shaped antlers nowadays. Undoubtedly it was Rauten. Lead could\nnot wound him, and he had vanished through the moonlight when the shot\nrang out, like one possessed.\n\nAfter a time Bj\u00f6nn lay down before the door. Once more silence reigned.\nBut to Gaupa it was as if he and Bj\u00f6nn were not alone in the hut. A\nbreath of wind came down the chimney, and to Gaupa\u2019s ear it was as if\nsomething breathed. The silence afterwards was filled with that strange\nmurmuring which comes from nowhere and everywhere. Was it the voices of\nthe dead returning? It sounded like a faint whisper, always the same\nintonation, always alike. The whisper grew into words: \u201cBeast, beast,\nbeast....\u201d\n\nEven the hills round that hut bore marks of R\u00e9 Valley Swede\u2019s pickaxe,\ndeep holes, mossgrown by now. Did he hear steps outside? Two stealthy\nsteps at long intervals? No, surely not. Bj\u00f6nn would have barked if\nthere had been real steps.\n\nAnd lying there with his eyes shut, Gaupa recalled many strange things\nwhich had been told in Lower Valley during those last years.\n\nOne day the cow-boy at Lyhuss\u00e6ter came running home struggling to\nregain his breath. The dairy maid stood agape. At the same time Martin\nLyhus scrambled up with his packhorse, and he heard the nonsense the\nboy had to tell.\n\n\u201cAn elk bull has mounted our 'Drople\u2019!\u201d he says.\n\nMartin tied his horse to the fence.\n\n\u201cWhat ails ye, lad? Don\u2019t you come here to grown-up folks with child\u2019s\ntalk. What you say has neither rhyme nor reason.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut it\u2019s gospel truth,\u201d the boy maintained, and Martin noticed that he\nwas purple with running.\n\n\u201cThat elk had antlers as big as never was,\u201d says the boy.\n\nThe outcome was that Martin went with him. They found \u201cDrople\u201d not far\noff, but no elk bull, only to the farmer\u2019s eye the cow looked strangely\nshamefaced. He also found elk spoors, so evidently the lad had spoken\nthe truth. But that spoor was Rauten\u2019s, for Martin recognised it.\n\nNow, as the dairymaid knew, \u201cDrople\u201d had been ready for play, but\nstrange to say she did not seem to care for a strange bull which\nhappened to come near their mountain farm.\n\nNine months later \u201cDrople\u201d was kicking and raving in the Lyhus cowshed\nin the Valley and she could not give birth to her calf. The dairymaid\nwent in and woke up Martin Lyhus. Her white kerchief gleamed in the\nlight of her cowshed lantern, the ends hanging under her chin like long\nears, when shaking her head she declared that the farmer himself had\nbetter come out and take that calf. He wasn\u2019t no real cattle crittur,\u2019\nthat he was not, for \u201cDrople\u201d had mated with that wizard devil\u2019s beast\nin R\u00e9 Mountain. Now she could not drop her calf.\n\nWell, Martin went out, but for all he strove and laboured he could not\nbring that calf. Then he fetched Tolleiv Skoro, who was something of a\nvet. And Tolleiv bit his tongue, as he always did when treating cattle,\nand he worked and worked till that calf lay beside \u201cDrople\u201d in the\nstraw.\n\nBut what a miracle of a calf! Mercy upon us!\n\nIts legs were half as long again as they should have been, its colour\nwas dark, snout long like an elk\u2019s, and there was next to no tail!\n\nThe dairymaid trampled across the shed in her dirty boots.\n\n\u201cMartin,\u201d she said, \u201cyou look into its eyes.\u201d\n\nMartin did not see anything remarkable in the calf\u2019s eyes.\n\n\u201cYou kill him as soon as ever morning comes,\u201d said the woman. \u201cI won\u2019t\nhandle no crittur with eyes like human beings.\u201d\n\nThey killed the calf and buried it.\n\n\u201cSuch foolish womenfolks,\u201d Martin Lyhus pooh-poohed; but he had to give\nin; for his wife was at one with the maid in the matter, and you know\nthe ways of womenfolks....\n\nOnly that was not the end of it all.\n\n\u201cDrople\u2019s\u201d milk had such a queer taste that no one in all Lyhus farm\nwould drink it. They could only use it for cheese and such-like, and\nthe next autumn the skin of \u201cDrople\u201d hung inside out on the back wall\nof the barn.\n\nSomething else happened the summer after \u201cDrople\u201d was killed. It was\nat the Lyhus Mountain farm, which lies in a wooded valley west of R\u00e9\nValley, and elks used to live there in summer.\n\nOne night the dairymaid saw a head in the forest, half a human head and\nhalf an elk\u2019s head it was, poking out from a closely grown spruce tree.\nShe saw nothing else but the head, nobody, only a tremendous pair of\nantlers.\n\nThe head stared at her and did not move, only stared. She felt as if\nshe were standing in icy-cold water up to the chin. She whispered the\nname of Jesus towards the head and then took to her heels towards\nthe hut, mumbling bits of the catechism while she ran, from the Ten\nCommandments to the Creed, and she was half dead when at length she was\nsafe in the hut.\n\n\u201cWhat\u2019s the matter?\u201d asked the farmer\u2019s wife.\n\nThe maid was silent. She sat down and said nothing.\n\n\u201cDear me, what ails thee?\u201d the housewife asked again.\n\n\u201cI am too scared to tell.\u201d\n\n\u201cScared?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, it\u2019s more like blaspheming, it is. I saw a deer\u2019s head round by\nGrey Hill.\u201d\n\nAnne Lyhus had rolled up her sleeves. She was at work salting and\nkneading a lump of butter.\n\n\u201cHaven\u2019t you seen a deer\u2019s head before this?\u201d she asked.\n\n\u201cYes, but that deer\u2019s head had eyes like a human being. And worst of\nall I recognised them!\u201d\n\nAnne gasped.\n\n\u201cRecognised them?\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2018Twas the eyes of the Swede. If it\u2019s my last words on earth. I swear\nthey were the eyes of the R\u00e9 Valley Swede!\u201d\n\n\n\u00a7 11\n\nThe moonlight had reached Gaupa in the hut. Bj\u00f6nn jumped up to him in\nbed, nosed his head and licked his hair, tail wagging. Gaupa stroked\nBj\u00f6nn\u2019s head.\n\n\u201cPoor doggie mine,\u201d he whispered. The dog lay down beside him, but with\nraised head, and stared through the window across the marshes.\n\nIn a little while the bed started falling over. The bed turned over and\nGaupa turned over against the table. It felt as if the bed was trying\nto throw him out and get rid of him, and he grabbed the skins with both\nhands, holding on as tight as tight. He had never felt such a sensation\nbefore.\n\nThere now, he was level again\u2014how delightful! The bed calmed down;\nbut what a number of lakes and brooks there were in that square of\nmoonlight on the floor! A flood of little brooklets.... And then the\nbed began to tilt again, it turned upside down, and Gaupa clenched his\nfists, holding on for dear life till the perspiration ran down his\nskull.\n\nDay dawned. Gaupa was talking to himself with eyes closed, while the\nstars vanished one by one.\n\nOn the brink of the precipice towards the R\u00e9 Valley stood Rauten.\n\nHe could feel that gadfly constantly stinging in his left shoulder. He\nnosed the place, but only found the hole where the gadfly had crept in.\nHis skin bled from the bite of that gadfly which bit into him, when the\nthunder roared, over near Mors\u00e6ter. What a strange gadfly!\n\nBut that gadfly was lying close by a bone, on the shoulder-blade. It\nwas hard and thick and flat. Once it had lived inside the barrel of\nGaupa\u2019s rifle, but the night had been so bright and it had flown out\ninto the moonlight.\n\nAnother day came into being.\n\nThe man abed in the mountain hut cried out aloud again and again,\n\u201cBj\u00f6nn!\u201d he called, and each time the dog crept up to lick the man\u2019s\nface.\n\nAbout noon a wind arose, blowing somewhat hard. The broken pane rattled\nand there was a draught in the room. The wind falling down the chimney\nplayed a little with some fine cobweb under a beam in the roof and\nescaped through the window again.\n\nThe wind blew hard and then calmed down, blew hard and calmed down once\nmore, and between each gust the hut only seemed to wait for the next.\n\nSuddenly there was a sharp noise in the lock of the door and Bj\u00f6nn\njumped down from the bed, barking. But the door swung on its hinges,\nand made a yawning gulf out towards the sunlight outside. Probably\nthe wind did it, or was it the forewarning spirit of a man following\nbehind? Several hours passed and no man entered, so it could not have\nbeen a spirit after all.\n\nAnd there was another night and another day.\n\nOutside Bj\u00f6nn wailed to the heavens, while the wind thrashed the forest\ntill it waved like a dark green sea.\n\nAfter a while the dog trotted eastwards along the path by the lake. He\ngrew smaller as the distance increased, he trotted steadily along the\nbeaten path. When there was a dip or a mound he disappeared, to dive up\nagain soon afterwards, but finally there was no reappearance.\n\nThen Gaupa was quite alone in the mountain hut.\n\nOnly he was not there at all. Suddenly he had entered strange\nunderground passages where breathing was difficult and which were so\nnarrow that he could scarcely move. He lay flat, he tried to bend his\nknees and sit up on his haunches, but the place was too narrow. Then\nhe attempted to pull himself forward on his stomach, tried with all\nhis might, for soon there would be no more air in there. It was half\ndark and he could not find his way out. The passage was crooked like\na fox\u2019s lair, with no beginning and no end. He crawled forward in mad\nterror, lest he should never find a way out.\n\nThen suddenly a shot rang out there, and all was blank.\n\nAfter a while he crawled again, crawled\u2014crawled to find a way out which\nhe could not see.\n\n\n\u00a7 12\n\nBj\u00f6nn trotted down the path to Sp\u00e6nde Lake. Here and there yellow\nand brownish leaves were in his path, and when he trampled them they\nrustled like a fire of twigs.\n\nWhere the slopes began to fall steeply towards Lower Valley, a\nwood-cutter stood beside a marked spruce. At the height of a man\u2019s head\na strip of bark had been flayed off so that bare flesh of the tree\ncould be seen. The strip of bark hung down like a long tongue; one\nmight imagine the tree putting its tongue out at the forester.\n\nBut the wielder of an axe is not one to defy! \u201cBang!\u201d said the tree\ntrunk, when the lightning steel cut a chip from its body.\n\nThe strokes of the axe sounded even and regular from the forest; they\nmight almost be the pulse of the woods.\n\nBj\u00f6nn stopped a little to the west, listening. The sounds reminded him\nof something and called up a picture of Gaupa outside Lynx Hut cutting\nfirewood, bending and straightening his body as the axe was lifted and\nfell. The stroke of axe and human beings go together, Bj\u00f6nn knew that.\nOver there in that woodland slope there must be people.\n\nSoon afterwards the wood-cutter heard the heather whispering behind\nhim. His axe was still in the middle of a branch, and he turned his\nface bearded with a week-old stubble.\n\nHe saw a dog standing there, looking at him, wagging his tail, and\nsaying as plainly as anything:\n\n\u201cGood day to you. I see you are cutting timber.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is the deer-hound belonging to Gaupa,\u201d the wood-cutter thought,\nfor everybody knew Bj\u00f6nn just as everybody knew the parson or the\nsheriff. Bj\u00f6nn was an elk hunter by the grace of God; he provided long\nelk hams for their store-rooms and long elk antlers over their doors.\nYes indeed, everybody knew Bj\u00f6nn.\n\n\u201cIs that you, Bj\u00f6nn?\u201d the wood-cutter said softly; he left his axe and\nwent up to the dog to stroke him with a hand sticky with resin.\n\nBut the dog behaved very strangely\u2014just like a puppy. He jumped off as\nif in play, made a leap and stopped to look backwards at the forester.\nHe wagged his tail a little as puppies do when they want to play.\n\n\u201cYou\u2019re a funny dog,\u201d the wood-cutter thought.\n\nThe dog made several leaps, looked backwards, asking the forester to\nfollow him. But that wood-cutter had only a tiny space in his head\nwhere his wits lived, barely space enough to contain the idea of\ntimber, axes, pork, and coffee. Therefore he understood nothing at all\nof what the dog wished to say, and started cutting timber again. An\nenormous spruce fell down, a giant of the forest which stood at his\npost and fell there like a faithful veteran.\n\nBj\u00f6nn waited. The man cut off a slice of bread and gave it to him.\nBj\u00f6nn wolfed it down. He would have liked more for sure, but the\nwood-cutter could not afford it, for a man who fetches his living from\nbetween the bark and the wood does not readily throw away good food\ninto a dog\u2019s mouth.\n\nBj\u00f6nn waited. He wanted the man to go with him to the Mors\u00e6ter Hut. It\nwas not as it should be that his master remained in bed day after day\nwithout moving, and without getting up.\n\n\u201cYou be off and find your master,\u201d said the wood-cutter, making as if\nto chase him with one arm. \u201cYou go along after Sjur.\u201d\n\nBj\u00f6nn only cocked his ears and remained.\n\n\u201cFool,\u201d said the man; \u201cchangeling,\u201d he said.\n\nEvening came, and the man met two of his mates at their hut. Bj\u00f6nn was\nstill with him, and they soon agreed that he must have lost his way,\nand God only knew where his master was.\n\nThen the wood-cutter told the others of the dog\u2019s strange behaviour\nwhen he first arrived. One of the men, who had much beard, many years\nand much experience, said thoughtfully:\n\n\u201cIt can\u2019t be possible that something wrong has happened to Gaupa?\u201d\n\n\u201cCertainly not,\u201d the first one replied. \u201cNo wrong\u2019d ever befall Gaupa,\nhe who is for ever making his bed under the nearest tree. Gaupa can\nlook after himself, no doubt about that.\u201d\n\nBj\u00f6nn had been sitting still near the door, but then he scratched to\nget out. The door was opened and fastened again. Pork spluttered in a\npan, a kettleful of coffee boiled over and vomited at the spout.\n\n\n\u00a7 13\n\nBj\u00f6nn trotted westwards again. The wind had calmed down, and in the sky\nabove a low ridge God had lit a tiny star.\n\nIn a brief hour Bj\u00f6nn entered the fence at Mors\u00e6ter.\n\nThe door of the hut had been thrown back and was only slightly ajar. A\nnarrow grey nozzle entered the gap, and Bj\u00f6nn stepped in. Breathing was\ncoming from the bed.\n\nThe dog jumped up and crawled lazily forwards to the sack of provisions\nwhich formed the sick man\u2019s pillow. Gaupa was uncovered, lying on his\nback fully clothed, his beard streaming over his chest.\n\nHe was conscious now, and clearly recalled how he shot the elk in the\nmoonlight, but how long ago that was he did not know. Time was blurred\nin his mind. Anything not connected with the elk he could not recollect.\n\nThere was Bj\u00f6nn. The dog placed a cool wet nozzle against his chin. He\nsaw that the door was open and remembered seeing him enter, and the\nthought begot the idea that sooner or later the dog would seek people,\nand the important thing would then be that he should carry something\nwhich would take a message to anyone he met.\n\nAfter some reflections he loosened his watchchain from his waistcoat\nand tied it round the dog\u2019s collar.\n\nWas it morning or evening, dawn or gloaming? It might be either, but\nafter a time the darkening dusk, which came like something soft and\nfleecy, convinced him that night was advancing.\n\nWhat about that shot at the elk?...\n\nPerhaps he had struck the beast somewhere in the body. It was\nimpossible to say, for the deer might well run as it did even if it\nwere hit. Perhaps he struck the belly, and Gaupa\u2019s imagination clearly\npictured how that bullet would tear the intestines until their contents\nwould run out like a thick butter. The elk would run with a flaming\nfire inside\u2014Gaupa could almost feel it inside himself.\n\nHe wondered at himself for his pity\u2014it was more like a woman than like\nhim, Gaupa, who never before had cared whether he only wounded an elk\nor killed it. But now a curious tenderness invaded his whole being,\nand the bare thought of a wound gave him pain, downright physical\npain. Most distinctly of all he could feel the possibility of a hit in\nthe lungs\u2014if the elk could no longer draw a full breath, but had to\ngasp for air. The lungs filled with something that stopped breath and\nblurred sight. The nose began dripping blood\u2014the elk would be choked....\n\nAnd Gaupa thought that if he went out alive from that mountain hut he\nwould never more be careless where he sent a bullet into an animal.\nEither he would be sure that his shot could kill, or he would not shoot.\n\nHe was fully conscious throughout the evening.\n\nThose eyes came back to him, as he had seen them off and on during\nlater years, when dreaming or half asleep.\n\nHe saw a forest at dusk, it may be one summer evening. Everything was\nasleep about him, but over there amongst the spruce something was\nalive, two moist, brownish, living spots side by side. And in another\ndirection he also saw two living eyes, and he knew them. They were the\neyes of dead elks shot years ago, calves bereft of their mothers. Such\neyes looked at him from behind every tree and every bush; they blamed\nhim and accused him, the elk souls from the land of shades.\n\nA trembling fear assailed him; he turned and turned to get away from\nthe staring glances which caught his own irresistibly. He ran with\nfeet like lead that would not move; but the eyes were everywhere, they\nseemed to move, staring till madness entered his soul.\n\nThen he noticed two unlike the others. They were deer\u2019s eyes and yet\nthey were not. They were the ones he had met eight years before on the\nslopes of Black Mountain. Then he threw himself forward, his face in\nhis hands.\n\n\n\u00a7 14\n\nThe next day the farmer Halstein at Rust in Lower Valley saw Bj\u00f6nn, the\ndog from Lynx Hut, trotting towards the farm. The dog came into the\npassage and scratched at the door. Halstein opened, and noticed that\nthe dog was soaking wet. Big wet marks on the floor showed where he\nplaced his paws. He had probably swum across the river.\n\nWhat was hanging on the dog\u2019s collar?\n\nHalstein loosened the well-worn brass chain, looked at it, and said to\nhis wife:\n\n\u201cThis chain belongs to old Gaupa. I\u2019m thinking something must have\nhappened to him.\u201d\n\nHalstein had often followed both Bj\u00f6nn and his master in the forest,\nand that was why the dog fetched him for help. The dog behaved exactly\nas he did with the wood-cutter the day before, running from the door to\nHalstein and back again.\n\n\u201cWell, well, I\u2019m coming sure,\u201d said Halstein, packing his sack. He took\nhis gun from the beam in the roof, and the two walked quickly across\nthe meadow. When he reached the bank of the river the dog jumped first\ninto the boat, and on the other side they were swallowed up by the\nforest.\n\nThe man and the dog walked for hours, along narrow forest paths, across\nmurmuring brooklets, and through birch bush. Bj\u00f6nn never wavered, he\nwas going back on his own tracks, and he never walked so far as to be\nout of Halstein\u2019s sight.\n\nAll the time Halstein was wondering what might be the matter with\nGaupa. Perhaps he had had an accident, broken a leg.... As far as\nhe knew Gaupa was on the Buvas Slopes a week before, and since then\nnothing had been heard of him.\n\nThe man and the dog walked on, not towards R\u00e9 Valley, but farther east.\nOnce they crossed a mountain ridge and stood with their feet on earth\nand their body in the clear sky. Then again they descended into a\nnarrow valley. Mors\u00e6ter Lake regarded them like a bright blue eye. They\ncame to a dense copse of healthy young trees, as is usually the case\nnear mountain summer farms, and then they were at their goal. They saw\na hut with a brown mossy roof and a cowshed with bright, new-shingled\nroof.\n\nHalstein Rust stopped outside the door. Bj\u00f6nn forced his way in,\nleaving the door ajar. Where Halstein stood in the sun he could see\nnothing of the interior of the hut, it being darker in there, and he\nwas blinded by the sunlight. He heard Bj\u00f6nn\u2019s steps on the floor, but\nno sound of man. Why did not Gaupa say something? Surely he must have\nheard them both coming.\n\nHe cleared his throat and struck his iron-shod heel against a stone\nwith a loud noise, but not a whisper came from the hut. He noticed a\nthin, worn-out horseshoe lying on the ground before him, and a bunch of\nfir twigs which the dairymaid had made to scrub her wooden milk-pans\nwith last summer. He hesitated to enter, with the same icy feeling\nwhich seized him when about to enter barns and other outlying houses\nwhere corpses were laid out....\n\nThen he cleared his throat once more, decisively this time as if\ndriving away an uncanny feeling. He walked to the door with the long,\nfine steps of the forester, the latch clattered, and he stood before a\nbed with a man on it. It was Gaupa. Gaupa was alive.\n\n\u201cGood day to you,\u201d said Halstein, half astonished with a question in\nhis voice, as if he had not expected to find Gaupa there. \u201cAre you in\nbed?\u201d he asked.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve been sick,\u201d Gaupa replied.\n\nSoon afterwards smoke curled up from the chimney, and Halstein Rust\ncarried a wooden pail to the well, north of the pasture. When he\nreturned Gaupa had something ready, which had occupied his thoughts\nwhile the other was away.\n\n\u201cThe first thing you must do when you go home,\u201d he said, \u201cis to send a\nmessage to Christopher Hovtun, that there is the flesh of an elk bull\nawaiting him near the little bog under Bog Hill.\u201d\n\nHalstein could not keep back a smile.\n\n\u201cWhat about a doctor? Would he not be almost as important?\u201d\n\nThat same day he returned perspiring to Lower Valley, harnessed his\nmouse-grey mare in his carriole and drove away northwards through the\nvalley, his stiff, black, Sunday-best hat on his head. And that same\nnight a man with starched linen, spectacles, and thin white hands was\nriding along the forest paths towards Mors\u00e6ter. The moon hung in the\nheavens like a yellow lantern lighting his path, while the farmer\u2019s boy\nfrom Rust followed him.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nWhen they reached the hut they heard a deep bark from within. The\ndoctor descended stiffly from the saddle, and it was quite ridiculous\nto see that from town-habit he knocked at the door before entering.\n\nFor three weeks afterwards there was smoke curling up from the Mors\u00e6ter\nchimney every day. One day in the fourth week Gaupa and Bj\u00f6nn stood at\nthe door of Lynx Hut. Gaupa was sickly pale.\n\nBut farthest out in R\u00e9 Valley where the round head of R\u00e9 Mountain seems\nto bend forwards to look down into the valley, Rauten stood in a marshy\nplace still feeling that nasty gadfly which bit his shoulder. He could\nnot reach it with his tongue, and could only lick the hole where it had\ncrawled under the skin. He did not get rid of that gadfly until winter\ngleamed on the mountain peaks and Gaupa\u2019s lead bullet was surrounded by\na covering of tissue.\n\n\n\u00a7 15\n\nGaupa was not his old self all that winter.\n\nHe stayed indoors making shoes, and felt cold if he went out. His body\nseemed to have become open so as to let in the wind and the cold.\n\nBut he recovered when spring came. He resembled a strong tree. A\nwound is covered with resin and the tree is whole again. The same\nthing happened to Gaupa. Slowly but surely weakness grew out of him.\nAnd by the next autumn any number of old footwear lay under his bed\nawaiting his treatment. But Gaupa had no time for work. His short,\nmuscle-hardened legs were trotting over ridges and far horizons.\n\nThat autumn neither he nor any others learned any news of Rauten, and\nnot even the spoor was seen of the wizard elk. Very likely he had gone\nto some other forests.\n\nLet me see now\u2014did anything worth recording happen to Gaupa?\n\nYes, he shot an elk bull on a prohibited ground. If the thing had\nbeen made known it would have resulted in a thumping big fine; and as\nGaupa had nothing with which to pay a fine, it would have meant prison\ninstead. Therefore he did a very sensible thing. He cut off one of\nthe elk\u2019s legs at the knee, then went outside the preserve and made\na beautifully clear elk spoor all up to where his elk lay. Then he\nfetched people and said:\n\n\u201cHere ye are, folks. There is the spoor. I was raising him outside the\npreserve, and then he ran away in there where he lies.\u201d\n\nWell, the men saw what there was to see. The elk had been raised\noutside, though lying in the preserve. That was clear enough. The spoor\nwas sufficient evidence as good as a sworn witness. The men bit off a\nscrew of twist and would have sworn ever afterwards on their souls that\nGaupa raised the elk on lawful ground. The man who owned the forest had\nhalf the meat, as is the custom. The sheriff had some of it for his\nChristmas dinner, and proposed the health of Sjur Renna whom people\ncalled Gaupa, the sprightliest man in the forest who fetched such\ndainty food from the wilderness.\n\nWell, it was no unusual thing. Elk hunters have a special catechism,\nwith the ninth commandment left out, the one about bearing false\nwitness. But when Gaupa skipped that commandment he made an extra\nspecial churchy face, as candidly innocent as if his good conscience\nwas covering it externally.\n\nThat winter an elk fell through the ice in Lower River, a league or so\nto the south. Four men helped him out again with great difficulty. That\ndeer had half an ear, and ran off to the western slopes, having come\nfrom the east.\n\nThe following autumn Gaupa received a letter. It was brought to him\nspecially by a little boy from Rust who had no other errand.\n\n\u201cI was sent with a letter for you,\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cA letter?\u201d Gaupa could scarcely have been more surprised if one\nmorning the sun had risen in the west and had crossed the sky\nbackwards. A letter? A letter for Gaupa?\n\nHe put down the fat pork he was eating, wiped his hand on his trousers,\nand took the letter as gingerly as if afraid it would burn his fingers.\n\nThe envelope bore some printed letters as distinct and black as those\nin the Prayer Book: \u201cH. Braaten & Co., Drammen.\u201d Below he read \u201cMr.\nSjur Renden, Lower Valley.\u201d But that was in pen-and-ink writing.\n\nGaupa opened the letter with his sheath knife much as he would cut open\nthe skin of an elk\u2019s belly. The rustling white paper in his hands for\nonce brought home to his mind the fact that his hands were extremely\ndirty. The paper seemed too nice for them to touch. Even that bore the\nprinted inscription \u201cH. Braaten & Co., Drammen,\u201d and below: \u201c_Wholesale\nHardware_,\u201d which two words he did not understand in the least. The\nhandwriting did not look like what he had learnt at school, round and\nreadable. That before him was nothing but straight lines and broken\nones crowded close together. And what a man he must be at handling a\npen, he who wrote it! The words raced across the paper like gusts of\nwind, and below a whirling curl stood by itself; Gaupa guessed it was\nmeant for \u201cBraathe.\u201d He went off at once to find the schoolmaster and\nhave the letter read aloud. By himself he could only puzzle out a few\nwords here and there, like \u201celk,\u201d \u201cR\u00e9 Valley,\u201d \u201csuperstition,\u201d and\n\u201cYours truly.\u201d\n\nH. Braaten & Co. was a man from Lower Valley who had turned genteel. He\nhailed from a croft called Vermin Camp, and left home as soon as he was\nout of school. He sat on a loaded trading cart when he left, and the\nwhole outfit reeked of well-matured old cheese.\n\nBut when he returned!...\n\nHe arrived in a hired carriage with a hood on it, and he brought a wife\nwhom they called Mrs. Braathe, and who talked town language. And there\nwas so much gold in his teeth that when he laughed his mouth was like\nan entire sunrise.... That grand gentleman was Hans from Vermin Camp\nwho left the district on a sledgeful of old cheese.\n\nThe schoolmaster first took two or three readings of the letter, his\nlips forming the words but not his tongue. Then he read aloud:\n\n  \u201cMR. SJUR RENDEN,\n\n\u201cFrom my good friend up there I learn that there runs in the woods a\nremarkable elk, which no forest-men can manage to kill. Of course a\ngreat deal of superstition is connected with the animal, the dalesmen\nof Lower Valley being presumably as superstitious now as when I was a\nchild. Lower Valley is on the outskirts of civilisation. But if you,\nwho are, as I have heard, the greatest hunter in those parts, would\nconsent to guide me on a trip after the mysterious elk, you would give\ngreat pleasure to an old acquaintance. I long for R\u00e9 Valley.\n\n  \u201cPlease send me an answer.\n\n    \u201cWith kind regards,\n\n      \u201cYours truly,\n\n        \u201cH. BRAATHE.\u201d\n\nThe schoolmaster folded up the letter looking as if he had accomplished\na great deed, something that no one else in all the valley could manage.\n\n\u201cYou\u2019ll answer for me, won\u2019t you?\u201d said Gaupa. \u201cYou\u2019ll say he can come?\u201d\n\nAnd going home to Lynx Hut he felt himself greater than before. A\ngentleman from Bran\u00e6s had sent him a letter, saying it would be a\npleasure to have his company. The last \u201cYours truly\u201d sounded so full of\nrespect and so courteous that one might think it had been written in\nmockery.\n\n\n\u00a7 16\n\nOne day Mr. Braathe knocked at the door of Lynx Hut. Gaupa was at home,\nbut did not answer. What did that knocking mean? After another knock he\nwent to open the door.\n\nMr. Braathe was a long lath of a man, who seemed to have been pulled\ntoo hard length-ways and grown too narrow. Everything about him hung\nloosely\u2014his cheeks, shoulders, even his clothes. He was as shrivelled\nup as a bat.\n\n\u201cPlease sit down on the bed,\u201d said Gaupa; \u201cthere are no more lice there\nthan the fleas have managed to eat.\u201d\n\nThat was a joke he usually quoted to strangers, but this time he swore\nto himself the moment he had said it. The man before him hailed from\nVermin Camp, and might think the words an allusion to his past.\n\nBut Mr. Braathe kept smiling, and asked Gaupa to call him plain Hans\njust as in the old days.\n\nThat same evening they stood on the slope above Tolleiv Mountain Farm\nin R\u00e9 Valley. Bj\u00f6nn was not with them, because Hans did not want him,\nand in Gaupa\u2019s opinion even a dog could not avail when he was hunting\nRauten.\n\nIf Gaupa had nursed any ideas about the townsman being worth but\nlittle, he was mistaken. Gaupa walked quickly all day, but Hans kept\nup with him, and there was not a sign of perspiration about him. Once\nhe took out from his bag a strange instrument, a short trumpet of\nbirch-bark with a kind of mouthpiece at one end.\n\nHans was a much-travelled man. He once saw nothing for nights and days\nbut sea and sky. He had smelt the smoke from Red Men\u2019s camp fires.\nWhile he spoke, Gaupa grew silent and his eyes sought the far distance.\nHe was not there in a boggy hollow on the R\u00e9 Valley slopes. He followed\nthis tall man through endless woods on the other side of the earth,\nin a country which to Gaupa\u2019s mind had always been more dream than\nreality. They seemed to be under a tree, and beside them crouched a\ncopper-coloured Indian with burning eyes. He had a similar birch-bark\ntrumpet in his hand. The wilds of Canada spread out under the clouds.\nIt was early morning. Somewhere a beaver splashed into a calm pool.\nFarther away a duck was heard.\n\nThen the Red Indian, their guide, moved his moccasins with infinite\ncare, turned towards the rosy dawn over the earth in the east and\nlifted the birch-bark trumpet to his mouth. At first he only breathed\ninto it as if to warm it. It was a cold autumn morning, as silent as\ndeath, except for the occasional splash of the beaver....\n\nThe Red Indian lowered his instrument, raised it again, and out of\nit floated the mating call of an elk, loud and living, luring and\ntreacherous.\n\nHans arose, saying that that night they would lure the wizard elk. The\nbirch-bark instrument had accompanied him in the wilds of Canada, and\nmore than one crowned head had been turned by it. It would be a strange\nthing indeed if Rauten were not fooled also.... All that talk about the\nR\u00e9 Valley Swede was the most arrant nonsense, he declared.\n\nGaupa did not care to show himself superstitious to his companion,\nfor superstition was old-fashioned amongst the genteel. Therefore he\nguessed that Rauten was an elk like other elks. He ate grass, mated\nwith the cows in the autumn, and when he died he would die like a he\ngoat. No restless spirit would fly out of his nostrils.\n\n\n\u00a7 17\n\nIt was the following night.\n\nOn the slopes of Black Mountain Rauten stood on a rock, listening, his\nears waving alternately backwards and forwards. His beard hung stiff\nand awe-inspiring. He was listening for a cow. They usually can be\nheard at dusk during mating time.\n\nThe weather was not quite calm. A darkish cloud sailed slowly above\nBlack Mountain. Just below him in the river there were mild rapids and\nthe water bubbled incessantly against the rocks like a boiling kettle.\n\nFarther up the slope Hans and Gaupa sat under a spruce tree, the lower\nbranches of which touched the earth. They sat as if in a tent, on soft\nreindeer moss, hardly daring to move. Hans produced a flask, and Gaupa\npoured the golden brandy down his throat without a word. Little by\nlittle the forest grew veiled. Over the east mountains daylight faded\naway, the roar of R\u00e9 River seemed incessant and more wide awake than\never. The sound was uneven, which meant that there was movement in the\nair. That was bad luck.\n\nHans bent towards Gaupa. \u201cI wonder if we shall have an answer\nto-night,\u201d he whispered.\n\n\u201cThis is the best elk ground in all R\u00e9 Valley,\u201d Gaupa whispered back.\n\nThen once more they sat as still as stones, and Gaupa felt the brandy\non his tongue for a long time.\n\nThe night before they had tried the trumpet trick, but no bull answered\nthem.\n\nThat afternoon they found Rauten\u2019s spoor just below where they were\nthen sitting. A young pine showed white spots on its bark and several\nbranches were broken.\n\nThere the wizard elk had rubbed his antlers; the marks were so fresh,\nperhaps only made that day.\n\nAs darkness came on, Gaupa\u2019s excitement grew. Hearing seemed to fill\nevery part of his body. He was nothing but ears....\n\nHans regarded this strange being beside him. Gaupa\u2019s face was so very\nshort, with next to no chin, and that is rare, for surely energetic\npeople generally have strong chins. Now and then he jerked his head\nsharply and suddenly, as if he heard something that made him jump\nevery once in a while. Then Hans saw Gaupa smile, and a smile had not\nbeen seen on Gaupa\u2019s face all that trip. He was smiling, a strange,\nstiff-lipped smile, and turning to Hans he asked:\n\n\u201cD\u2019you hear him?\u201d\n\nHans had not heard a sound. But Gaupa\u2019s keen ear had caught a sound so\nfaint as scarcely to be one at all\u2014the mating cry of a bull elk. The\nsound seemed to come from below and from the north. Silence reigned\naround them once more. Gipsy Lake had a silvery streak along its\neastern banks. It was the reflection of the northern sky.\n\nHans carefully pressed the birch-bark mouthpiece against his lips,\nstuck the other end out through the pine branches, and blew. The call\nof a cow elk rang out: \u201cCome, come.\u201d\n\nThen all was silence.\n\nA quarter of an hour later Hans once more lifted his instrument.... He\nstopped, startled.\n\nImmediately to the north, silhouetted against the bright sky in the\nopening of the valley, an elk bull stood on a mountain ridge. Hans\ncould see the sky between its legs and also two ears and enormous,\nshovel-shaped antlers.\n\nThe elk did not move, and stood out like a statue against the sky above\nthe valley.\n\nGaupa cocked his gun. \u201cRauten,\u201d he whispered, and it sounded like a\nsob. He had seen the mutilated ear. At that moment the bull stepped\ndown from the ridge, straight towards them, and darkness hid him from\ntheir view.\n\nThen they heard \u201c\u00d6rrke\u2014\u00f6rrk,\u201d a kind of nasal grunt, approaching\nnearer and nearer. A dry twig cracked, and in the clearing a pine\nstump shimmered with a greyish gleam. The roar from R\u00e9 River seemed\nfar distant, as if withdrawn, but suddenly it sounded close again, the\nforest gave a sigh, and Gaupa saw a lichen tuft move slightly just\nabove Hans\u2019s head.\n\nThen the noise of the elk ceased as if suddenly cut off. There was not\na sound. The minutes crawled past. There was still silence.\n\nGaupa turned.\n\n\u201cWeathered!\u201d he whispered.\n\nBut Rauten trotted northwards along the edge of the long R\u00e9 marshes\nhour after hour. He had heard the luring call of a cow, went to meet\nher, and found man. What a strange thing to happen!... And Rauten ran\non. It is bad to be where man is.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\u00a7 18\n\nIt was the same autumn, later on in September, one night at Lynx Hut.\n\nBj\u00f6nn was asleep on the bed. \u201cThe Tempest\u201d hung on the wall. A wooden\nbox, converted, formed Gaupa\u2019s cobbler\u2019s workshop. A tiny paraffin\nlamp gave him a sleepy light for the work he had in hand, mending a\nshoe. On the box awls, plugs, tacks, waxed thread, and heel irons were\nheaped together, for Gaupa was very far from being a tidy man.\n\nThe patch finished, he pulled out from under the bed a violin case,\ntook out his instrument and turned it round in his hands as softly as\nif caressing it. Then he lifted it to his chin and made a stroke to\ntest the tuning, but when he touched the tenor and bass strings the\nviolin sang so sadly, sweetly, and wildly at the same time, just the\ntune that will sometimes rise up out of black, hidden river-filled\ngullies. The violin was tuned for magic.\n\nA lively country dance leaped from the strings. Bj\u00f6nn woke up and\nopened his eyes, but shut them again. A few dying embers glowed red\nthrough the draught-hole in the stove, and when Gaupa had finished and\nsat in deep reflection the sound of a watch ticking filled the silence.\nIt was getting on for one o\u2019clock in the morning, but that was Gaupa\u2019s\nmost wide-awake hour.\n\nSteps were heard outside, and Bj\u00f6nn barked. \u201cWhisht,\u201d said Gaupa. There\nwas a knock, Gaupa unlocked his door, which as it happened he had\nlocked that night.\n\n\u201cEvening,\u201d said somebody in the dark.\n\n\u201cEvening,\u201d Gaupa replied; \u201care you out walking so late?\u201d\n\nHans Holmen stood outside, exactly in the line between darkness and\nthe yellow lamplight from within. His coat was unbuttoned and a nickel\nwatchchain gleamed across his waistcoat. He carried a fishing-rod over\none shoulder, and Gaupa saw the white top move softly in the dark.\n\n\u201cOh,\u201d said Hans Holmen again, \u201cit\u2019s early rather than late. It is just\nabout one o\u2019clock.\u201d\n\nGaupa waited. Full well he knew that Hans must have a very special\nreason for coming in the night like that.\n\nThen Hans began to relate how he was fishing along the river. There\nwas a dense thicket of bushes growing along the bank and he was well\nhidden. While he was baiting his hook an enormous animal came out of\nthe undergrowth just to the south of him. At first he thought it was a\nhorse, and wondered why it had no bell, and besides it was not quite\nthe shape of a horse either. When the animal waded out into the river\nhe saw it against the sky-line and recognised it as an elk of unusual\nsize.\n\nHans Holmen went close up to Gaupa. He lowered his voice as if telling\na secret.\n\n\u201c\u2018Twas the wizard elk I saw,\u201d he said; \u201cI saw the mark of your knife.\u201d\n\nHe waited.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d he summed up the situation, \u201cI thought I\u2019d better tell you,\nwhen I saw the light in your window. That elk waded across the river\nand went up the other side, so now you know where to find his spoor.\u201d\n\nHans Holmen left, and Gaupa closed the door. He remained for some\nseconds staring down on the floor, standing in his shirt and trousers.\n\nBut out on the high road Hans Holmen went straight homewards and not\ntowards the river.\n\nIn Lynx Hut the petroleum lamp was still burning. Gaupa went to and fro\nslowly, busy as usual. He baked potato flap-jacks on his stove, filled\nthe wooden butter cup, and made ready for a tramp with his knapsack,\nBj\u00f6nn, and \u201cThe Tempest.\u201d\n\nAbout three o\u2019clock he went to the corner cupboard, and after some\nfumbling produced an old-fashioned leather purse. Out of it he took\na slightly flattened lead bullet, as big as a small potato, dirty,\nknobby, and rough.\n\nThat bullet had a name, for it was called the Swede\u2019s Bullet. Gaupa\u2019s\nfather was a soldier at Matrand in 1814, and he shot a Swede who was\nstanding against a tree-trunk. The bullet went straight through him\nand into the bole of the tree. Afterwards his father picked out that\nbullet, and ever since the family had regarded it as a priceless\npossession.\n\nIt could heal wounds and cure illness as well as any doctor. Gaupa\nnever forgot the old crofter who had an ulcer in his leg. Gaupa went\nto him with the Swede\u2019s Bullet and stroked the leg with it in a circle\nround the ulcer. From that day the ulcer stopped spreading; it could\nnot pass outside the circle where the Swede\u2019s bullet had touched the\nskin.\n\nBut then Gaupa reflected whether he should sacrifice the priceless lump\nof lead and melt it into a bullet for Rauten.\n\nRauten, being no ordinary elk, could probably not be killed by ordinary\nbullets. All the old people believed that there are many animals which\ndemand a special ammunition if you want to shoot them.\n\nBut should he really give up the Swede\u2019s bullet?\n\nIf it could assist him to kill the wizard elk, the whole district would\nlook upon him as a great man. He would be famous in the valley, and\nthe fact would not easily be forgotten that he was the man who killed\nRauten.\n\nFor many years he had avoided the beast. For to be quite honest he had\nto admit that bad luck followed the one who hunted it. Why was he so\nill when he shot at the wizard elk at Mors\u00e6ter? They saw the spoor and\nknew what animal it was which he saw like a vision in the moonlight.\n\nBut while he was conscious of his childish fear of Rauten, he always\nfelt a tantalising desire to see the end of him, to kill him, and cart\nthat enormous body down into the Lower Valley, to exhibit it to the\ndalesmen and listen to their comments.\n\nOh what a day that would be! The small boys would gaze at him and Bj\u00f6nn\nin deep admiration not unmingled with fear, and the old women would\nshake their heads knowingly and predict disaster to him....\n\nThe Swede\u2019s bullet weighed heavily in his hand, heavier than ordinary\nlead. Unknown forces were imprisoned in the metal, and it must not\ngo out of the family\u2019s possession. But Gaupa had no relatives in the\nValley. He was an only child, his parents were dead, all his other\nkinsmen had gone away across the Blue Atlantic. When he died the\nSwede\u2019s bullet would be homeless, so to speak, and that ought not to\nhappen.\n\nGaupa decided to melt down the Swede\u2019s Bullet.\n\nHe made a big fire in the stove under a kind of small pan in which he\nusually melted his lead. He gazed very earnestly at the Swede\u2019s bullet\nas it lost form and flattened down until at last it was one big drop of\nlead in the pan, glittering like a flame, as mysterious as a mountain\nlake under the moon.\n\nSuddenly Bj\u00f6nn, who lay upon the bed, grew restless. He looked up at\nhis master, whimpering softly. What on earth was the matter with the\ndog? \u201cQuiet!\u201d said Gaupa.\n\nBj\u00f6nn rolled himself up again, head under tail. But when Gaupa poured\nthe molten lead into the bullet mould, the dog once more raised his\nhead and whined.\n\nHow strange! Was the dog ill? Perhaps it was rheumatism. For Bj\u00f6nn was\ngrowing old. He had the pale-blue eyes and the dimmed pupils which\nindicate age. But he was fairly brisk as yet. What was it he carried on\nlike that for?\n\n[Illustration]\n\nGaupa went up to the dog and stroked his head. Bj\u00f6nn flattened his ears\nas a sign of content and calmed down.\n\nThe lead had cooled, and Gaupa took out the bullet, fresh and shiny.\nBut it was not like other bullets. It had killed once; it knew its way,\nand wherever this bullet hit the elk\u2019s body, death would radiate from\nit as if from a poisoned arrow. Heaven have mercy upon Rauten!\n\nBj\u00f6nn again raised his head, whimpering, when Gaupa placed the bullet\nin the cartridge.\n\nIt was four o\u2019clock in the morning. He extinguished the lamp and crept\nto bed beside Bj\u00f6nn. Now and then he opened his eyes to look for dawn\nthrough the window.\n\n\n\u00a7 19\n\nThat morning an elk bull lay quietly at the upper end of Owl Glen. It\nwas Rauten. He had come from the other side of the valley from the\neastern mountains. A dog with a terrible voice in his throat had chased\nhim for half a day, and at last Rauten had swum across Lower Valley\nRiver.\n\nBut he wanted to go back to R\u00e9 Valley, for that was his home. There for\nmonths peace reigned in the woods until it entered his own shaggy body\nand made him at one with the deep silence of the mountains.\n\nPeace was the depth of his nature. He wanted to see, unseen. He liked\nto stand at the edge of the bogs, looking at the capercailzie hen with\nall her brood. He liked to see the ever-frightened hare nibbling the\ngrass undisturbed. That was peace, and each day offered fresh joys,\nhowever old\u2014a feed of juicy grass not yet withered in some marshy\nplace, a few waterlilies in a mountain lakelet. For him life was food,\nsleep, and rest, and then feeding again. Life was light and darkness,\nsun and rain, heat and cold.\n\nHe slept at all times of day and night, but as lightly as if even\nin his sleep all the tiny sounds of the wilderness reached his\nconsciousness. They floated about his ears, and the least unusual\ncrackling let them all into his brain at once, and he was wide awake.\n\nRauten lived on his instinct\u2014that is, on the experiences accumulated\nby countless generations through all ages and in all countries.\nExperiences had glided into him as murmuring brooklets run into the sea.\n\nWhen he ran towards the wind, and not before it, it was because he had\nto do so. When he ran away from the scent of man, elks long since dead\nwhispered soundless warnings in his ears. The fear of man was a seed\nwhich had been growing since the first arrow flew twirling and singing\ninto the shoulder of an elk and caused life to ebb out of it.\n\nRauten was lying in Owl Glen this grey morning, with the sleepy murmur\nfrom Lower River before him, and a tiny trickle of water over the rocks\nbeside him. That little trickle was a tiny life. A drop fell, and there\nwas an attentive silence, then another drop splashed. Higher up in\nthe glen an owl sat immovable, big sprouts of feather sprouting from\nthe head, yellow eyes staring blindly at the daylight, her beak still\nbloody after the night\u2019s hunting.\n\nFar below Gaupa was following an elk\u2019s spoor, breathing heavily. He\nheld Bj\u00f6nn on the leash, and the dog nosed the earth as if seeking\nsomething. Once in a while he would snort and tug hard, straight into\nthe mountain, into Owl Glen.\n\nThe glen was narrow, with walls of rock on either side, the mountain\nash glowing in autumnal glory, and the bracken turning gold. A hawk\nflew out with a cry, and the sound echoed backwards and forwards from\nrock to rock, growing into a strong volume of sound, like a loud call\nin empty space.\n\nThe man and the dog crawled upwards. Suddenly Bj\u00f6nn threw up his head.\nHe had caught the open scent, and Gaupa unfastened the dog\u2019s collar,\nquietly and carefully.\n\nWhen the foresters lie in their huts on long winter evenings they often\ntell of Gaupa and Bj\u00f6nn and the wizard elk.\n\nThe old men amongst them still remember from their boyhood the wild\nchase which began that morning in Owl Glen, and lasted one day, two\ndays, three days. The end came on the night of the third day.\n\nRauten lay peacefully in Owl Glen, his ears on the alert, one cocked\nforwards and the other backwards.\n\nThen he started up from his lair, and ran. The wakeful conscience\nof the woods had been disturbed. A small pebble loosened and fell\nclattering downwards, a black deer-hound with a grey nose and grey legs\nran out from amongst the scrub, the elk bull turned tail, and strode\nwestwards on his long legs. That was the beginning. Down in Lower\nValley the parlour clocks struck seven, and the chimneys gave forth\nlight smoke into the grey morning.\n\nA little later a man stood where the two had left, staring into the\nwest.\n\nHe opened his mouth as if to inhale something from the air. He placed\nhis hand behind his ear, inclining his head, his mouth always open.\nHis eyes were far away from the world about him. They looked at the\nearth, but in the far distance.\n\nThe hills swam westwards towards the naked bulk of R\u00e9 Mountain, wave\nupon wave in long, easy swell.\n\nTwo animals were running towards R\u00e9 Mountain, a big one in front, a\nsmaller one after. They were fighting over the distance between them,\nat times increasing and then again diminishing. The elk ploughed\nthrough the undergrowth with his long, heavy body, his antlers swishing\nthrough the green pine needles, his legs clip-clapping evenly and\nsurely. When he lifted them his hoofs touched with a sound like dry\nsticks beating each other. Once in a while an antler would bang heavily\nagainst a tree-trunk.\n\nRauten kept up a steady, even trot; his flight was unhurried and\nunafraid, as was in keeping with the greatest beast in the forest, the\nstrongest and wildest of elks, between valley and mountain. He ran\nbecause somehow it seemed wise, not because he was afraid. His nozzle\nwas raised almost horizontally and his antlers lay along his back.\n\nBj\u00f6nn ran after him. His tongue had grown too long\u2014protruding out of\nhis mouth, his eyes were wild, and the earth burnt his paws, which\nbarely touched the ground only to fly up again. He divided up the\ndistance in lightning leaps. Pine needles clung to his fur, and the\nshaggy body of the dog flew along like some enormous insect.\n\nGaupa was forgotten in the dog\u2019s mind, all men were forgotten. He went\nback thousands of years when the wolves howled along elk spoors in R\u00e9\nValley. He was one of them, a dog which no man\u2019s hand had caressed, and\nno man\u2019s eyes had subdued.\n\nThose grey, fleeting elk legs in front of him called up a bloodthirsty\nsong in his sinews. Passion howled within him, and off and on when he\ngained on the elk his throat howled out. It was not Bj\u00f6nn from Lynx\nHut, it was the voice of dead wolves returning.\n\nHis nose no longer sought the earth, he ran through a thick reek of\nscent. Every breath filled his nostrils with the maddening smell of\ngame, and everything about him seemed to run. Red pine trunks ran to\nmeet him and Rauten, spruce trees crawled forward, jumping across the\nmarshes. They were left behind, but fresh ones came again and again and\nagain.\n\nGaupa lifted his head. His eyes returned from the far distance and\nsought a certain point on the western slopes, a spruce-clad hillock\nwhere the silver birches blazed like a flame, and there his gazed\nfixed. From that hillock came a sound, sudden and unexpected, like a\nspark from a fire of thorns.\n\n\u201cWow!\u201d It was a dog\u2019s voice, clear and strained, let out of a throat\nwhich had quite enough to do with mere breathing.\n\nThe voice on the hillock spoke no more.\n\nGaupa remained in Owl Glen. He did not hurry. He wanted to be quite\nsure where Rauten was going, and from his post he could hear half a\nleague away.\n\nA short time afterwards Bj\u00f6nn barked from the same place, deep-voiced\nand growling, as a watch-dog barks at strangers. Rauten was at bay!\n\n\u201cWow! Wow! Wow!\u201d\n\nThen Gaupa began to run, his gun in his hand, its muzzle glaring black,\nand inside there was a cartridge with the Swede\u2019s Bullet.\n\nGaupa was hidden in the forest, but appeared again on a hillock\nfarther on, stopped listening as he pushed back his lucky cap. Then he\nwas submerged in the greenery once more.\n\nThe dog\u2019s voice to the west was the only token of life on the slopes,\nbreaking the silence incessantly at short, regular intervals like the\nticking of a grandfather\u2019s clock.\n\nBj\u00f6nn was barking at some close-grown spruce copse. It looked as if he\nwere talking to it, again and again without receiving any answer.\n\nIn there amongst the spruce bushes some thin, grey tree trunks seemed\nto move once in a while. They were the elk\u2019s legs. Some rough boughs\nwith brown bark, just like a small bush, moved amongst the spruce\nneedles. They were the elk\u2019s antlers.\n\nRauten stood there. Apparently he was not very much concerned about the\ndog. He turned his head here and there, as if he had a suspicion of\nsomething intangible yet dangerous in the forest around him.\n\nWhenever Rauten met that tiny, shaggy, barking animal, which smelt of\nman, the forest seemed to become unsafe for him, wherever he went.\nPerhaps it was a reminiscence from that autumn when his mother fell\nnorth of Black Mountain, when she blew a golden dust out of her\nnostrils and moved no more. Ever since that day he had the same feeling\nwhen he met a dog. Something alive was close to him, something he could\nnot see, but which he knew was there all the same. From every tree,\nfrom every copse something spied upon him; fear threatened from them\nall....\n\nHe felt it then, as he drew his breath after the long run from Owl\nGlen. He did not catch the scent of Gaupa over there, or he would not\nhave stopped so soon.\n\n\u201cWow! Wow!\u201d\n\nAt each bark Bj\u00f6nn threw up his nozzle, half closing his eyes, his ears\nflattened backwards and teeth gleaming. Then he looked at Rauten a\nlittle and barked a little again, somewhat quietly, as if to convince\nRauten that he was not dangerous at all. He was only out for a friendly\nchat....\n\nSuddenly the spruce copse vomited a long grey figure, and Rauten\u2019s\nfore-feet stood where Bj\u00f6nn had been but was no longer, for Bj\u00f6nn knew\nhis business and needed no time to get out of the way.\n\n\u201cWow! Wow!\u201d\n\nOnce more there was nothing but those restless grey tree trunks and\nthose brownish-grey living branches in the undergrowth.\n\nBut then Bj\u00f6nn was once more the dog he really was, the dog from Lynx\nHut, a beast who took his food from Gaupa\u2019s hand.\n\nAs he regarded the elk\u2019s rough throat until he imagined it between his\nown teeth, he remembered the throats of other elks, which Gaupa used\nto cut open so that Bj\u00f6nn could drink the blood. That happened quite\noften when the deer were standing still among the copses, and the idea\nmade Bj\u00f6nn look round expectantly. Gaupa ought to come and make thunder\nabout him, the elk ought to stagger, fall on one side, and remain on\nthe earth. \u201cWow! Wow!\u201d\n\nBut Rauten had come to the conclusion that the thing which disconcerted\nhim was something very real, which made dry twigs crackle, and so he\nran on again. Bj\u00f6nn whimpered with disappointment and followed him. The\nsteady barking ceased.\n\nBeads of sweat appeared on Gaupa\u2019s bald head as he ran. When he heard\nhow the elk had broken away he swore softly, being wholly and entirely\nout of breath.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\u00a7 20\n\nIt was late in the day when the snow began to fall.\n\nThe first snowflake came alone, thin and light as down.\n\nThe flake could not keep its equilibrium, but flew here and there\naimlessly, and took its own time about settling down on earth. It had\nbeen on earth before, swimming in the white marsh mist one raw morning\nin the autumn. Afterwards it had lived where the clouds live, but now\nit came down again and settled on an aspen leaf, white on red, the\nfirst snow of winter.\n\nLittle by little the air filled with innumerable white butterflies,\nfloating down from the heavens, a gift from God to earth and man,\nfalling, falling.\n\nOn the Tolleivs\u00e6ter Mountain which falls off steeply towards R\u00e9 Valley\ntwo animals were crawling, one larger, the other small. The first was\nRauten, the other was Bj\u00f6nn.\n\nThey followed a narrow gully in the mountain, a chasm which meandered\ndownwards first to the north, then southwards, and then north again.\nIt was no more than a narrow ledge in the mountain where the animals\nwalked. They were hanging at the edge of an abyss and far below the\nbottom of the valley made a dark shadow in the white whirl.\n\nRauten led the way, and there was no longer anything long and clumsy\nabout him now. His feet felt each step, carefully seeking a foothold.\nThe knee-joints bent with a little noise, once in a while his hoofs\nslid a little and scraped the grey reindeer moss.\n\nAfter him went Bj\u00f6nn, crouching and frightened, without a sound. They\nwere climbing between earth and heaven, but the snowflakes danced past\nthem into the abyss, and R\u00e9 River was heard faintly somewhere far below.\n\nThus the elk and the dog went on, slowly, slowly. Once they passed\nsome large black holes among the rocks, and then both Rauten and Bj\u00f6nn\nfelt very uncomfortable. Rauten stopped, his nostrils dilated and eyes\nablaze, Bj\u00f6nn lowered his tail and sniffed towards the rocks, his\nmuzzle quivering, for the animal after which he was named had been in\nthere recently to seek for a winter lair.\n\nAfter a long time the elk and the dog reached the foot of the mountain.\nRauten tore through the birch bushes, and the dog\u2019s voice woke up\nagain. They came to a deep gully\u2014two rocky precipices and between\nthem water boiling into foam far below.... Rauten leapt twice his own\nlength. He flew through the air before he reached earth once more, and\nran on. Bj\u00f6nn made a detour, found a short cut, and when Rauten sprang\ninto R\u00e9 River he was not alone. Two splashes were heard from the river,\none for the elk and one for the dog, and they ran on straight up the\nwestern slope, Bj\u00f6nn now and then giving vent to short barks.\n\nAfter a while Gaupa reached the eastern slope. He was like a well-wrung\nrag. His cap was in his pocket now, his hair was plastered to his\nskull, his eyes were red and strained, like those of one who has kept\nawake many nights. His mouth was gaping open, the muscles of his jaws\nbeing too tired to keep it shut.\n\nHe stopped to regain his breath. What time could it be? Nearly two.\nHe thought as much. Six, seven hours had passed since Bj\u00f6nn had begun\ndriving the wizard elk. Gaupa had heard the song from the dog\u2019s throat\nmany times that day, east and west. He had been north and south, God\nonly knows exactly where he had been, running and walking. He had\nstopped at all the well-known elk stations, but Rauten had passed them\nall, for he did not run like other elks. And now it was two hours since\nGaupa had last heard Bj\u00f6nn.\n\nGaupa laid his hand behind his ear as he had done that morning in Owl\nGlen. He tried to hold his breath so that it should not drown the\nslightest sound in the silence of R\u00e9 Valley. He seemed to listen for a\nmessage from the snowflakes, but the flakes bore no message. They were\nlike a whirling swarm of silent butterflies. Only when he turned his\nback to the weather, the flying atoms battered on his knapsack with a\nbarely audible sound as from elfin artillery.\n\nHe sat down. The mountains about him were changing their colour,\ngrowing white. The weather lightened a little and the earth was\nrevealed, far, far away. He saw Gipsy Lake straight below, pitch black\namongst the whiteness.\n\nHark!\n\nOut of the north-west came a sound, the bark of an almost exhausted\ndog, a slight break in the silence. Gaupa lifted his head; his entire\nface, framed in dark beard, stiffened with excitement.\n\nWas that Bj\u00f6nn? Yes it was! He saw the mountain ridges west of the\nvalley and followed their outlines northwards, as they rose and\nsank, wave upon wave towards the sky. And farthest north two specks\ngrew out of their white slopes, one larger than the other. First they\ngrew in size, then they rapidly diminished, and at last they vanished\naltogether.\n\nBj\u00f6nn and Rauten had gone into the western mountains. Well, Gaupa had\nbetter follow them.\n\nHe found a descent not far from where he stood, and went at a jog-trot\nacross the marshes around Gipsy Lake.\n\nThen came the western slope, a sky-high precipice difficult to ascend.\nThe minutes crawled slowly, as evening shadows pass over the fields.\nAnd Gaupa crept slowly upwards.\n\nOnce or twice he lay down on his back, face upturned. A few snowflakes\nsettled on his skin. They felt like a wet tongue licking him,\npleasantly cool. He gathered a little snow from the heather about him,\nplacing it against his hot head, enjoying the coolness of it.\n\nThen he rose and went on his way. A dry branch hooked on to his\ntrousers and made a big rent in them. He heard the brooks grow\nstrangely mute; their voices were no longer natural, and when close at\nhand they sounded far off. And in his ears there rang a song, thin and\nhigh like the buzzing of a gnat.\n\nOh to lie down and rest, rest a long, long time.... Nonsense, Bj\u00f6nn and\nRauten had gone westwards, and Gaupa had better follow them.\n\nIn an hour he reached the barren mountain, the naked bulk of which\nstretched before him. About a league to the west was another valley,\nThree Valley. Gaupa knew that an elk would occasionally go there when\nfleeing from a hound. It had happened often to himself and Bj\u00f6nn.\nProbably Rauten had gone that way too.\n\nBut he had to rest before descending. He took out food from his\nknapsack and tried to eat, only his mouth was so dry that it was like\nbiting sawdust. There seemed to be no moisture left in his mouth.\n\nEver since the chase began Gaupa had not rightly considered the fact\nthat Bj\u00f6nn was following no ordinary elk. Mystical ideas do not\ngenerally go with laboured running in broad daylight.\n\nThen his brain was so strangely empty and weak. He felt as if the power\nof reasoning had been sweated out of him. His head seemed full of\nmist, out of which the ideas could not find their way. They worked at\nthe things nearest and immediate, with the spoors and the chase.\n\nBut he knew that Rauten would have great difficulty in leaving Bj\u00f6nn\nthat day. Bj\u00f6nn was well-rested, his paws hardened and muscles as tough\nas pemmican\u2014very devil of a rugged deer-hound ready to follow an elk to\nHallingdal\u2014or even to the valley beyond that.\n\nGaupa jogged along west once more. He felt better after his rest, and\nhe began to think. The people of the valley had given him a nickname,\nGaupa, the Lynx, although by rights his name was Sjur Renden, as could\nbe seen on his baptismal certificate as well as on his assessment\u2014and\nthey called his hut Lynx Hut, although the correct name was \u201cElvely\u201d\n(River Shelter). Christened so by the parson who happened to pass by\nwhen they were building it.\n\nBut if they had given him a nickname like that, by hell, they should be\nmade to respect it and to recognise the fact that he did honour to the\nname, for he would show them that he was a Lynx who could go on when\nother men failed. He would chase him into hottest hell, that elk with\nthe enormous antlers and the restless soul of the Swede. And when he,\nGaupa, returned to Lower Valley, clothes in rags and hands bloody, the\nnews would spread like wildfire that Rauten was killed, shot somewhere\nin the western mountains towards Hallingdal\u2014driven out of Owl Glen\nat seven in the morning\u2014and the man who shot him was no other than\nGaupa\u2014of course.\n\nAnd even the papers would print the fact: \u201cThe well-known hunter Sjur\nRenden....\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThoughts slipped away again, as fatigue filled his body once more after\nthe rest his brain held nothing but mist, mist. But somewhere in his\nconsciousness one thing remained hard and fast, the thing that said,\n\u201cRun, run, for God\u2019s sake run.\u201d Such was the will of Gaupa, the slayer\nof elks.\n\n\n\u00a7 21\n\nIn the Three Valley a dog had opened full cry, a glorious cry, for his\nquarry was standing still.\n\nRauten stood still because he was so tired that he had to. During the\nlast run earth seemed unstable beneath him, and wherever he went he\nsaw a lair before him, full of peace and quiet; he might go to rest\nunder that spruce, or there\u2014and there. Only he could not get rid of\nthat eternal worrying by a big black fox that followed him like his own\nmeaningless shadow. He had tried everything\u2014climbing mountains, jumping\nacross gullies, but the dog followed him with an endless succession of\nangry barks.\n\nIn the course of all those hours those barks had become no more than\na habit to the ear; they did not feel like real terror any more, only\na slight fear, a subconsciousness of danger. But Rauten was at length\ncompelled to rest now, standing in a spruce copse in Three Valley.\n\nBj\u00f6nn was there, lying down. The dog also was nearly spent. His legs\nseemed to have disappeared of late, and when they ran it was from\ninnate habit.\n\nSeveral times he had crossed the spoors of Gaupa. The earth threw up\nthe familiar scent into his nostrils, like a message from his master to\nsay that he was there, only \u201cGo on!\u201d And Bj\u00f6nn went on, he was going\nfor ever now.\n\nHis hair was soaking wet; both he and the elk were steaming like\nfast-running horses in cold weather. The snow lay on the heather like\nwhite wool, a frozen bilberry stood up from it, a reminiscence of\nsummer in the midst of winter. Two pine trunks rose tall, straight, and\ncopper-red behind both the animals.\n\n\u201cWow! Wow!\u201d said Bj\u00f6nn. There was an interval between each bark, and\nhis voice was so hoarse as hardly to be recognised. He snatched a\nmouthful of snow now and then, for his thirst. \u201cWow!\u201d\n\nBoth animals felt themselves stiffening after they stopped. Rauten had\na broad gash across one of his thighs made by a dry branch. There was\nreproach in his eyes as they regarded the little animal before him,\nwhom he had never hurt and who would not let him be in peace. But\nrest, rest, that was all, the only thing.... Rauten stood still.\n\nIn the meanwhile Gaupa was hurrying westwards towards Three Valley. His\nfootfall made no sound in the snow, as if he were running on soft moss.\nHe jogged along, walked at times, eating snow.\n\nHe found the spoors of the dog and elk, indistinct but unmistakable:\nlong lines across a tuft of wiregrass from the elk hoofs, and close by\nthem clear marks of Bj\u00f6nn\u2019s paws. He followed the spoors with childish\njoy, lost them, found them again, and made straight for Three Valley.\n\nAll idea of time had long since left him. Only the mountain seemed\nendless. The snow continued to fall, and the ever-falling white flakes\nmade him dizzy. At last he saw a tall, narrow rock on a ridge before\nhim, a rock exactly like a tall chimney, that he knew to be on the\nslope towards Three Valley.\n\nHe was soon there. The earth sank before him, the valley could be\nseen\u2014thin forest on the slopes, long marshes with a sleepy river, a\nlarge lake, a white summer pasture with a couple of dark houses, far\naway near the bend of the valley.\n\nA pang of joy rang through Gaupa, vivifying and exciting, for a dog\u2019s\nbark floated out in the grey air straight below him from the slope.\n\nMore barks followed; the whole valley filled with the song of it. Gaupa\nwondered at the sound. \u201cPoor old dog, he has gone hoarse,\u201d thought he.\nBut what a dog! He was an animal without blemish, no dog like him. He\nwould soon have assistance, warm drink, a taste of warm meat....\n\nGaupa slipped down the wooded slopes quickly and carefully. Just down\nthere, just down there, he thought time after time. Ten minutes, five\nminutes more, and the Swede\u2019s Bullet should fly unseen from the muzzle\nof \u201cThe Tempest.\u201d\n\nThe next day he would return to Lower Valley, clothes in rags, with\nbloody hands. And Martin Lyhus would have to take his pipe out of his\nmouth to ask, staring in astonishment:\n\n\u201cWhat is it you say? Have you shot him?\u201d\n\nGaupa stopped to make sure of the movement of the air.... He was in\nluck, it was straight against him. He could see it in the flying snow.\nBut it would soon clear up. The flakes were restless, flying about like\ngnats, not falling quietly. That was a sure sign of approaching clear\nweather.\n\nGaupa followed a small spruce-grown gully in the slope, and just in\nfront of him, very close now, stood Bj\u00f6nn holding the wizard elk in\ncheck. To Gaupa stealing downwards, the forest grew alive, every\ntree listened for the dog\u2019s barking, he felt as if on the point of\ndiscovering a wonderful secret.\n\nHe could not see the animals and heard only one, though he knew there\nwere two. He stopped to look round for cover, and observed something\nstrange about his hands. He stood petrified looking at them, he did not\nrecognise them as his own. They were trembling now, however much he\nwilled them not to do\u2014trembling in spite of himself.\n\nThen he felt a slight shiver in his whole body, something he could\nnot control\u2014and a cool feeling across the lower part of his body. The\nhunter\u2019s shivers! he thought.\n\n\u201cWow!\u201d was heard from below, and then a sudden silence. Gaupa held his\nbreath, waiting for the next bark. Surely he could not have frightened\nhim? The wind could not have turned, taking his scent with it to those\nsensitive nostrils?... Then the barking started again, Rauten was still\nstanding\u2014like a rock.\n\nGaupa could not rid himself of this inexplicable trembling, and he\ncould not shoot while it lasted. He was no longer the master of his\nown body, he was not the real Gaupa any more. The real Gaupa had never\nshivered before an elk\u2014the devil he hadn\u2019t!\n\nNow he really had to be calm. For ten hours dog and man had been hard\nat work. At last they were at their goal, nearly near enough to touch\nit, and his hand trembled; he might make a false movement, and the goal\nmight once more dart away to unknown distances.\n\nHe knelt down, filled his hands with snow and held it to his skull. It\ncooled first, then felt too cold.\n\nBj\u00f6nn suddenly gave the angry bark which tokened that his prey was\nescaping, the bark so well known to Gaupa that the sound of it raised\nanger within him....\n\nEscaped again!\n\n[Illustration]\n\nGaupa stayed kneeling while the thawing snow ran in big drops down his\nhead. His dark-blue eyes changed colour. They were lighter and glazed.\nHis lucky cap was white with snow; his gun lay in the hollow of his\narm, held tight to his breast\u2014lay as if listening like Gaupa himself.\n\nSilence. Dead silence. Running water somewhere in Three Valley gave an\necho of life.\n\nGaupa rose. Silence. No barking then.\n\nHe ran out of the hollow up to a bare ridge. Then he heard Bj\u00f6nn again\nand he understood that the dog was running beside the elk, even in\nfront of him now and then. He could even see the two animals on the\nlong marshes at the bottom of the valley. Rauten ran his jogging even\ntrot, long and tall, forever turning his head from one side or the\nother as if listening. \u201cA hopeless range,\u201d thought Gaupa. Distance\nwas simply mocking him. At such a range he would not dare to risk the\nSwede\u2019s Bullet.\n\nThe elk crossed Three River and his legs raised white arches of\nwater. Bj\u00f6nn swam and was on the other side as soon as Rauten. They\ndisappeared, but were seen again, Rauten heading straight for Three\nLake.\n\nGaupa threw back his rifle, breathed deeply and went down the slope.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nRauten and Bj\u00f6nn came to Three Lake, which lay black and still as\nnight. A waterlily leaf was riding on the surface at rest. The whole\nlake was all peace, and the green heart-shaped leaf in conjunction with\nthe two animals, the hunted and the hunter, formed as it were a picture\nof the very life of the wilderness, eternal peace of eternal time,\npainful efforts of the moment, life or death.\n\nRauten went straight into the lake, making openings in its smooth\nsurface with his hoofs, cutting it with his thin legs where he waded\nout quickly, the water rising along his shoulders and flanks. A\nstartled trout ran out from under the bank like a shadow across the\nwhite sand into the dark depths. Beside the elk was Bj\u00f6nn, swimming.\n\nThe water gurgled higher and higher about Rauten; at last he swam, his\nsnout so low that he ploughed through the water like a boat\u2019s keel.\nBj\u00f6nn scraped the elk\u2019s back with one paw, found no hold, and tried\nagain. Then he caught the mane with his teeth and soon stood on the\nback of the wizard elk who was swimming across Three Lake.\n\nThe dog did not feel worn out then. He was tasting the fiercest joy.\nUnder him he heard the laboured breath of Rauten, felt the entire huge\nbody trembling with effort, muscles hardening and slackening as the elk\ntrod the water. It was Bj\u00f6nn from Lynx Hut, sailing! The elderly elk\nhunter from Lower Valley who never gave up from dawn to dusk\u2014even to\nanother dawn.\n\nThen he poured out his joy from his hoarse, dry throat, and mingling\nwith his song of conquest came the groans from Rauten, who was\nswimming, wild-eyed. He steered towards a pine top on the farther side\nof the lake. Terror sat on his back as he swam for his life. Once he\nfelt teeth in his back, and the same icy shiver ran through him as\nran through his forefathers when they broke down in the snow with the\nwolves swarming fiercely over them.\n\nBj\u00f6nn bent down and tugged a big tuft of hair out of the elk\u2019s back he\ndropped it on the water, where it remained floating.\n\n\u201cWow! Wow!\u201d\n\nHe plucked out another tuft.\n\nOne might say a raft was sailing along the water, with Rauten\u2019s horns\nfor rowlocks.\n\nBj\u00f6nn noticed a tall tree-stump moving across the marshes. It was\nGaupa, his master, and his pride knew no bounds. He could conquer every\nelk from one mountain to the other, if they were many times his own\nsize. He could drive them, bark exhaustion into them, until at last he\nwould drink his fill out of their throats. \u201cWow! Wow! Wow!\u201d\n\nGaupa crouched on the marshes north of Three Lake.\n\nHe was in pain. The elk\u2019s head and Bj\u00f6nn floated away farther and\nfarther, and if he were to shoot there was an even chance that he might\nshoot his dog as easily as the elk. But when Rauten went ashore he\nwould try a shot, howover hopeless.\n\nThe Swede\u2019s Bullet could not be risked at such uncertain range, and\ntherefore he changed cartridges quickly. Then he crouched in position\nfor shooting, left elbow on left knee. His cheek caressed the gun. He\nsat immovable, a huntsman stiffened in the last decisive movement of\nthe hunt.\n\nHe trembled no more, although the tension burnt in him like a hidden\nfire. He saw out of the water a large body grow through the falling\nsnow.\n\nAnd one of Gaupa\u2019s eyes shut as if sleepy. The other, however, was\nopen, and icy cold. He did not breathe, his whole body was taut calm.\n\u201cThe Tempest\u201d roared, shooting out its breath with a white handful of\nsmoke, and for a moment Gaupa\u2019s ears were plugged up with sound.\n\nBut Rauten, who was wading ashore, heard something like a woodpecker\nhammering at a tree on the shore. Then came the roar of the shot,\nbehind him, and he stretched himself off into the forest, a rain of\nwaterdrops about him. Bj\u00f6nn followed.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\u00a7 22\n\nGaupa pursued the chase once more.\n\nDusk was falling. He did not hear Bj\u00f6nn any longer, but he had the\nspoor.\n\nThe weather cleared up towards evening. The sky seemed to absorb the\nsnowflakes, making them light and dry. The heavens became fixed and\nformed a pale-yellow dome over the earth.\n\nThe silence increased after the shot and the barking. A man followed a\nspoor in the new snow, but Sjur Renden did not run any more. He walked!\n\nHis face showed signs of utter exhaustion. The cheek, chin, and eyelids\nwere hanging down. His mouth, too, hung open, although he did not\nbreathe heavily. The corners of his mouth were drawn into a grimace of\ncontempt.\n\nThe marshes were white, but the ground under the trees was not covered\nwith snow. The woods had assumed an air of solemn grandeur which was\nnot diminished by the oncoming dusk.\n\nGaupa was fairly staggering. That last effort near Three Lake seemed to\nhave drained his last forces. All the same he went on and on, always\nshowing that grin of contempt, as if he were mocking at the elk spoor\nbefore him.\n\nIn the middle of an open space where the pines had once been burnt\ndown and never grown up again to their former state, he stroked his\neyes with the back of his hand, as people do when they wake up and yet\nare not really awake.\n\nHe walked on a few steps, stopped again and touched his eyes. What\ndevilry disturbed his sight? He saw as clearly as clearly a shiny\nyellow moon, not quite round, but slightly elliptical as the moon is\nwhen she is on the wane. This moon stood in the air a few gun-lengths\nbefore his eyes and it moved when he moved. It was so blazingly,\nglaringly yellow that it made the air gleam yellow. Gaupa felt as if\neverything glowed and blazed before him. The very dusk flamed. He was\ndazzled, and shut his eyes for a long time. When he opened them again\nthe air was as it ought to be, soft and nearly dark. But after a few\nsteps that idiotic moon came back.\n\nHe knew well enough what moon this was. He had seen it before.\nOver-exertion, curse it. And his knees felt as they always did when\nthat glaring yellow moon appeared. All the sinews seemed to have been\ntaken out of his joints, all elasticity had left his legs. They moved\nabout anyhow beneath him, without his volition.\n\nThen Gaupa went under a spruce tree and lay face downwards. His face\ntouched some whortleberry ling and he could smell the soil. A bunch\nof berries caught his eyes, a large, bright red bunch, and they made\nso intense an impression on him that he seemed to feel the juice\nseething inside them. Never in all his life had he seen so red a bunch\nof whortleberries. His eager hands seized them and pushed them into\nhis mouth. He crushed them with his tongue and their juice ran in his\ndry mouth, an exquisite joy. He looked for more berries, crawling on\nall-fours round the spruce tree like a child\u2014an oldish man with a\nflowing beard.\n\nWhile doing this he saw Bj\u00f6nn coming, keeping to the spoor, going\nbackwards. The dog gave up before reaching his master, and lay down a\nlittle way off. He was utterly exhausted.\n\nGaupa went up to him, knelt down, talking to him and stroking him.\nAnd it seemed to him that those dog\u2019s eyes spoke. Why had he not come\nwhen Rauten stood still on the northern slopes? they asked. Why had\nhe missed when the wizard elk rose up from Three Lake? Bj\u00f6nn had done\nwhat he could, the dog\u2019s eyes declared. All the same Rauten was running\nabout in the valley, free, unwounded.\n\nGaupa sat still, stroking Bj\u00f6nn\u2019s head.\n\n\u201cI also could do no more,\u201d he said aloud; \u201cbut wait till to-morrow.\u201d\n\nThe weather cleared up as evening came on. The sky turned blue as the\nsea, the stars twinkled like tiny lanterns, some clear white, some\ndullish red. In a small barn near Three River Gaupa and Bj\u00f6nn slept.\n\nFarthest out in the valley where the moon was rising like a yellow\nlantern where earth and sky met an elk stood for a long time snuffing\ntowards the north. He was dripping wet. After a while he lay down, and\nthe snow thawed slowly under him.\n\nThus Rauten lay all that night, his eyes ever open, ears alive,\nnostrils working. Towards morning it was so cold that his wet back grew\nwhite with hoar-frost.\n\n\n\u00a7 23\n\nAbout dawn Gaupa and Bj\u00f6nn dug themselves out from the hay in the barn.\n\nGaupa had lost his matches the day before, and could make no fire. The\nonly way was to bury himself in the contents of the barn.\n\nHis shoes stood frozen stiff at the door. They were so hard that it was\nout of the question to put them on. He tried many times, but in vain.\nTo wait for the sun to thaw them would take too long\u2014so he thawed them\nwith the warmth of his own body. They softened, and soon after he and\nBj\u00f6nn were following the spoor of the wizard elk.\n\nThey found his night lair where the snow was thawed and some hairs lay\nabout. But Rauten had left several hours before, Gaupa could read that\nmuch in the spoor. It had hardened, there was a crust on, and also\nBj\u00f6nn told him they were not near him yet.\n\nThey chased the elk from sunrise to sunset.\n\nThe spoors were there, and there was something alive about them. Every\nmark of the hoofs meant a movement forwards\u2014one footmark after the\nother from one slope to another, an endless chase.\n\nThe spoor, so strangely alive, kept Gaupa\u2019s interest warm. It was like\nturning leaf after leaf of an exciting book where the end cannot be\nguessed.\n\nOnce they found fresh excrements after Rauten, and Bj\u00f6nn grew doubly\neager after smelling them. But Gaupa would not let go until he was\nfairly sure of being near enough.\n\nHe did not think much that day either of the fact that he was hunting\nno ordinary earthly animal; Rauten was only an elk who had wandered for\nmany years among R\u00e9 Mountains, mocking all efforts on the part of those\nwho tried to get at him. He was the elk that Gaupa himself had rather\navoided. But now he would measure himself against him. As long as he\nhad a bite of food, as long as Bj\u00f6nn could move, he would stick to that\nspoor\u2014and he swore loudly and forcibly.\n\nHe went towards the west for several hours. The weather was wonderfully\nfine. The mountain plains in their majestic calm reflected the sunlight\nlike a mirror. The light dazzled his eyes and made him sun-blind.\nLittle black lakelets looked like spots of ink on a white tablecloth.\n\nRauten had gone into a long lake, and Gaupa found no spoors up from the\nwater. He went round the lake several times, but no tracks could be\nseen.\n\nHe reflected. Could this lakelet, without even a name, be Rauten\u2019s\ntomb? Could the elk have been drowned out there? It seemed impossible.\n\nHe circled the lakelet once more, and in the little brooklet which\nfed the lake he saw some strange holes in the mud at the bottom. The\nbrook was shallow, and the sun showed him the bottom quite plainly.\nThose holes down there had a distance between them about as long as the\nstride of an elk.\n\nHe followed the brook for about a quarter of an hour, and found the\nplace where Rauten had left the water. Gaupa had never seen an elk try\nto hide his tracks so cunningly.\n\nAbout noon he went straight towards the sun, ignorant of the names of\nthe mountains around him. Then the earth yawned before him, and he\nperceived a valley so large and deep that it must be Hallingdal.\n\nHe heard also that the air was vibrant with some sound, a dull, heavy\nroar with some sort of rhythm in it. He could not understand what it\nwas. The wind shifted, and into his ears poured the deep, full boom of\nchurch bells. Once more the wind shifted, and he heard nothing but that\nvibrating roar.\n\nThen he remembered that it was Sunday\u2014for ordinary people, but not for\nhim. The elk spoors led straight towards the valley and the church\nbells\u2014one might think Rauten was going to church. But on a slope the\ntrack turned abruptly, and there Gaupa smelt the homely, acrid smell of\nsmoke, the sign of people and houses.\n\nHe walked on after the smoke, sniffing his way like a dog on an open\nscent. A little later he stood before a low Hallingdal cottage with a\ntall chimney. He touched the doorhandle; Bj\u00f6nn stole in in front of\nhim, and in a moment was chasing a cat, as red as a fox. But cats made\nBj\u00f6nn mad. He threw one paw over the animal, pinning her to the floor,\nand then bit twice across her back. There was the sound of crunching as\nwhen Bj\u00f6nn ate bones, and then a cat died in Hallingdal.\n\nThey gave him matches and food, and he walked uphill again. He released\nBj\u00f6nn, who soon returned. Rauten was too far in front of them.\n\nDusk met Gaupa in a bare valley without summer farms where he could\nspend the night. His axe resounded in the silence as he cut down dry\npines. He slept in the shelter of a rock, Bj\u00f6nn clasped tightly to his\nbreast.\n\nA few hundred yards from Gaupa\u2019s night lair something dark showed up on\na ridge. Was it a rock? No, the rocks were not black then, they were\nwhite with snow.\n\nThat dark thing did not move.\n\nAfter a while it did move. Two eyes gleamed wet in the moonlight, a\ntined antler crossed the harvest moon behind it. Rauten was lying there.\n\nHe thought he heard some strange sounds in the evening, but there was\nlittle wind and he could not make sure.\n\nHe was waiting for daylight.\n\nThe snow was glittering, the crystals of snow were like innumerable\nstars which were for ever being lit and extinguished. The mountains\nwere softly moving clouds, cradling the tired body of Rauten, while a\nfew isolated mountain spruces, from which the sun had thawed the snow,\nwere like darkly dressed dwarfs in the hollows.\n\nIt was nearly two days and two nights since Rauten left Owl Glen in\nLower Valley.\n\n\n\u00a7 24\n\nWhen Gaupa hung up his coffee-kettle over the fire he felt shivery\nafter his cold bed. The kettle boiled, and he swallowed hastily four or\nfive cupfuls of scalding-hot coffee. Then he noticed a strange pattern\nin the grounds at the bottom of the empty cup. The lines were funny, he\nthought, they made quite a picture.\n\nHe turned the cup round and round, and there was not much imagination\nneeded to make those brown lines mean an elk lying on his back.\n\nThen Gaupa smiled to Bj\u00f6nn.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ll have him before sundown. He lies here.\u201d\n\nA little later the fire under the rock wall was deserted, and while it\nwas dying slowly the resinous smoke floated like a dark mist over the\nneighbouring bog.\n\nGaupa had not walked far when Bj\u00f6nn rose on his hind legs and caught\nthe open scent. He would not come down on all-fours for fear of losing\nit, and went on hopping on two legs several steps, and Gaupa swore\nprodigiously out of the joy in his heart. He loosed the leash, and let\nBj\u00f6nn storm into the mountains towards the pale-yellow sky of the dawn,\nfrom which a faint sheen fell on the snow.\n\nThe snow was crisp now after the night\u2019s frost, and it crunched a\nlittle under each of Bj\u00f6nn\u2019s steps. A family of grouse flew up like a\nshower from some osier bushes, a cock grouse called \u201cgak-gak,\u201d and soon\nafter the dog sang out farther east. Rauten had company once more.\n\nThree hours later Gaupa was steaming with sweat. He passed unknown\nsummer farms where the windows in the sun shone like fire. It was warm,\nfor summer was still in the air. Winter lay on the ground prematurely\nborn. The trees were dripping, the snow grew wet and heavy, crunching a\nlittle under Gaupa\u2019s shoes. A young hare sniffed the snow which he had\nnever seen till the day before, big brown eyes staring with wonder at\nthe bewitched world.\n\nThe chase went on\u2014and it was evening.\n\n\n\u00a7 25\n\nIt was night, the third night since Rauten left Owl Glen.\n\nHe was lying in a brook in R\u00e9 Valley, on Bog Hill where once he fought\nthe three-year-old. On all-fours he was lying in the brook, the water\nunceasingly licking his stiff limbs, and Rauten enjoyed the refreshing\ncoolness. Once he bent his head to drink, his flanks hollowing.\n\nBefore him on the bank of the brook lay Bj\u00f6nn. He did not say anything,\nhaving barked enough throughout the day. It was quite dark, the moon\nnot yet being up and the snow having been thawed on that sun-exposed\nslope so that no light was reflected by the snow either. Only the\nsilver bark of a birch gleamed faintly among the dense spruce woods.\n\nA good stone\u2019s throw farther south on the slope Gaupa sat, his back\nagainst a tree-trunk. His pack lay at his side and his rifle across his\nknees. Inside it rested a cartridge containing the Swede\u2019s Bullet.\n\nGaupa felt exceedingly cold, for he was wet with perspiration when he\nsat down, and now he felt as if he were wrapped up in icy-cold sheets.\nHe beat his arms across each other, carefully so as not to make a\nnoise, and sat on.\n\nIn the dusk he had reached Black Mountain and heard Bj\u00f6nn baying on Bog\nHill, but darkness came before he reached him, and he could not discern\nthe sights of \u201cThe Tempest\u201d except against the sky.\n\nWhen he came to the spruce where he was sitting now he heard Bj\u00f6nn\u2019s\nlast bark, and understood from it that the elk was not running, for the\nbarking sounded so feeble.\n\nRauten and Bj\u00f6nn were presumably somewhere in that brook, and if he\nknew Bj\u00f6nn he would not leave the elk that night. But when the sun rose\nover the eastern ridges and lit up R\u00e9 Valley, then Gaupa would steal\nforth, as soon as he could make sure where Rauten was standing. The\nbrook in the hollow murmured unceasingly.\n\nGaupa listened. No, he could not hear that inexplicable muttering far\naway which belonged to the night and the unbroken silence. The brook\ndeadened it. He felt how the forest about him was asleep, standing,\neyes closed. All the same there _was_ something, that restlessness\nwhich has no origin. He seemed to hear something breathing like a human\nbeing somewhere.\n\nHe remembered one incident after the other told of the remarkable\nanimal who was standing unseen somewhere near him.\n\nThere was Anton Rud. Last autumn he was cutting resinous pine-stumps to\ndistil tar, far up Tolleivs\u00e6ter way.\n\nOne evening he kept on longer than usual, and it was dusk when he\nwalked slowly down to the hut again.\n\nHe stopped to light his pipe, when he heard a cough below, a faint, dry\ncough, first once and then twice running. He heard also the noise of\nsomeone walking, and he sat down to wait, for it sounded as if someone\nwere coming uphill.\n\nBut nobody came, nor did he hear that cough any more. He thought it\nstrange, and called out aloud asking whether there was any human\nbeing.... No answer.\n\nIn the morning he went up to the same place to search the soil a\nlittle. He could not understand that cough\u2014it sounded exactly like a\nconsumptive coughing and clearing his throat. There were no traces of\na human being, but he found elk spoors like Rauten\u2019s, and he stopped\nstump-cutting that selfsame day.\n\nGaupa remembered that story and many others.\n\nIn the meanwhile Rauten and Bj\u00f6nn remained in the same spot in the\nhollow, the dog looking steadily at the huge deer before him, his\nnozzle rested on his forepaws, and he looked like a long, narrow mound\nof grass or peat. Off and on something moved on the mound; Bj\u00f6nn\u2019s ears\nrose and lay down again.\n\nA big bird, an owl, flew noiselessly over the forest, wings caressing\nthe air.\n\nAfter a while Gaupa nodded drowsily as he sat by the tree-trunk, but\nhe felt so cold that he was wide awake again in no time, and then he\nheard somewhere a horse\u2019s bell. He turned his head here and there,\nand the horse\u2019s bell was to be heard from every direction. But it was\nimpossible that there should be a horse\u2019s bell at that time of the\nyear; nobody put bells on a horse in the summer. He happened to take\nout his watch, and the horse bell suddenly sounded much louder and\nnearer. Then he understood that what he had been listening to was the\ntiny tink-tink of his own watch. It was ten o\u2019clock.\n\nA little later something trod softly in the darkness\u2014very softly. He\nturned and the tread grew alive, became something tangible which was\nBj\u00f6nn. The dog came close up to him and laid his head on his master\u2019s\nknee; and Gaupa embraced him, whispering fond words into his ear. Bj\u00f6nn\nlicked his master\u2019s face and he let him do so. Then he fed him from his\nsack, gave him much food, whispering and prattling with the beast all\nthe time, telling him that Bj\u00f6nn must be a clever dog and hold Rauten\ntill either the moon or daylight came, and then \u201cThe Tempest\u201d should\nsing.\n\nBut Bj\u00f6nn did not stay long with Gaupa; he wagged his tail a little,\nand trotted a few steps away from him. Then he seemed to remember\nsomething he had forgotten, went back, sniffed Gaupa\u2019s beard and\npressed his cold, wet nose close to his cheek. Then he disappeared in\nthe darkness; there was a sound of rustling among the spruce branches,\nand then the brook was once more the only living thing Gaupa could hear\nor see.\n\nHe thought of Bj\u00f6nn\u2019s strange behaviour, how he came back to nose his\nbeard. And he remembered the night before he left Lynx Hut, when he\nwas remelting the Swede\u2019s Bullet, how strangely Bj\u00f6nn stared at him,\nwhimpering as if in the full knowledge of something evil.... However,\nsuch things were not worth noticing.\n\nRauten had not moved the length of a mouse while Bj\u00f6nn was away.\n\nThen the dog began to walk stiffly in front of the elk, barking once or\ntwice, and Rauten\u2019s peace was broken. He got on to his forelegs, rose\nand stood still. Bj\u00f6nn became eager, for he knew that Gaupa was close\nby, and he could not understand that it was difficult for his master to\nshoot in complete darkness.\n\nGaupa heard the sharp crack of a twig, then another. \u201cThere goes\nRauten,\u201d he thought.\n\nA little later he heard the antlers striking a tree-trunk, and the\ndog\u2019s bark came nearer, eager and aggressive. \u201cThere is the elk\ncoming,\u201d he thought.\n\nOver him the branches hung like a wide-meshed net, a faint light from\nthe sky penetrating it. But the under-bush was so black that he saw the\ntrees only like vague shadows and in there the wizard elk was coming.\nListen! how the antlers rustle among the spruce needles with a dry\nswishing sound, as when you sweep the floor of the hut with a broom!\n\nGaupa did not stir, but clasped his hands round his gun in trembling\nexcitement. He sat immovable like an animal in its night lair, his eyes\nburning as if they would burn a hole in the darkness enveloping him.\n\nBoth beasts were close by and below him. Once he thought he saw a large\nshadow glide past down there, but he was not sure. He heard the dog\nthrow himself aside and Rauten\u2019s heavy steps. But he could not, could\nnot see him.\n\nSlowly Bj\u00f6nn withdrew a little, following the wizard elk.\n\nGaupa crawled after them on all-fours, slowly, slowly. He was so close\nafter them that he surely could have thrown his gun at the elk, if\nthere had been light enough, and it seemed to him that he was crawling\nat the bottom of a black lake with the tree-tops floating on the\nsurface of the water.\n\nThen Rauten stopped and the dog\u2019s barking grew rhythmic. Gaupa dragged\nhimself ward on his stomach, and in a glade he caught sight of Bj\u00f6nn,\na dark bundle which glided here and there over the earth. But the elk,\nthe elk?\n\nHe did not dare to move farther, and remained where he was, \u201cThe\nTempest\u201d ready. Over the western ridges the starry sky was sparkling.\n\nLittle by little Bj\u00f6nn calmed down, till finally he remained on the\nsame spot, and from the direction of his head Gaupa guessed whereabouts\nRauten must be. For a long time he had been looking for something\nshowing up like antlers against the sky between two tree-trunks, and\nhe was only waiting to see that something move.... It did move, quite\ndistinctly, and Gaupa lifted the barrel of his gun towards the sky,\nthen lowered it towards the antlers, then far enough down to hit the\nbody\u2014and then the Swede\u2019s bullet left the mouth of \u201cThe Tempest.\u201d\n\nThe splitting flame from the gun sent a broad beam of light across the\nglade where Bj\u00f6nn stood. And in front of the dog Gaupa saw as if in\na flash of lightning the head of Rauten above some bushes. The head\nwas lifted high, large eyes staring, and the half ear stood out very\nclearly.... Then darkness came again. Not a sound, no heavy thud of an\nelk falling, no eager dog\u2019s bark.\n\nGaupa was half blinded from the sudden change from glaring light to\nabsolute darkness. He listened for the well-known dry crackle of\nfleeing elk\u2019s hoofs, but it did not come.\n\nThen his ears caught the sound of something astir close in front of\nhim. It could not be Rauten dying, for he would surely have heard him\nfalling.\n\nHe struck a match, and at that moment a cock grouse chattered furiously\nsomewhere up south\u2014a coldly mocking guffaw like the laughter of a\nlunatic. If the grouse chattered in the middle of the night it must\nhave been roused by the elk, therefore Rauten must be far away already.\nBut what, then, was that which moved before his feet?\n\nThe match went out, there was a draught in the air. He scratched\nanother, there was a swish along the box, a tiny explosion, and a\nlittle fire was born and burnt uncertainly within the hollow of his\nhand. Two spruces stood within the circle of the light, staring with\nwonder as if they had just awakened and wanted to know what kind of\ntiny sun was dancing on the ground.\n\nGaupa went forward to some yellow moss, that showed elk spoors. But\nin the middle of the glade Bj\u00f6nn lay on one side. His eyes blinked a\nlittle at the light from the match, but there was in them something\nstrained which Gaupa did not recognise. He knelt down beside the dog,\nstroking him and talking to him, but Bj\u00f6nn took no notice, and his\nflanks laboured so strangely and quickly.\n\nGaupa lit another match and saw blood on Bj\u00f6nn\u2019s hair a little behind\nthe left shoulder. He felt with his hand, which became wet. The dog\nstarted to open his mouth as if to yawn\u2014and he gaped, and he gaped, and\nnever finished.\n\n\u201cBj\u00f6nn!\u201d Gaupa whispered\u2014\u201cmy own dog!\u201d\n\nBut Bj\u00f6nn only gaped.\n\nGaupa understood what had happened. The Swede\u2019s bullet had struck\nthe elk\u2019s antler and was shattered, one bit of lead ricochetting and\nhitting the dog.\n\n\u201cBj\u00f6nn! Don\u2019t you hear me, Bj\u00f6nn?\u201d he whispered once more half\nbeseechingly.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nOh no, Bj\u00f6nn could not hear anything any more now. He began to nod his\nhead in a strange way, something gurgled in his throat. A large tear\nleapt out of the dog\u2019s eye and rolled down over the grey muzzle. The\ndog stretched himself. He was tired of the endless chase. He wanted to\nrest.\n\nThe last thing Bj\u00f6nn from Lynx Hut did in his life was to stretch\nhimself.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA man was sitting with a dead dog on his knees. It happened on Bog Hill\nin R\u00e9 Valley. The murmur of the river sounded steady and calm, like the\nvery breath of night.\n\nGaupa thought of the Swede\u2019s Bullet. It concealed strange powers; it\nhad travelled through a body before, and it knew its way. Why, oh why,\nthen, did it take away the only friend, the only child he possessed? It\nwould be small comfort walking down to Lower Valley in the morning.\n\nGaupa waited for the dawn. Bj\u00f6nn seemed so strangely heavy on his\nknees. He felt how the warmth of life slowly left the soulless body of\nthe dog, remembered what the two had shared of better things and worse\nthroughout the years, and the tears fell fast down Gaupa\u2019s unkempt\nface.\n\nDaylight came. In his arms he carried Bj\u00f6nn to a heap of rocks tenderly\nas a mother carries her sleeping baby to bed.\n\nHe displaced some pieces of rock, and when he laid Bj\u00f6nn down there\nhe felt that he was burying some of his joy in life. He sat down, his\nshoulders heaving.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nWhen did Gaupa weep last? He did not remember. It was long ago, long,\nlong ago.\n\nDay broke over R\u00e9 Valley.\n\n\n\u00a7 26\n\nTime floated over the wilderness.\n\nIn summer it is warm, in winter cold. Three days before Christmas the\nsun ceases to descend lower in the sky, rises again, and after a long\nwhile he starts work on a fresh spring down on earth.\n\nThrough half the year the lakes lie with their eyes closed, for\nhalf a year they mirror the sunset. The rivers stiffen when the\nimmigrating birds go south. While the bear dreams in his winter lair,\nthe trees stand bloodless, breaking in the frost. But when the living\nploughshares of the wild geese go northwards once more, then the trees\nspread out all their branches, embracing life.\n\nSuch is time, when beasts are born, eat, and die. Such was time when\nRauten went towards old age.\n\nHis body followed the all-subduing law of nature. At Candlemass time\nhe lost his antlers, which invariably grew out again, every time with\nmore tines. When the leaves fell he roared his hoarse mating call at\ndusk and at dawn. In the summer nights his huge, dark body would glide\nthrough the forest out to Gipsy Lake where the snow-white waterlilies\nwere floating.\n\nOn some clear, cruel, frosty winter night he would perhaps stand on\nguard beside a soft-eyed cow and a calf that was his own flesh and\nblood. Then Venus, queen of the starry heavens, would glow large and\nbright above R\u00e9 Mountains, lending a pale shimmer to the white snow.\nThe Aurora Borealis would shine bright and strange, then the breath\nfrom the elks\u2019 nostrils would smoke in the night.\n\nWhen once in a while Rauten lay on Black Mountain looking out across\nthe forest, all the happenings of which his life was so rich would stir\nwithin him. Probably he did not remember, not live his reminiscences\nonce more in his mind. We do not know about that. But each remarkable\nincident had set its mark in him in the shadowy life of his soul.\nThey had sharpened his instincts, enriched his experience. There were\nincidents at all times of the year, in all changing lights of day and\nnight, in sunny heat and in frosty weather\u2014some concerning animals,\nsome human beings.\n\nBut he grew solitary and still more solitary as age came on. He sought\nplaces where man but rarely made spots on the earth with his shoes of\nanimals\u2019 hide, where the steel tooth of the axe but rarely gnawed a\ntree, where old times were still dreaming.\n\nFor the R\u00e9 Valley woods began to be open. Foresters\u2019 huts grew out of\nthe earth, creating unrest. Old trees died, changed their existence,\nand left R\u00e9 Valley. Their stumps stayed, time and weather eating them\nas ravens eat carrion.\n\nMany a dog had chased Rauten, but their muzzles grew grey and their\neyes blue, and one day the barrel of a gun blew out their lives. And\nstill Rauten walked across Black Mountains.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut what of Gaupa?\n\nHe also aged; he aged rapidly when Bj\u00f6nn died. For after that time he\nlost his love of the woods somehow, and then he seemed to shrink within\nhimself.\n\nSoon he was no longer a wild cat, he became a tame, domestic cat. No\nmore his fire shone at the capercailzie\u2019s play in the blue spring\nevenings when the song thrush was silent in the tree-tops and flew away\nfor the night. A sleepy petroleum lamp shone dully in Lynx Hut, where\nthe air was not light and pure as drifted snow, but stank of leather\nand old footwear.\n\nHe felt as if something had died within him. His mind was like an\neverlasting rainy day, monotonous, without a gleam of sun. No more\ntumults, only silence and death, his mind was luke-warm like marsh\nwater.\n\nGaupa was not well either. He needed but to drink three or four cups\nof coffee one after the other to make his heart unmanageable. It would\nnot keep time, but beat eagerly and quickly, and then it lagged, nearly\nstopped as if lame.... Well, well, that heart had seen hard days, as\nwell he knew.\n\nGaupa\u2019s calves grew full of small bulbs under his skin from varicose\nveins. And then rheumatism came. Working in his shop he could feel the\nrheumatism, like fine red-hot wires being stitched into his body. It\nwas worst in his knees, for there something was gnawing, gnawing like\nsharp teeth, everlastingly hungry. Well, well, you know those calves\nand those knees had been through some hard work in his life.\n\nOnce somebody asked him to go to a doctor, but then Gaupa guffawed in\nmocking merriment.\n\nAlas, there was small comfort in Lynx Hut now. No Bj\u00f6nn came to place\nhis head on his knees while he was stitching shoes, no Bj\u00f6nn met him\nwith tail waving in the open door when he had been out and came home,\nno Bj\u00f6nn shared his bed under the sheepskin covering in the night. When\nhe woke up at night he caught himself listening for the dog\u2019s breath,\nfor Bj\u00f6nn used to breathe so heavily, so humanly. Gaupa remembered so\nwell.\n\nWhen he was seventy years old he was converted. After that time the\npoor old soul would often sit in one of the foremost desks in the\nschoolhouse, piously listening to what Hans Uppermeadow, the \u201chigh\npriest,\u201d had to announce. He would sit there in his simple blue-striped\ncelluloid collar without a tie. That was the only Sunday best he\npossessed, and no one knew when last it was washed.\n\nSomehow revivalism did not quite submerge him, for he could not help\nthinking of other things while the preacher up there threatened his\naudience with hell and sulphur. It might, for instance, occur to him\nthat the moustache of that fellow was the very spit of the other\u2019s\nwhiskers, and in a bound Gaupa\u2019s thoughts were far from the schoolroom\nand its close atmosphere. No, he could not get the real hang of the\nrevivalist business, and before he entered upon his seventy-second year\nhe gave it up and became a worldling once more.\n\nOnly he ceased to swear, and when religious people were with him he\nmight be heard to talk of how quietly time passed down here. Sometimes\nhe would even sigh audibly.\n\nPoor old Gaupa! He was in earnest right enough. He was no Pharisee. Yet\nhis conscience was never quite easy; he was not regularly \u201csaved,\u201d and\nwhen his heart started beating out of time he would feel as timid as a\nhare!\n\nOne day he was at Rust helping with some wood-cutting. He went to feed\nthe horses in the evening, and remained in the stable so long that\nHalstein began to wonder and went in.\n\nThere lay Gaupa senseless after a blow from the young black mare. There\nwas a hole in his skull, and Halstein saw the brain matter pulsating.\n\nIt was a strange thing, but Gaupa recovered. He was in bed at Rust for\na long time, but as soon as he could walk to his own hut he demanded\nit, and after six months he was very much as before.\n\nOne day about Easter time the sheriff, who lived some two miles to the\nsouth, saw Gaupa hatless coming across his yard with a long knife in\nhis hand. He wondered a little, and in a moment the maid came rushing\ninto his office and begged him to go out into the kitchen, for Gaupa\nmust have lost his wits.\n\nThe sheriff went. There was Gaupa. His hair had withered at the top of\nhis head so that he was quite bald. He wore a blue blouse, and in his\nright hand he held his knife, shining, freshly sharpened. Yet Gaupa was\nan exceptionally good-tempered man.\n\n\u201cGood morning, sheriff. I\u2019ve come to skin him. Where do you keep him?\u201d\n\nThe sheriff did not understand, but noticed that the corners of Gaupa\u2019s\nmouth worked harder than ever. \u201cSt. Vitus\u2019s dance,\u201d he thought.\n\n\u201cSkin him, d\u2019you say?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, of course; don\u2019t you remember I shot the wizard elk in your woods\nyesterday? I carted him home, large and whole.\u201d\n\nHe pointed the knife straight at the sheriff, till the latter felt the\nblade like a cold pang through his body.\n\n\u201cThis knife,\u201d Gaupa went on, \u201chas tasted Rauten once before, and still\nit is sharp enough to manage the skinning of the elk. Where do you keep\nhim? Eh?\u201d\n\nThe sheriff understood that Gaupa\u2019s mind was queer, and he made believe\nthat everything was as Gaupa said.\n\n\u201cOh yes,\u201d he replied; \u201cI\u2019ll find him for you soon enough, but you will\nhave a drink first, won\u2019t you?\u201d\n\nCertainly, Gaupa would like a drink; he had one drink, and then\nanother. By that time he forgot his errand and went quietly home to\nLynx Hut.\n\nTwo days later he went to Lyhus and behaved in exactly the same manner.\nThere was no gainsaying the fact that the day before he had shot Rauten\nand drove him, in all his bulk, to the farm, so that everyone might see\nthe wizard elk. And now he had come to skin him.\n\nFrom that time Gaupa was out of his mind. People guessed it was a\nresult from that blow from the horse\u2019s hoof, which seemed probable\nenough.\n\nEvery once in a while he would go to a farm to skin an elk he had shot\nin their forest, and if only they agreed and said he ought to have the\ndrink due before such a work was undertaken, or they offered him food,\nhe could generally be talked away from his purpose, so that he forgot\nall about skinning.\n\nThe authorities attempted to lodge him at some farm, but Gaupa simply\nwalked home to Lynx Hut, where he would sit busy with his awl and his\nwaxed thread, working quite decently.\n\nBut the urchins found great fun in going up to him and showing him a\nnaked knife, for as soon as he saw it he would start telling the story\nof the elk calf on Black Mountain slopes, always in the same manner,\nnearly in the same words. He never told anything else than that he cut\nhalf an ear from the calf, never anything more detailed about Rauten\nafter the elk had grown up. If they asked him they could see how he\nstrove and strove to remember, but he was never sure. It was always\nthe same story again and again, how he held the calf between his knees,\nand when he finished they would hear him mumbling something no one\nunderstood except one single word: \u201cBeast, beast.\u201d\n\nLater on he imagined he had killed an animal he called Golden Bear.\nThen he went down the valley to the rich forest owners, to their grand\nfarms with red storehouses and white dwellings with glass balls on the\ntop of their flag-poles, shining like silver in the sunlight. And then\nGaupa never stopped till he got speech with the great men themselves,\nfor he could buy their woods and their farms and everything they\npossessed. They might have their payment in cash and the price was of\nno consideration, for he had killed the Golden Bear.\n\nThus fared Gaupa, the elk-killer, in the evening of his life.\n\n\n\u00a7 27\n\nOne spring Lynx Hut remained locked, at first for days, then for weeks,\nthen for ever. Lynx Hut is still locked.\n\nThey looked for Gaupa that spring, every one in the Valley who could\ncrawl in forest or mountain. The sheriff donned his uniform cap, used\nthe law and ordered people out. A long chain of men zig-zagged across\nthe Lower Valley slopes, east of the river and west of the river. But\nno Gaupa was found.\n\nWhat little he possessed was put to auction. His cobbling tools were\nscattered over the valley as if by a gust of wind. Martin Lyhus bought\n\u201cThe Tempest.\u201d\n\nI visited Lynx Hut some years ago. It was empty, with naked walls. A\nhole gaped in the brickwork of the chimney where the stove flue had\nonce gone in, and the window sill was strewn with dead flies. I found\na dried-up squirrel on the hearth. The little animal had, I suppose,\nclimbed down the chimney and been unable to climb up, finally lying\ndown mouth open for the food which should have kept it alive.\n\nBut also I found something else.\n\nIn a corner lay a dog\u2019s collar of coarse leather. It had a shiny buckle\nand the inside of the leather was worn smooth. In the collar was sewn\nwith white cobbler\u2019s thread the name \u201cBj\u00f6nn.\u201d\n\nThe man who unlocked Lynx Hut to me was so white of hair that he seemed\nto carry fresh snow on his head. He wore a waistcoat with silver\nbuttons, and his name was Halstein Rust. It was he who in the autumn\nafter Gaupa\u2019s disappearance went to the relief officer in Lower Valley\nand told him what he had found above Gipsy Lake out in R\u00e9 Valley. It\nwas also Halstein Rust who told me of Gaupa and Bj\u00f6nn and the wizard\nelk, Rauten.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nTo-day a cross stands alternately in sun and shade outside the\ntar-soaked wall of Lower Valley Church. Under that cross rests the\nbody of Halstein Rust. But I clearly remember the evening when the\nwhite-haired man sat before me, crooked, trembling fingers pointing\nsouthwards towards R\u00e9 Valley, and telling me how Gaupa\u2019s life ended.\n\n\n\u00a7 28\n\nThat spring there were masses of snow in the mountains. First mild\nweather came in March and afterwards the frost lasted till far into\nMay, then the weather changed suddenly, the air vibrating with sunny\nheat from morning till night.\n\nThe tributary rivers became roaring mad in a few days, Lower River went\ngreenish yellow like ale, lifting timber jams of hundreds of logs,\nsweeping them along, sucking them on in their mad rush, until the logs\nwould float peacefully into the big lake two leagues to the south.\n\nThe birch buds opened in a night. In the morning the trees were thickly\ncovered with what looked like green butterflies. A strong perfume\nfilled the steaming air.\n\nIt was late at night, the distant hills were blue. The northern sky was\nsmouldering, a soft tone of sweet sadness rose from the fiery heavens,\nlulling the senses, like the melody of soft, slowly rolling waves. The\npeople of Lower Valley were asleep.\n\nA belated snipe flew chirping over Lynx Hut.\n\nGaupa came out, locked his door, and put the key in his pocket. He\ncarried a knapsack, and took out a pair of skis. He remained there as\nif making sure in his thought that nothing was forgotten. But his ideas\nwere confused, lacking strength to arrange themselves in any definite\norder, and Gaupa went towards the River with skis on his shoulder and a\nsack on his back, but his rifle hung peacefully on the wall inside Lynx\nHut.\n\nIn the darkness of that May night a man walked on the crusted snow on\nthe slopes towards R\u00e9 Valley. The skis made a dry grating sound on the\nsnow crust, the man breathed quickly and heavily, and rested sadly\noften. He grew so very thirsty, and every once in a while he lay down\nat some brooklet and drank the water from the melting snow.\n\nAfter midnight the snow crust became stone hard. The man went south\nalong the flat marshes near R\u00e9 River, and for such an old man he went\nremarkably quickly. Gaupa had not in vain been the man who used to show\neverybody else his back both walking and running.\n\nAbout two o\u2019clock the door of Gipsy Lake Hut groaned, and on the hard\nwooden seat where Gaupa and Bj\u00f6nn used to rest side by side after many\na sweat dripping day Gaupa lay alone, after many years.\n\nStrangely enough, that night his brain cleared. He felt as if he\nhad awakened from sleep, and without making a fire he lay, looking\nbackwards in time.\n\nHe had lived his life as he himself wanted it, poor in possessions,\nbut rich in happenings. Throughout all the years he could remember\nthere blew a cold breeze from windworn trees and naked mountains. His\nmemories stood out like bright flowers, smelling sweetly of heather and\nmoss. Best of all he remembered the three days\u2019 chase after Rauten,\nBj\u00f6nn\u2019s last chase. Even that time the rumour was true. Bad luck had\nfollowed on Rauten\u2019s heels.\n\nGaupa heard a wood-cock swishing by Gipsy Lake. Then all was silence\nagain.\n\nA little later an owl started hooting in the trees outside the hut,\nand to Gaupa the hooting seemed to come out from the walls, from the\nceiling, from the floor.... The owl is a sinister bird and predicts\ndeath, and Gaupa felt quite creepy listening to the sound of the\nvoice. He opened the door and peeped up in the half light between the\ntrees. The bird was silent then, but he could not see it. Yet as soon\nas he lay down the bird\u2019s voice was heard again, sad, wailing, almost\nlike broken notes of a dirge. The tune never rose, never sank, always\nkeeping the same level.\n\nHe went out many times to frighten it away, and although that bird sat\njust above the roof, he was quite unable to see it; he could almost\nbelieve it was a spirit sitting aloft, trying to tell him something.\n\nDay sent a grey square of light through the open door on to the floor\nof Gipsy Lake Hut. Darkness crept into the corners and hid there.\n\nThen suddenly and unexpectedly the old man jerked his head, steadied\nhis hands against the bench, and half rose. His eyes lost the film of\ndeadness they had had lately and had become keen.\n\nThrough the open door he heard the crush, crush, crush of the snow\ncrust shattering under steps heavy enough to break it.\n\nGaupa knew the snow crust to be hard enough to carry a man, even a\nheavy one. He rose on his feet and stood in the door, crouching a\nlittle, both hands holding on to the lintel above his head.\n\nCrush, crush, crush! he heard from a little mound covered with young\ntrees, just beyond the clearing in front of the hut. Then the sound\nstopped as if cut off, and the silence afterwards was filled with the\nboiling rumble from the heath cocks in the marsh by the lake. The owl\nwas silent.\n\nWhat came over him? Was he afraid? He almost looked like it. His eyes\ngrew keen, staring. His mouth opened, showing his gums with all his\nteeth still, brown from chewing tobacco.\n\nAn elk\u2019s head rose from the bushes on the mound, and Gaupa gave a\nstartled sob.\n\n\u201cRauten!\u201d he whispered, and his excited face showed everything but\nfear. It was like the yell from an old, half-blind deer-hound who\nunexpectedly finds big game, a yell of exultation, a dying fire flaming\nup.\n\nThe elk\u2019s head turned abruptly, a long back floated over the bushes,\nand once more the snow crust crashed where Rauten ran.\n\nGaupa turned back to the hut. \u201cThe Tempest,\u201d \u201cThe Tempest,\u201d his\nthoughts were wailing. But the rifle was at home in Lynx Hut, rusty\nwith years of disuse.\n\nHe was running about on the floor of the hut, his eyes seeking a\nweapon, anything that could be used for taking life\u2014murmuring all the\ntime: \u201cSure it is the wizard elk, sure it is the wizard elk!\u201d\n\nThen his hand happened to touch his dagger, hanging at his right-hand\nside; the touch reminded him of something, and he stopped. He wrenched\nout the knife, his feet stole quickly across the floor and through the\ndoorway. Shortly afterwards the old man was running on the hard snow,\nstooping, bareheaded, in his blouse, and with long, homespun trousers\nflapping round his legs.\n\nBefore him were the elk spoors, deep holes straight through the rough\nsnow crust, the bottom of them showing the wide-apart hoofs of Rauten,\nand the grains of snow in the holes were like pearls.\n\nGaupa saw how the bits of broken snow crust had flown under the elk\u2019s\nhoofs, and once more he was the old Gaupa. Body and soul were taken\nback across the years. He was no longer a rheumatic old cripple running\nbareheaded towards the rise of the sun, knife in hand. No, he was a man\nwith playing muscles and foaming blood, a shaggy savage who hunted an\nanimal to eat it and to clothe himself in its skin.\n\nThe snow crust was so hard that he ran as if on a floor, the sound of\nhis steps was only a slight scratching as from a lynx\u2019s claws in bark.\nHe heard the wizard elk just in front, the beast sinking into the snow\ntill under its belly, and inside him was the song that here was Rauten,\nRauten! while audibly he mumbled, \u201cI\u2019ve got him now, I\u2019ve got him now.\u201d\n\nAbove the spring-black woods of R\u00e9 Valley, the mountains foamed like\nwhite waterfalls. In the east the rosy dawn glowed, sending a breath of\nwhitish yellow before her on the sky which in farthest west was still\ndeep-sea blue.\n\nThere was Black Mountain with its white head, and the forest down its\nbreast like a shaggy beard. Just such a May morning it was when Black\nMountain first saw the little elk calf that was to become Rauten.\n\nNow Black Mountain saw something different. On the marsh east of Gipsy\nLake an elk bull was plunging heavily in the crusted snow. He tried to\nleap, but could not. He sank through as if falling at each step and he\nlooked strangely short-legged.\n\nBut on the back of that elk sat a man....\n\nNow both Rauten and Gaupa, \u201cThe Lynx,\u201d were animals, one born in and of\nthe forest, the other a human being restored to the animal state by the\nforest. He sat astride of the elk, feeling its lean, sharp back between\nhis legs. His nostrils were full of the scent of game, and he inhaled\nit and grew drunk from it, like a beast of prey. His hands held on to\nthe mane and one of them held the knife. He lay forwards along Rauten\u2019s\nneck as if wanting to bite the elk\u2019s throat. Under his nose his beard\nbristled like feline whiskers.\n\nThe marsh was empty again, the elk spoor marking it like a deep scar,\nand the trees about it seemed to wonder at what they had just seen.\n\nBut in the copses to the south the crash of the elk\u2019s hoofs could be\nheard, and there was Rauten forcing his way, half mad with terror.\nEvery step was an effort, the man on his back and the difficult snow\nboth increased his fear. He wanted to throw the man off. He strained\nhis body till muscles and sinews groaned inside him, but the snow crust\nwas ever faithless; as soon as his hoofs were on the ground, the weight\nof his body following, the snow crust broke like brittle ice. No matter\nhowever much he willed, willed to go forwards, faster, faster\u2014he could\nnot, it was useless.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThe bushes waved around him, hitting Gaupa\u2019s face till it smarted and\nhe closed his eyes for fear of being blinded. Just before him he saw\nthe ear that was only half an ear. He saw fur had grown where the knife\nonce cut. He noticed also that the antlers were growing out again after\nthe winter\u2019s moulting. They were covered with fur.\n\nRauten\u2019s breathing was laboured, long and hissing like bellows in a\nsmithy.\n\nThen Gaupa let go one hand from the elk\u2019s mane, the hand rose, slowly\nat first, then darting like a flame, and a newly ground knife\u2019s edge\ndrew a shiny line across the dark forest. The knife stopped above\nGaupa\u2019s head, then sank like lightning. It sank into the elk\u2019s back,\ndeep up to the haft.\n\nRauten opened his mouth a little, also his eyes, but did not even\ngroan, only took a few leaps out of the undergrowth to a more open\nplace where the sun had been more powerful so that there was less snow.\nTwo weather-grey stumps ran out of it like long tusks.\n\n\u201cAkk,\u201d said a capercailzie hen, wide awake and warning\u2014\u201cAkk, akk!\u201d A\ncapercailzie cock had finished his play, a neck stretched out from the\nbrown-flecked pine branches, and his wings beat the air noisily when he\nrose.\n\nRauten staggered forwards, Gaupa on his back. Gaupa had a piece of\nchewing tobacco in his mouth. It was caught between his clenched teeth\nand a brown juice ran out of the corners of his mouth down into his\nbeard. He caught the knife out of the elk\u2019s back and swung it aloft\nonce more. But it drew no shiny line this time, it was wet. Once more\nit sank into Rauten\u2019s body while Gaupa spat out the words:\n\n\u201cTake that for Bj\u00f6nn.\u201d\n\nThe same knife met Rauten with the first rays of day on the morning he\nwas born on Black Mountain slopes. The blade was worn and narrow now,\nbut fate decreed that it should sit in Rauten\u2019s body at his death-leap\neast of Gipsy Lake. Perhaps they knew, the dull-red sunbeams which\nthat morning, so many years ago, stroked their warm hands over the\nlittle calf bidding him welcome to life and to the forest.\n\nBut now Rauten had lived his life. Trees and grass, air and water had\ngiven him of their own, which they now claimed back. Rauten was old;\nover his melancholy head the sunset was dead. He was entering on the\nlong night which never is awakened by a dawn in the east.\n\nHe had created a number of elks, most of them gone before him into the\nland of shadows. Now his turn had come to follow them. The R\u00e9 Valley\nwoods had no more use for him. His legs were stiff and his steps short.\nNo longer was he a roaring storm at mating time. His muscles sang no\nmore wild songs from bottomless depths of forces; his life was on the\nebb, and no flood would rise in him again.\n\n\n\u00a7 29\n\nThat morning a marten sat crouching in a spruce tree near Gipsy Lake.\nThe marten might tell what happened.\n\nThat morning a broad-winged eagle soared round and round above R\u00e9\nValley. The eagle also might tell what happened.\n\nRauten ran out on a southwards slope where the snow was partly gone. He\nhardly saw anything; Gaupa\u2019s knife was diving voluptuously into him.\nBut terror paralysed his nerves so that he hardly felt any pain.\n\nWhen the elk and the man ran the small bushes nodded after them. But\nthe old trees were indifferent to what happened. Everything was as it\nshould be. The old trees had seen the bear pawing the elk\u2019s skull, had\nseen the adder swallowing live mice. Life takes life. Thus it was when\nnight first dewed the grass, as long as stars have twinkled in the\nheavens.\n\nWhile Rauten leapt down that slope the wind slipped in under Gaupa\u2019s\nblue-striped blouse, making it bulge out at the back. He rode on\nintoxicated, far away from everything and everybody. He gave vent to a\nlong yell, old man that he was, and the yell sank into the spring-time\nroar from R\u00e9 River and was swallowed up by it.\n\nAlmost blind, the wizard elk rushed down a precipice, about three or\nfour times the height of a man, sliding with legs stretched out and\nback straight. Gaupa pressed his knees against the elk\u2019s flanks with\nall his might, but could not keep his seat. He slid forwards along the\nneck, found the antlers and hung on. The elk\u2019s hoofs tore away patches\nof moss, disturbing a small stone which became a living thing and\njumped down; a jay perched on a tree on that rock started a thin piping\nas if bewailing the scene it saw. High up under a small cloud red with\nsunlight the eagle soared easily in the air. Then he screamed, long and\nhungrily.\n\nRauten found firm earth below the rocky wall; he nearly fell forwards\nwith the shock, but managed to keep his balance. Gaupa did not let\ngo of the antlers, but his legs slipped off from the elk\u2019s body and\nturned a somersault, his soles high up towards the sky, as if he wished\nto kick the tree-tops in play. Then he lost his hold on the antlers,\nturned over the elk\u2019s muzzle and lay on the snow, his knife still in\nhis hand.\n\nThe wizard elk lifted one foreleg. Gaupa saw it, a helpless look in\nhis eyes. An icy-cold blast ran through him, before he rose to his\nknees. The light-grey elk\u2019s leg was lifted still higher, stopped in\nthe air for a tiny moment, and then fell rapidly. It hit Gaupa between\nhis shoulder-blades. Daylight was extinguished for him as suddenly as\nwhen a candle is blown out. With incredible speed he rushed into empty\nspace, then began to sink\u2014down, down.\n\nGaupa lay on his face, his left arm bent under him, but the right hand\nwhich held the knife was stretched out to one side. Then his fingers\nloosened slowly from the curly maple shaft, straightened out, and the\nknife lay loose on the snow crust.\n\nRauten lifted his leg for another blow, but half-way up it became so\nheavy that he could lift it no further, could not even hold it up. It\nwas as if Rauten thought better of it, as if he believed that the man\nhad had enough. He remained standing, his eyes, soft as dusk, staring\nsadly at Gaupa. Then he grew sleepy and tired, strangely tired. His\ngreat head nodded, nodded lower still, rose and nodded again. Then it\nstiffened. There lay Rauten, the wizard elk.\n\nThe morning sun reached the tree-tops and crept slowly down the trunks.\nThen reaching the earth it stole forwards as if nosing the man and the\nelk curiously.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe day was not different from many other days.\n\nIt was a day in May, when spring dwells below in the great valleys,\nearly flowers bloom, and clouds sail across the blue sky.\n\nOn the R\u00e9 Valley slopes dusk turned to evening.\n\nFor a little space there was silence.\n\nThe jay said no more. A marten sat well hidden in a spruce tree close\nby, his eyes shining like raindrops among the needles. Dawn lit\ncopper-red fires on all the mountain peaks.\n\nThen the snow crust crashed noisily below that rocky wall on Gipsy\nLake slope. Rauten fell on his side. He did not move, but inside him\nsomething bubbled with the sound of hidden brooklets under the peat in\na bog.\n\nSuddenly the great body curled up and straightened out again just as\nsuddenly.\n\nGaupa and Rauten slept side by side, Rauten\u2019s head touching Gaupa\u2019s\nchest as if the animal wished to rest with him.\n\nIn the snow beside them red flowers seemed to bloom.\n\nSummer must have come to R\u00e9 Valley very early that year.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n      _Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld.,\n                       London and Aylesbury._","title":"The Trail of the Elk","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":36404}