第12章 THE WOMAN OF THE SAETER.(1)

Wild-reindeer stalking is hardly so exciting a sport as the evening's verandah talk in Norroway hotels would lead the trustful traveller to suppose.Under the charge of your guide,a very young man with the dreamy,wistful eyes of those who live in valleys,you leave the farmstead early in the forenoon,arriving towards twilight at the desolate hut which,for so long as you remain upon the uplands,will be your somewhat cheerless headquarters.

Next morning,in the chill,mist-laden dawn,you rise;and,after a breakfast of coffee and dried fish,shoulder your Remington,and step forth silently into the raw,damp air;the guide locking the door behind you,the key grating harshly in the rusty lock.

For hour after hour you toil over the steep,stony ground,or wind through the pines,speaking in whispers,lest your voice reach the quick ears of your prey,that keeps its head ever pressed against the wind.Here and there,in the hollows of the hills lie wide fields of snow,over which you pick your steps thoughtfully,listening to the smothered thunder of the torrent,tunnelling its way beneath your feet,and wondering whether the frozen arch above it be at all points as firm as is desirable.Now and again,as in single file you walk cautiously along some jagged ridge,you catch glimpses of the green world,three thousand feet below you;though you gaze not long upon the view,for your attention is chiefly directed to watching the footprints of the guide,lest by deviating to the right or left you find yourself at one stride back in the valley--or,to be more correct,are found there.

These things you do,and as exercise they are healthful and invigorating.But a reindeer you never see,and unless,overcoming the prejudices of your British-bred conscience,you care to take an occasional pop at a fox,you had better have left your rifle at the hut,and,instead,have brought a stick which would have been helpful.Notwithstanding which the guide continues sanguine,and in broken English,helped out by stirring gesture,tells of the terrible slaughter generally done by sportsmen under his superintendence,and of the vast herds that generally infest these fields;and when you grow sceptical upon the subject of Reins he whispers alluringly of Bears.

Once in a way you will come across a track,and will follow it breathlessly for hours,and it will lead to a sheer precipice.

Whether the explanation is suicide,or a reprehensible tendency on the part of the animal towards practical joking,you are left to decide for yourself.Then,with many rough miles between you and your rest,you abandon the chase.

But I speak from personal experience merely.

All day long we had tramped through the pitiless rain,stopping only for an hour at noon to eat some dried venison and smoke a pipe beneath the shelter of an overhanging cliff.Soon afterwards Michael knocked over a ryper (a bird that will hardly take the trouble to hop out of your way)with his gun-barrel,which incident cheered us a little;and,later on,our flagging spirits were still further revived by the discovery of apparently very recent deer-tracks.

These we followed,forgetful,in our eagerness,of the lengthening distance back to the hut,of the fading daylight,of the gathering mist.The track led us higher and higher,farther and farther into the mountains,until on the shores of a desolate rock-bound vand it abruptly ended,and we stood staring at one another,and the snow began to fall.

Unless in the next half-hour we could chance upon a saeter,this meant passing the night upon the mountain.Michael and I looked at the guide;but though,with characteristic Norwegian sturdiness,he put a bold face upon it,we could see that in that deepening darkness he knew no more than we did.Wasting no time on words,we made straight for the nearest point of descent,knowing that any human habitation must be far below us.

Down we scrambled,heedless of torn clothes and bleeding hands,the darkness pressing closer round us.Then suddenly it became black--black as pitch--and we could only hear each other.Another step might mean death.We stretched out our hands,and felt each other.

Why we spoke in whispers,I do not know,but we seemed afraid of our own voices.We agreed there was nothing for it but to stop where we were till morning,clinging to the short grass;so we lay there side by side,for what may have been five minutes or may have been an hour.Then,attempting to turn,I lost my grip and rolled.I made convulsive efforts to clutch the ground,but the incline was too steep.How far I fell I could not say,but at last something stopped me.I felt it cautiously with my foot:it did not yield,so Itwisted myself round and touched it with my hand.It seemed planted firmly in the earth.I passed my arm along to the right,then to the left.I shouted with joy.It was a fence.

Rising and groping about me,I found an opening,and passed through,and crept forward with palms outstretched until I touched the logs of a hut;then,feeling my way round,discovered the door,and knocked.

There came no response,so I knocked louder;then pushed,and the heavy woodwork yielded,groaning.But the darkness within was even darker than the darkness without.The others had contrived to crawl down and join me.Michael struck a wax vesta and held it up,and slowly the room came out of the darkness and stood round us.

Then something rather startling happened.Giving one swift glance about him,our guide uttered a cry,and rushed out into the night.

We followed to the door,and called after him,but only a voice came to us out of the blackness,and the only words that we could catch,shrieked back in terror,were:"Saetervronen!Saetervronen!"("The woman of the saeter").

"Some foolish superstition about the place,I suppose,"said Michael.