CHAPTER XX

STORAASEN FOREST. AN ELUSIVE BULL. HARD LUCK.
AN EXCITING STALK. BULLETS FOR SPORTING
RIFLES. WOLVES

ONE fine, clear autumn day my wife decided to
come with me, and Andreas was to attend to the meat
from the last bull I had killed, so we all of us set out
towards the country around the Gauptjern.

When we had crossed the Gauptjern river, Andreas,
who knew the country intimately, proposed that we
should walk towards some small hillocks covered with a
dense growth of birch, close under the bare mountain
plateau, which he knew used to be a great place for elk.

For many years Andreas had accompanied German
sportsmen and could tell many a good yarn about these
people, who do not always look upon sport and its rules
in the same way that we do. There was, in particular,
one fellow who used to come to the Storaasen forest
who, besides seeking sport, was no scorner of the gifts
of Bacchus. Unfortunately he was always accompanied
by his old “Frau,” who looked after her spouse with
lynx-eyed suspicion. However, he hit upon the most
excellent idea of sending out Andreas, ostensibly to
“look for elk signs,” but in reality to deposit small
stores of bottles at convenient spots about in the forest,
where, later on, and quite undisturbed, the sportsman
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