“She isna a peautiful animal,” said Watty scornfully. “She’s fat, put she’s not so big and bonnie as a Hieland stag, and her horns are puir scrats o’ things. Hey, but ye should see the tines on the het of a bonnie ret-teer! She’s only coot to eat; ant she must kill the beasties, or else she’d pine to deat.”
Watty was right, and they could approach the deer without fear of attack. As it happened, it proved to be the finest shot that day, and after it had been gralloched (as the Highlanders term the opening and cleaning of a stag), by the Norsemen, the light sledge was brought into requisition, the men harnessed themselves to it, and the reindeer was dragged to where the game had been left for picking up on their return; but to the surprise of all it was missing.
“It must have been here that we left it,” said the captain, glancing round at the wilderness of rocks reaching from them to the mountain-foot.
“Of course; here are the marks,” said the doctor.
At that minute, with a quiet smile, Johannes touched Steve’s arm and pointed. The boy followed the direction indicated, and saw something moving on the mountain-side.
“Yes, I see it!” cried Steve. “There goes our deer.” For, plainly enough, though over a mile away, possibly two miles, for the air was wonderfully clear, there was a white-coated bear calmly dragging off for its own dinner the deer which had fallen to the doctor’s piece.
“Well, of all the thievish impudence!” he cried. “Come along, and let’s give him a lesson.”
“No, I think not to-day,” said the captain; “we are all tired and hungry. We should not care for the flesh now.”
“But the bear and his skin?”
“We could not take him to-day; we can track him another time. If we shot him now, we should have to leave the carcass, and the skin might be torn. Let’s get back to the other deer.”