“I do not like these great summer skals,” said he. “If you really want to see sport you should come here in the winter, when the snow is on the ground,—that is the time for a man to set his wits against ‘old Fur Jacket,’—to ring him in the snow—to look out for his den—to turn him out—to dash after him through the snow on our skier—to follow him day after day—to camp on his track—and after him again as soon as day breaks, and at last, after a week’s hunting, perhaps, to run in upon him and put a rifle-ball upon his head. All this too is done quietly,—a party of two or three at the most,—not mobbing the poor devil to death in this fashion,—that is the thing that tries a man’s talents as a hunter. In such a skal as this, one of those squalling women could knock over a bear as well as the best of us, if she happened to meet with him; he very seldom shows fight, either, in the summer time,—he sees he is overmatched, and gives it up as a bad job; but in the winter, you may as well have a firm heart and a steady hand before you bring your rifle to bear, and you would be none the worse for a stout comrade to stand beside you, with pike and knife.”
“The bear does charge them sometimes?” said the Parson.
“Yes, if hit,” said Torkel, “or if he thinks you have got him into a corner, otherwise he would always rather run than fight. I remember one journey I had with two young Englishmen a few years ago; we went to shoot in Nordre Trondhjemsampt;—ah! you should go there if you want shooting. I never saw such a place for grouse of all kinds,—aye, and for deer too. Well, these Englishmen were always wanting to find a bear,—they would not be satisfied with the very best of sport, they kept saying that it would never do to come from Norway without having a bearskin to show their friends,—for all these Englishmen seem to think that bears are the common game of the country.”
“We shot deer and grouse as many as we pleased, but we did not so much as hear of a bear till we had given up shooting altogether, and were travelling home, which we did by the road through Ostersund, Hernösand, and Gefle. When we got to the post-house at Skalstuga, the first on the Swedish side of the mountains; early in the morning, long before it was light, the cow-boy came in crying, and said that a bear had just killed one of the cows. Off goes one of our Englishmen, half naked, with his gun in his hand, just as if he had nothing bigger to shoot than a hare. I caught up an axe that was lying there and ran after him. Up he comes, and stands right in the bear’s path, just as if he cared no more for him than for a big dog, and fires away two barrels right in his face. Lord! it was nothing but small shot, such as he had been shooting grouse with, and the bear came at him like Thor’s hammer. Just in the way, as luck would have it, stood a sapling fir-tree; and I never could tell whether the bear was blinded by the smoke, or whether some of the small shot had taken him about the eyes, but he seemed to take the tree for that which had hurt him, and he reared himself up against it, and shook it, and fixed his teeth in it, and shook it again, and seemed to mind nothing else, till I stole up quietly behind him and drove the axe into his skull. The Englishman never seemed to care a bit about the danger he had escaped; all he said was, ‘Got him at last!’ ‘That’s the ticket!’ and shoved into my hand more yellow and green notes than ever I saw there before or since; and, for all he was so free with his money, he went to the Länsman at Ostersund and got the bear’s nose sealed, and touched the Government reward for it, just like one of us, and then he tossed the money to me, and told me to get drunk upon it.”
“Which you did, I’ll be sworn,” said the Parson.
“I believe I did!” said Torkel; “I was not fairly sober for a good three days after it.”
“Hist! what is that,” said he, dropping, as he spoke, on the inside of the fence, and motioning the Parson to do so likewise.
A wolf came lolloping along with the slovenly gallop in which that disreputable beast usually travels, looking as if it had sat up all night drinking and was not quite sober yet. The Parson laid down his gun, and quietly taking his rifle from Torkel, cocked it, and lodged it upon an opening between the planks. The wolf had not seen them, but came shambling on, when, either scenting his enemies, or knowing by experience the ineligibility of a path near fences, he edged away towards the close covert, showing a portion of his ungainly side at a long shot, and though looking as if he were lame of all four legs at the same time, clearing the ground with his immense and untiring strides faster than any dog could have followed him.
Crack went the Parson’s rifle; but whether the wolf was hit, or whether he knew what a rifle-shot meant, or whether he so much as heard it, or saw the smoke, it was all the same; his course was not altered, his pace was neither relaxed nor quickened, he went lolloping on, just as when he was first seen, and, as much at his ease as ever, disappeared in the forest not a hundred yards from them.
“Missed him, by all that is unlucky!” said the Parson, jumping up.