“No,” said the Parson, “you are none of you clever enough to forge—the Norges Bank’s Representativ is quite safe in such clumsy hands as yours.”
“There he sits, just in that fork close to the trunk,” said Torkel, who, if he had not, as the Parson insinuated, skill enough in his fingers to forge a note, had quickness enough in his eyes to see through a log of timber, if a bear had been hiding behind it. “There is young Innocence! Oh! do not spoil his skin with that small shot. Here is the rifle. Put the ball in under his ear,—that will not hurt him.”
It did not seem to hurt him, in good truth, for he never moved an inch on receiving the shot, though the blood dripping down the tree showed that the ball had reached its mark. The cub remained perfectly dead, but supported by the fork in which he was sitting.
“What is to be done now?” said the Parson; “I do not see how to get him down, for the trunk is too big to swarm up, and we have not a branch for twenty feet; but it will never do to leave him there.”
“Leave him!” said Torkel; “O no! that would never do. I think we may get up into that tree, though, with a little management.”
There was growing, within a few yards of the great tree which the bear had selected, a small thin weed of a fir, which, coming up in the shade, had stretched itself out into a long branchless pole with a bunch of green at the top, in its legitimate aspirations after light and air. Torkel, disengaging the axe which he usually carried at his back, notched it on the nearer side, and then, seeing its inclination would carry it to the great tree on which the cub was hanging, cut vigorously. In a minute or two the little fir sank quietly into the yielding arms of his great neighbour, and formed with its trunk a rough ladder. Up this Torkel, having paused for a moment to see if it had finally settled, climbed as readily as any bear in the forest. He was soon seen worming himself through the spreading branches, and slipping down to the fork; and the little lump of bear’s fat, about the size of a two-year-old hog, came squashing down upon the turf.
Small as it was for a bear, it was impossible to carry it; so they tied its hind legs together, and hung it upon one of the dead trees in the open, the Parson having first pinned upon its snout a leaf which he had torn out of his note-book, and had written Torkel’s name upon it.
Torkel, however, was mistaken about his share of the yellow notes, though the Parson did not suffer him to lose by it. Every bear killed in a skal is the property of the Ofwer Jagmästere; a regulation which is found to be absolutely necessary, in order to prevent men from breaking their ranks and hunting the likely places independently,—a proceeding which would ensure the loss of every bear except the particular animal which was the object of immediate pursuit. Of this Torkel was not aware, because in Norway skals such as this seldom or never take place, not only because the ground is generally too difficult, but principally because the inhabitants are too widely scattered to be easily collected in sufficient numbers, and a great deal too lawless to be managed if they could.
With all the complacency which the consciousness of having done a good action confers, they proceeded on their journey, which, as their course happened to lie lengthways of the opening, was easy enough. Hot, and the least little bit in the world fatigued, they sauntered along on the shady side of the glade, till they began to discover that the whole country had become shady, and that a little sun, if it was to be had, would be just as pleasant. In fact, it had become extremely chilly.
“There goes Thor’s hammer,” said Torkel, as a crash of thunder burst over their heads, echoing from tree to tree; “we need not fear the Trolls now, every one of them is half-way to the centre of the earth by this time.”