“After that the track came doubled and crooked, as if the old gentleman had been taking a view of the country, to see whether it would suit his purpose, before lying down for another nap,—so we had to work it out painfully, step by step. This was a slow job, for he had taken a turn to every point of the compass, and had crossed and re-crossed his own tracks, and had changed his mind so often, that the short winter’s day began to close, and we feared the light would fail; so we started right and left of the spot, and succeeded in ringing him before we met again.”
“What do you mean by ringing a bear?” said the Parson.
“Making a circle round his tracks,” said Torkel, “so as to be sure none lie beyond it; in that case you are independent of a thaw, for you know that the old gentleman must be within a certain space. When we met we agreed to leave our friend quiet, and to sleep till morning; so we cut down a tree or two, and got up a roaring fire in a little hollow to leeward, where we were sure the bear could not see our light or smell our smoke, and there we lay, snug and comfortable enough.
“No thaw or mischance of any kind had taken place during the night, and the next morning we were on the tracks again; for we had marked the place where we had left off, by setting up one of the poles in it.
“We soon got puzzled, however, and began to be very thankful that we had brought old Rig. Rig was a sharp fellow,—one of the quickest dogs I ever met with at picking up a scent, or taking a hint either; his namesake, when he watched at the gates of Asgard, could not have kept a brighter look-out. The ground soon got very tangled and sideling, so, as the ring was but a small one, we determined to give up the tracks, and to hunt for him with the dog.
“The old fellow was not long in getting a sniff at him, and made noise enough to wake up the Nornir in the cave of Hela. I pushed on, and before I could tell where I was, ran my skier one on each side a little hole in the snow, where the dog was baying,—a place that did not look big enough for a fox to get in. I could not very well turn, for the points of the skier were one on each side the trunk of a great twisted birch, at whose foot the hole was; and I could not see what was in the hole, the snow was so dazzling in the bright sunshine that everything else looked black. I began to think that Rig had got hold of nothing better than a fox, and was beginning to be angry with the dog for making such a row, and running the chance of giving our real game a hint to steal off. I was looking down between my skier, with my face as low as my knees, when all at once I felt the snow heaving up from under me, and over I rolled, head over heels, and old Fur Jacket with me, and Rig, who had pinned him as he bolted, on the top of us both.
“The old fellow was a great deal too much taken up with the dog to mind me; but before Nils could come up, or I could get my legs again, he had shaken him off, and was dashing through the deep snow at a rate that kicked it up in a white mist behind him.
“I had kept fast hold of my rifle, all through, and the snow had not done it a bit of harm; in fact, the frost was so sharp that it came out of the barrel like so much flour; and besides, we always cover our locks with tallow after loading. He had got pretty well out of shot before we were in chase, but for his sins he had taken down-hill, and the ground was pretty clear, so we slid along after him like Fenrir after the Sun;[63] when all at once, Nils, who had a little the best of the race, touched a stump with the point of his skie, and flew up into the air, pitching head foremost into the snow. It was, luckily for him, deep enough to save him from a broken head or neck—at least, so I found afterwards, for I had not time to stop then. As for the dog, he was a mile behind.
“Just at the bottom of the slope, I ran in upon the chase, and he turned short round when I was not half-a-dozen yards from him. I could no more stop than I could stop the lightning; so, setting my pole in the snow, I swerved a little, and just missed going over him, as Nils had done with the stump.
“By the time I had curved round, I found he had taken advantage of his chance, and was going up again, travelling three times as fast as I could hope to do, for skier are desperate bad things up-hill. However, mine had seal-skin upon them, luckily, for in our mountainous country we are obliged to do something to prevent slipping back; but, for all that, he was getting much the best of it, so I took a cool shot at him, and heard the ball strike just as if I had thrown it into a piece of dough, but he never winced, or took the least notice.