The Modern Vikings: Stories of Life and Sport in the Norseland

by Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

Crouching down among the lichen-clad rocks, all listened in eager expectation.

“Down!” whispered Bjarne, “and cock rifles! A pair of antlers agin the snow! Hallo! it is as I thought—a big herd. One, two, three—five—seven—ten—fourteen! One stunnin’ buck, worth his forty dollars at least. Now follow me slowly. Look out for your guns! You, Grim, keep the dog muzzled.”

The boys strained their eyes above the edge of the stones, but could see nothing. Their hearts hammered against their sides, and the blood throbbed in their temples. As far as their eyes could reach they saw only the gray waste of bowlders, interrupted here and there by patches of snow or a white glacier-stream, which plunged wildly over a precipice, while a hovering moke indicated its further progress through the plain. Nevertheless, trusting the experience of their leader, they made no remark, but crept after him, choosing like him every available stone for cover. After half an hour of this laborious exercise, Bjarne suddenly stretched himself flat upon the ground, and the others, though seeing no occasion for such a manœuvre, promptly followed his example. But the next moment enlightened them. Looming up against the white snow, some sixty or a hundred feet from them, they saw a magnificent pair of antlers, and presently the whole body of a proud animal was distinctly visible against the glacier. In the ravine below a dozen or more cows with their calves were nibbling the moss between the stones, but with great deliberateness, lifting their heads every minute and snuffing the air suspiciously; they presently climbed up on the hard snow and began a frolic, the like of which the boys had never seen before. The great buck raised himself on his hind-legs, shook his head, and made a leap, kicking the snow about him with great vehemence. Several of the cows took this as an invitation for a general jollification, and they began to frisk about, kicking their heels against the sky and shaking their heads, not with the wanton grace of their chief, but with half-pathetic attempts at imitation. This, Magnus thought, was evidently a reindeer ball; and very sensible they were to have it early in the morning, when they felt gay and frisky, rather than in the night, when they ought to be asleep. What troubled him, however, was that Bjarne did not shoot; he himself did not venture to send a bullet into the big buck, although it seemed to him he had an excellent aim. The slightest turn in the wind would inevitably betray them, and then they would have had all their toil for nothing. He would have liked to suggest this to Bjarne; but in order to do this, he would have to overtake him, and Bjarne was still wriggling himself cautiously forward among the stones, pushing himself on with his elbows, as a seal does with his flippers. In his eagerness to impart his counsel to Bjarne, Magnus began to move more rapidly; raising himself on his knees he quite inadvertently showed his curly head above a bowlder. The buck lifted his superb head with a snort, and with incredible speed the whole herd galloped away; but in the same moment two bullets whistled after them, and the buck fell flat upon the snow. The cow which had stood nearest to him reared on her hind-legs, made a great leap, and plunged headlong down among the stones. With a wild war-whoop, the boys jumped up, and Magnus, who had come near ruining the whole sport, seized, in order to make up for his mishap, a long hunting-knife and rushed forward to give the buck the coup-de-grace,[9] in accordance with the rules of the chase. Bounding forward with reckless disregard of all obstacles, he was the first down on the snow. In one instant he was astride of the animal, and had just raised his knife, when up leaped the buck and tore away along the edge of the snow like a gust of wind. The long-range shot, hitting him in the head, had only stunned him, but had not penetrated the skull. And, what was worse, in his bewilderment at the unexpected manœuvre, Magnus dropped his knife, seizing instinctively the horns of the reindeer to keep from falling. Away they went with a terrific dizzying speed. The frightened boy clung convulsively to the great antlers; if he should fall off, his head would be crushed against the bowlders. The cold glacier-wind whistled in his ears, and stung his face like a multitude of tiny needles. He had to turn his head in order to catch his breath; and he strained his eyes to see if anything was being done by his companions for his rescue. But he could see nothing except a great expanse of gray and white lines, which ran into each other and climbed and undulated toward him and sloped away, but seemed associated with no tangible object. He thought, for a moment, that he saw Grim Hering-Luck aiming his gun, but he seemed to be up in the sky, and to be growing huger and huger until he looked more like a fantastic cloud than a man. The thought suddenly struck him that he might be fainting, and it sent a thrill of horror through him. With a vehement effort he mastered his fear and resolved that, whatever happened, he would not give way to weakness. If he was to lose his life, he would, at all events, make a hard fight for it; it was, on the whole, quite a valuable life, he concluded, and he did not mean to sell it cheaply.

Troubling himself little about the direction his steed was taking, he shut his eyes, and began to meditate upon his chances of escape; and after some minutes, he was forced to admit that they seemed very slim. When the buck should have exhausted his strength, as in the course of time he must, he would leave his rider somewhere in this vast trackless wilderness, where the biting wind swept down from the eternal peaks of ice, where wolves roamed about in great hungry companies, and where, beside them, the reindeer and the ptarmigan were the only living things amid the universal desolation. When he opened his eyes again, Magnus discovered that the buck had overtaken the fleeing herd, which, however, were tearing away madly at his approach, being evidently frightened at the sight and the scent of the unfamiliar rider. The animal was still galloping on, though with a less dizzying rapidity, and Magnus could distinguish the general outline of the objects which seemed to be rushing against him, as if running a race in the opposite direction. The herd were evidently betaking themselves into the upper glacier region, where no foot less light and swift than theirs could find safety among the terrible ravines and crevasses.

Fully an hour had passed, possibly two, and it seemed vain to attempt to measure the distance which he had passed over in this time. At all events, the region did not present one familiar object, and of Olaf and his companions Magnie saw no trace. The only question was, what chance had they of finding him, if they undertook to search for him, as, of course, they would. If he could only leave some sign or mark by which they might know the direction he had taken, their search might perhaps be rewarded with success. He put one hand in his pocket, but could find nothing that he could spare except a red silk handkerchief. That had the advantage of being bright, and would be sure to attract attention. The dog would be likely to detect it or to catch the scent of it. But he must have something heavy to tie up in the handkerchief, or it might blow “all over creation.” The only thing he could find was a silver matchbox which he had obtained by a trade with Olaf, and which bore the latter’s initials. He carefully emptied it, and put the matches (which he foresaw might prove useful) in his vest-pocket; then tied up the box securely and dropped it, with the handkerchief, upon a conspicuous rock, where its bright color might appear striking and unnatural. He was just on the ridge of what proved to be a second and higher mountain plateau, the wild grandeur of which far transcended that of the first. Before him lay a large sheet of water of a cool green tint, and so clear that the bottom was visible as far as the eye could reach. A river had made its way from the end of this lake and plunged, in a series of short cataracts, down the slope to the lower plain.

It made Magnus shiver with dread to look at this coldly glittering surface, and what was his horror when suddenly his reindeer, in his pursuit of the herd, which were already in the water, rushed in, and began, with loud snorts, to swim across to the farther shore! This was an unforeseen stratagem which extinguished his last hope of rescue; for how could Bjarne track him through the water, and what means would he find of crossing, in case he should guess that the herd had played this dangerous trick on him? He began to dread also that the endurance of the buck would be exhausted before he reached dry land again, and that they might both perish miserably in the lake. In this horrible distress nothing occurred to him except to whisper the Lord’s Prayer; but as his terror increased, his voice grew louder and louder, until he fairly shouted the words, “And deliver us from evil,” and the echoes from the vast solitudes repeated, first clearly and loudly, then with fainter and fainter accents: “And deliver us from evil—and deliver us from evil.” His despairing voice rang strangely under the great empty sky, and rumbled among the glaciers, which flung it back and forth until it died away in the blue distance. It was as if the vast silent wilderness, startled at the sound of a human voice, were wonderingly repeating the strange and solemn words.

A vague sense of security stole over him when he had finished his prayer. But the chill of the icy water had nearly benumbed his limbs, and he feared that the loss of heat would conquer his will, and make him unconscious before the buck should reach the shore. He felt distinctly his strength ebbing away, and he knew of nothing that he could do to save himself. Then suddenly a daring thought flashed through his brain. With slow and cautious movements he drew his legs out of the water, and, standing for a moment erect on the buck’s back, he crawled along his neck and climbed up on the great antlers, steadying himself carefully and clinging with all his might. His only fear was that the animal would shake him off and send him headlong into the icy bath from which he was endeavoring to escape. But, after two futile efforts, during which the boy had held on only by desperate exertion, the buck would probably have resigned himself to his fate, if he had not been in imminent danger of drowning. Magnus was, therefore, much against his will, forced to dip his limbs into the chilly water, and resume his former position. It was a strange spectacle, to see all the horned heads round about sticking out of the water, and Magnus, though he had always had a thirst for adventures, had never expected to find himself in such an incredible situation. Fortunately, they were now approaching the shore, and whatever comfort there was in having terra firma under his feet would not be wanting to him. The last minutes were indeed terribly long, and again and again the buck, overcome with fatigue, dipped his nose under the water, only to raise it again with a snort, and shake his head as if impatient to rid himself of his burden. But the boy, with a spark of reviving hope, clung only the more tenaciously to the antlers, and remained unmoved.

At last—and it seemed a small eternity since he had left his brother and companions—Magnus saw the herd scramble up on the stony beach. The buck he rode was soon among the foremost, and, having reached the land, shook his great body and snorted violently.

“Now’s my chance,” thought Magnus; “now I can slide off into the snow before he takes to his heels again.”

But, odd as it may seem, he had a reluctance to part company with the only living creature (except the wolves) that inhabited this awful desert. There was a vague chance of keeping from freezing to death as long as he clung to the large, warm animal; while, seated alone upon this bleak shore, with his clothes wringing wet, and the cold breath of the glacier sweeping down upon him, he would die slowly and miserably with hunger and cold. He was just contemplating this prospect, seeing himself in spirit lying dead upon the shore of the lake, and picturing to himself the grief of his brother and father, when suddenly his glance was arrested by what seemed a faint column of smoke rising from among the bowlders. The herd of reindeer had evidently made the same discovery, for they paused, in a startled manner, and wheeled about toward the easterly shore, past which a branch of the glacier was pushing downward into the lower fiord-valley.