Too soon evening put an end to our sport, and when the last rays of the setting sun had tinted the distant snow with a delicate pink hue which lingered, paled, and faded as the cold silvery light of the moon began to assert its sway, the keen air drove us home, and made us content to enjoy from the hut door the lovely clear night which succeeded so bright a day.
[CHAPTER XXXII.]
A LAST STALK.
September 16.—
The morning did not belie its fair promise, but opened as brightly as the most exacting hunter could require.
Esau and Jens made a last laborious and fruitless stalk, trying not only the whole Rus Valley, but crossing the mountains northwards into Veodalen and traversing all the slopes of Glitretind, a most splendid sight just now with his towering pyramid, 8,140 feet high. Such a walk would have been impossible but for the snow, which had been reduced by the wind to the consistence of hard sand, and made the going as good as it could be.
Esau, who saw nothing all day, was a little annoyed on his return to hear that John had wandered but a short distance up Nautgardstind to gloat over the view, and there walked almost into a reindeer buck; which, as John was armed with no more deadly weapon than a double-barrelled field glass, had escaped uninjured. ’Twas ever thus.