Mr. and Mrs. Thomas and Miss A—— all spoke English well, but their friend young F—— could neither speak it nor understand it: however, he wished to be genial and polite, and replied ‘Oh yase, tank you,’ whenever any remark was made to him. In consequence of this amiable trait, John, who thought he could talk our language as well as the others, supplied him with beer, whisky and water, tea, soup, and marmalade all at the same time, to each of which articles when offered he had replied ‘Oh yase, tank you.’ This made a sad run on our limited supply of crockery.
Lunch ended, the Skipper volunteered as usual to take the party one by one for a cruise in his canoe. This with the ordinary English lady would be a matter of considerable risk, but all Norwegians—ladies as well as men—are accustomed to boats, and very nearly all of them can swim. But the trip was quite dangerous enough, for both the ladies insisted on kneeling in the right position and paddling themselves, and there was a good sea on, with a distant threatening storm. While Mrs. Thomas was pursuing her adventurous career, her husband danced on the bank after the manner of a hen with ducklings crying, ‘Come back! come back! you go too far out!’ but we grieve to record that she did not care a little bit, and was so delighted with the canoe that the Skipper had some difficulty in persuading her to return. May she live long to paddle that canoe, for it now belongs to her.
About four o’clock the call came to an end, and our friends departed over the mountain to Rus Vand, at the west end of which they expected to meet their boat. Before going they made us promise to go and see them next Tuesday, and will send a boat to convey us down the lake.
Soon after six Esau came into camp in an offensively jaunty manner, followed by Öla with the heads and skins, and what the lawyers call the appurts, to wit, the heart, kidneys, feet, and liver of two reindeer bucks. Then was there great rejoicing in that little colony, and dinner was served and disposed of with light hearts, even the neglected wimberry tart being a complete success, for owing to its gigantic size, its long baking in a cooling oven had not been too much for it, and it was finished to the last crumb of paste and spoonful of juice.
Our custom is, when a man returns with deer, that he shall lie on the sheepskin of indolence if so disposed, while the other fellows prepare dinner; and after the meal is finished and men are beginning to lean back and fill their pipes, he is expected to relate his adventures without interruption; after this he is never to refer to them again unless specially requested. Now for Esau’s story.
‘We went on to Memurutungen and began to find fresh tracks and signs of deer almost directly, so were on the tiptoe of expectation all the morning. About midday Öla found two deer on a small patch of snow, five or six miles from camp, in a very favourable place for approaching them, with the wind as right as it could be. We made a lovely stalk; but when after an hour’s creeping we got to the spot, we were just in time to see them disappear, slowly feeding over the hill. We followed as fast as possible, and soon came in sight of them again, for as the deer always feed against the wind there is no danger of alarming them by following on their tracks. A few minutes of breathless crawling like serpents, and we were within 100 yards, nearer than I ever got to reindeer before. One of them soon gave me a nice side shot, and when I fired he almost fell, but recovered himself, and they both ran down the hill towards a little glacier. I fired again at him and missed; and then ran as hard as I could towards the glacier, cramming in cartridges as I ran. They were both out of sight for a moment behind some rocks, and then the unwounded one came into view again, and I had a nice shot at him at about 150 yards, and was lucky enough to send a bullet just above his heart, which killed him instantly at the edge of the glacier.
