‘This was a very awkward place to shoot from, and I thought I could see my way to a better one much nearer, so tried it and found it was just possible, and after about a quarter of an hour’s worming, I arrived at a place only 100 yards from them. From this I could see both the does well, but only the head of the buck, and so had to lie there an hour waiting for him to get up. Both the does did so twice, offering beautiful shots, but he would not move, and they lay down again. I dare not whistle to make him jump up, for fear the does might possibly be in the way at the moment. So there I lay, miserably uncomfortable, with cramp in every muscle; and at last I tried to crawl to another stone about five yards away, from which I thought I could see to shoot at the buck. When I got to it and peered cautiously over, I was horrified to see the deer some distance away, and running as hard as they could towards a small glacier which was close to them.
‘Of course I instantly lost my head, and jumping up fired at the buck without much aim, and missed him. Then I recovered my senses and made a careful shot at the last doe, knocking her over like a rabbit. The other two were just then out of sight in a hollow, but they appeared directly going up the hill on the snow at a great speed; and getting a broadside shot at the buck I broke his shoulder; after this he went slowly, but still kept on up the hill, and when he was about three hundred yards away I fired two more shots, one of which hit him in the ribs, and the other cut one of his horns off. Then he gave up trying to mount the hill, and turned down towards the lake out of my sight. I ran as hard as I could across the shoulder of the glacier, and saw him standing down below me among the rocks close to the water, and sitting down I fired another shot which killed him.
‘This is not a creditable performance in the shooting line; but my solid bullets have a good deal to do with the matter: either of the first two shots would have stopped him at once if fired from an express with hollow-pointed bullets.
‘The doe is a barren one with a beautiful skin, and very fat, and the buck is the best we have killed at present this year, a four-year-old, what Öla calls a “litt stor bock” (little big buck), which I suppose is the next best thing to the mythical “meget stor bock,” whose footprints we are always seeing, but who carefully absenteth himself whensoever the jovial hunter goeth forth to pursue him.
‘We saw a great deal of fresh spoor to-day, so that we may hope the deer are beginning to come to our part of the country: perhaps the poor things have been very much bullied in other places. Anyhow, they won’t find any better country in Norway than where we went to-day; and the scenery there is glorious.’
Esau was so tired that he fell asleep once in the midst of his exciting narrative, and as dinner was very late we all turned in almost as soon as it was finished.