"Have you been fishing, Tronberg?" he shouted when the head of the subaltern's "Rauen" appeared nodding down in the steep path. "Trout! Caught to-day?"
"This morning, Captain."
The captain took up the string and looked at the gills. "Yes, they are to-day's."
The subaltern took off his hat, and dried his forehead and head. "One could easily have fried the fish on the rocky wall in the whole of that pan of a valley over there that I came through," Tronberg said.
"Fine fish. See that, Grip,—weighs at least three pounds."
"Goodness sake, the young lady here!" exclaimed the subaltern, involuntarily bringing himself up to a salute when Inger-Johanna turned her horse round and looked at the shiny speckled fish which hung on the pack-saddle.
But old Lars Opidalen, the one who had asked for the survey, gently passed his coarse hand over hers, while he counted the trout on the willow branch. "Can such also be of the earth?" he said, quietly wondering.
"Help the young lady, Lars, while she dismounts: it is not well to ride any longer on this smooth bare rock."
The path ascended, steeper and steeper, with occasional marshy breathing places in between—it was often entirely lost in the gray mountain.