Rauten’s skin was wet with sweat, and under his belly, on his flanks, flakes of foam boiled as if on a fleeing horse. And still his muscles sang their mad song, and again the three-year-old saw suns and stars. He staggered, retreated to the edge of the bog, sank on his knees, but rose at once. He had fought and lost, he had become a smaller beast in the woods. He was giving in, only he did not want to turn round and run away until he was obliged to do so.
At the edge of the bog the unexpected happened. A little hill runs down there, and a high stump of a tree stood close beside a spruce. The stump was about the same height as an elk, and it looked as if a storm had once felled a spruce. The younger bull retreated towards this stump, and without giving warning Rauten ran his antlers under him. Then he made a mighty effort which will not soon be forgotten in the Bog Hill forest. The three-year-old was raised on end, stood for a second on his hind legs, was pushed over and fell down on his back—between the tall stump and its neighbour the spruce tree, and was wedged in securely between them, fast as if in a vice.
Rauten stood with head uplifted looking at his helpless foe whose legs uselessly beat the empty air. Rauten wanted to use his antlers again, to kill, but he could not reach. The younger bull’s legs worked like a windmill, and a blow from them would hurt. Rauten remained there a long time, the youngster on his back, mouth wide open, steaming.
Then the cow joined him, and Rauten went to meet her. The storm within him calmed down. For the cow began to lick him, and her tongue was soft, so caressingly soft. His shoulder blazed red like the sunrise, and his neck wept warm tears on to the moist earth. Every touch of the cow’s tongue was a reward, humble admiration of him only—the greatest and the strongest among the elk bulls of valley or mountains, the crowned king of elks in Ré Valley. Nothing could stand up before him. He broke down everything before him like a falling tree in the bushes. He trotted southwards with the cow by his side across Bog Hill, like Victory itself, even though one ear was but half a one, and his body wept blood. Round their legs the white heads of the bog down-grass moved like fat white birds, while the elks ploughed their way, dark grey under the sloping rays of the newly-risen sun.
The three-year-old lay on his back all the morning, wedged in between the stump and the tree-trunk.
There was no possible means of getting out again. He could not turn, the space was too narrow, and his legs could get no hold in the empty air. He worked till he grew weak. Then he lay still, knees bent heavenwards as if he were praying to the sun for help. His tongue lolled limply out of one corner of his mouth, and the sun burned his face pitilessly. Then he shut his eyes.
§ 8
That same day in the afternoon Bjönn from Lynx Hut was following an elk spoor southwards through Ré Valley.
Bjönn ran quickly, nose to earth. He crossed wide marshes and small bogs where the dwarfed pines spread their wide, flat crowns like noses. He crossed ridges and valleys, and at last his course went towards Bog Hill.