He stroked his eyes with his finger and looked again.
An elk was standing on the bog between the pasture and the lake, asleep or listening.
Gaupa wondered whether he was losing his senses or beginning to see visions.
Once more his hand touched his eyelids, and he felt how weak and limp his arm was. He turned his head. There was Bjönn, whining and scratching at the door, so the fever had not quite mastered him. There was his rifle, “the Tempest,” leaning against the wall. It had the same flashing steel trigger as always, and he saw the elk’s head which he himself had carved on the butt. These could not be mere visions. He was quite in his senses, and there was an elk down there on the bog.
He threw off the sheepskin rugs, stepped out of the bed, leaning on the bedpost. He was no longer the Lynx, the man of muscles and sinews—no, he was a staggering uncertain thing, bereft of his strength. His head throbbed as if a thousand little animals were trying to break out through his skull. His chest was too small, and he drew in air in short laboured gasps....
Gaupa somehow managed to get across the floor and seize “the Tempest.” How delightfully cool the steel felt to his hot palms!
After a while he reached the window and stared out. The elk remained immovable, looking northwards towards the Big Bear which unceasingly runs along its azure path in the sky.
Then Gaupa pushed the muzzle of his gun straight through the window-pane. A crisp clang of breaking glass followed, some pieces falling on the window-sill, others on the floor.
Dead silence reigned in the hut once more. The dog stood erect beside the man, his ears cocked, trembling with excitement, waiting for the shot.
Gaupa crouched, his knees bent, his chin pressed against the butt. How nice and cool it felt! He took aim, and when his eye caught the shining sight on the muzzle a calm relief seemed to fill his body, killing the fever....