“Oh,” said Hans Holmen again, “it’s early rather than late. It is just about one o’clock.”
Gaupa waited. Full well he knew that Hans must have a very special reason for coming in the night like that.
Then Hans began to relate how he was fishing along the river. There was a dense thicket of bushes growing along the bank and he was well hidden. While he was baiting his hook an enormous animal came out of the undergrowth just to the south of him. At first he thought it was a horse, and wondered why it had no bell, and besides it was not quite the shape of a horse either. When the animal waded out into the river he saw it against the sky-line and recognised it as an elk of unusual size.
Hans Holmen went close up to Gaupa. He lowered his voice as if telling a secret.
“‘Twas the wizard elk I saw,” he said; “I saw the mark of your knife.”
He waited.
“Well,” he summed up the situation, “I thought I’d better tell you, when I saw the light in your window. That elk waded across the river and went up the other side, so now you know where to find his spoor.”
Hans Holmen left, and Gaupa closed the door. He remained for some seconds staring down on the floor, standing in his shirt and trousers.
But out on the high road Hans Holmen went straight homewards and not towards the river.
In Lynx Hut the petroleum lamp was still burning. Gaupa went to and fro slowly, busy as usual. He baked potato flap-jacks on his stove, filled the wooden butter cup, and made ready for a tramp with his knapsack, Bjönn, and “The Tempest.”