Gaupa stopped to make sure of the movement of the air.... He was in luck, it was straight against him. He could see it in the flying snow. But it would soon clear up. The flakes were restless, flying about like gnats, not falling quietly. That was a sure sign of approaching clear weather.
Gaupa followed a small spruce-grown gully in the slope, and just in front of him, very close now, stood Bjönn holding the wizard elk in check. To Gaupa stealing downwards, the forest grew alive, every tree listened for the dog’s barking, he felt as if on the point of discovering a wonderful secret.
He could not see the animals and heard only one, though he knew there were two. He stopped to look round for cover, and observed something strange about his hands. He stood petrified looking at them, he did not recognise them as his own. They were trembling now, however much he willed them not to do—trembling in spite of himself.
Then he felt a slight shiver in his whole body, something he could not control—and a cool feeling across the lower part of his body. The hunter’s shivers! he thought.
“Wow!” was heard from below, and then a sudden silence. Gaupa held his breath, waiting for the next bark. Surely he could not have frightened him? The wind could not have turned, taking his scent with it to those sensitive nostrils?... Then the barking started again, Rauten was still standing—like a rock.
Gaupa could not rid himself of this inexplicable trembling, and he could not shoot while it lasted. He was no longer the master of his own body, he was not the real Gaupa any more. The real Gaupa had never shivered before an elk—the devil he hadn’t!
Now he really had to be calm. For ten hours dog and man had been hard at work. At last they were at their goal, nearly near enough to touch it, and his hand trembled; he might make a false movement, and the goal might once more dart away to unknown distances.
He knelt down, filled his hands with snow and held it to his skull. It cooled first, then felt too cold.
Bjönn suddenly gave the angry bark which tokened that his prey was escaping, the bark so well known to Gaupa that the sound of it raised anger within him....
Escaped again!