§ 24
When Gaupa hung up his coffee-kettle over the fire he felt shivery after his cold bed. The kettle boiled, and he swallowed hastily four or five cupfuls of scalding-hot coffee. Then he noticed a strange pattern in the grounds at the bottom of the empty cup. The lines were funny, he thought, they made quite a picture.
He turned the cup round and round, and there was not much imagination needed to make those brown lines mean an elk lying on his back.
Then Gaupa smiled to Bjönn.
“We’ll have him before sundown. He lies here.”
A little later the fire under the rock wall was deserted, and while it was dying slowly the resinous smoke floated like a dark mist over the neighbouring bog.
Gaupa had not walked far when Bjönn rose on his hind legs and caught the open scent. He would not come down on all-fours for fear of losing it, and went on hopping on two legs several steps, and Gaupa swore prodigiously out of the joy in his heart. He loosed the leash, and let Bjönn storm into the mountains towards the pale-yellow sky of the dawn, from which a faint sheen fell on the snow.
The snow was crisp now after the night’s frost, and it crunched a little under each of Bjönn’s steps. A family of grouse flew up like a shower from some osier bushes, a cock grouse called “gak-gak,” and soon after the dog sang out farther east. Rauten had company once more.
Three hours later Gaupa was steaming with sweat. He passed unknown summer farms where the windows in the sun shone like fire. It was warm, for summer was still in the air. Winter lay on the ground prematurely born. The trees were dripping, the snow grew wet and heavy, crunching a little under Gaupa’s shoes. A young hare sniffed the snow which he had never seen till the day before, big brown eyes staring with wonder at the bewitched world.
The chase went on—and it was evening.