§ 25
It was night, the third night since Rauten left Owl Glen.
He was lying in a brook in Ré Valley, on Bog Hill where once he fought the three-year-old. On all-fours he was lying in the brook, the water unceasingly licking his stiff limbs, and Rauten enjoyed the refreshing coolness. Once he bent his head to drink, his flanks hollowing.
Before him on the bank of the brook lay Bjönn. He did not say anything, having barked enough throughout the day. It was quite dark, the moon not yet being up and the snow having been thawed on that sun-exposed slope so that no light was reflected by the snow either. Only the silver bark of a birch gleamed faintly among the dense spruce woods.
A good stone’s throw farther south on the slope Gaupa sat, his back against a tree-trunk. His pack lay at his side and his rifle across his knees. Inside it rested a cartridge containing the Swede’s Bullet.
Gaupa felt exceedingly cold, for he was wet with perspiration when he sat down, and now he felt as if he were wrapped up in icy-cold sheets. He beat his arms across each other, carefully so as not to make a noise, and sat on.
In the dusk he had reached Black Mountain and heard Bjönn baying on Bog Hill, but darkness came before he reached him, and he could not discern the sights of “The Tempest” except against the sky.
When he came to the spruce where he was sitting now he heard Bjönn’s last bark, and understood from it that the elk was not running, for the barking sounded so feeble.
Rauten and Bjönn were presumably somewhere in that brook, and if he knew Bjönn he would not leave the elk that night. But when the sun rose over the eastern ridges and lit up Ré Valley, then Gaupa would steal forth, as soon as he could make sure where Rauten was standing. The brook in the hollow murmured unceasingly.