After a while Gaupa nodded drowsily as he sat by the tree-trunk, but he felt so cold that he was wide awake again in no time, and then he heard somewhere a horse’s bell. He turned his head here and there, and the horse’s bell was to be heard from every direction. But it was impossible that there should be a horse’s bell at that time of the year; nobody put bells on a horse in the summer. He happened to take out his watch, and the horse bell suddenly sounded much louder and nearer. Then he understood that what he had been listening to was the tiny tink-tink of his own watch. It was ten o’clock.
A little later something trod softly in the darkness—very softly. He turned and the tread grew alive, became something tangible which was Bjönn. The dog came close up to him and laid his head on his master’s knee; and Gaupa embraced him, whispering fond words into his ear. Bjönn licked his master’s face and he let him do so. Then he fed him from his sack, gave him much food, whispering and prattling with the beast all the time, telling him that Bjönn must be a clever dog and hold Rauten till either the moon or daylight came, and then “The Tempest” should sing.
But Bjönn did not stay long with Gaupa; he wagged his tail a little, and trotted a few steps away from him. Then he seemed to remember something he had forgotten, went back, sniffed Gaupa’s beard and pressed his cold, wet nose close to his cheek. Then he disappeared in the darkness; there was a sound of rustling among the spruce branches, and then the brook was once more the only living thing Gaupa could hear or see.
He thought of Bjönn’s strange behaviour, how he came back to nose his beard. And he remembered the night before he left Lynx Hut, when he was remelting the Swede’s Bullet, how strangely Bjönn stared at him, whimpering as if in the full knowledge of something evil.... However, such things were not worth noticing.
Rauten had not moved the length of a mouse while Bjönn was away.
Then the dog began to walk stiffly in front of the elk, barking once or twice, and Rauten’s peace was broken. He got on to his forelegs, rose and stood still. Bjönn became eager, for he knew that Gaupa was close by, and he could not understand that it was difficult for his master to shoot in complete darkness.
Gaupa heard the sharp crack of a twig, then another. “There goes Rauten,” he thought.
A little later he heard the antlers striking a tree-trunk, and the dog’s bark came nearer, eager and aggressive. “There is the elk coming,” he thought.
Over him the branches hung like a wide-meshed net, a faint light from the sky penetrating it. But the under-bush was so black that he saw the trees only like vague shadows and in there the wizard elk was coming. Listen! how the antlers rustle among the spruce needles with a dry swishing sound, as when you sweep the floor of the hut with a broom!
Gaupa did not stir, but clasped his hands round his gun in trembling excitement. He sat immovable like an animal in its night lair, his eyes burning as if they would burn a hole in the darkness enveloping him.