CHAPTER XXIX.

RUS VAND.

_September 8._--This morning we crossed the fjeld to Rus Vand in a gale of wind. Waving a 'Farvel' to the kindly folk at Besse Sæter, we have a stiff climb up by the side of the torrent which comes gadareneing[*] down from Bes Lake, high above our heads, and presently we stand on the open fjeld above the sæter. Below lie the green waters and birch-clad banks of Sjödals Lake; far away to the east the great fall and larger trees that mark the outlet of the lake; and still further, glimpses of lower Sjödals Lake, with its forests of pine, haunt of the black game and capercailzie. But we cannot stand long to look, for the side of a Norwegian mountain, though eminently suited to hurricanes, is extremely _un_suitable for human beings while the stormy winds do blow. En avant, Messieurs, en avant! and we fight our way across the flat top to the opposite brow. Here we must pause, though Æolus himself say nay. 'What a glorious sight!' Straight in front, the cloud-girt peak of Nautgardstind, all glistening white with newly fallen snow, but of him only the top can be seen; his middle is hidden by a never-ending rush of scudding clouds. Higher still and westward the jagged summits of Tyknings Hö and Memurutind, also pure white where the snow can lie, but with huge black lines and chasms where the steep rocky face stands up gaunt and repellent, so sheer that snow can never lodge; nearer the tremendous mass of Bes Hö frowns above us; and far below in front the Russen River winds its way through barren rocks and patches of willow, to warmer and more hospitable regions, leaving with a leap of joy the cold storm-rocked Rus Lake, which has been its cradle since its birth in the mighty glaciers around.

[Footnote: Gadareneing, _i.e._ rushing violently down a steep place.]

Such was the scene lying before us on the north side of the mountain, grand beyond description, perhaps the finest in Norway, but not exactly inviting to shivering hungry mortals, so not much time was spent on it. Down we went, with the wind worse than on the other side, howling past our ears and screeching in the gun-barrels, and at last arrived at the lake to find Jens hauling for his life at the boat which, though filled with water by the breakers, had fortunately not been battered to pieces on the rocky strand. He had left it dragged up on the beach out of the water, but the sea had increased so much in his absence, that if we had been a little later it would without doubt have been smashed.

However, we soon baled her out, and with Öla as Charon commenced the passage. Rusvasoset, as the outlet is called, is not more than 60 yards across, but the waves had had seven miles of very open water to get up in, and they came rolling down to this end in a very alarming manner. With great difficulty we shoved off, and then with Öla sculling his hardest, and the Skipper keeping our head to wind, we at last got safe across with no mishap but the loss of Öla's hat and a thorough ducking for all of us.

Öla was very sorrowful about his hat, which was of pure Leghorn straw, double seamed, extra quality lining; and being further embellished with a black braid ribbon, it was a great source of pride to him; but we mocked when it flew away, and are inclined to bear its departure with equanimity, and hope it will be accepted as a propitiatory offering by the angry Lady of the Lake.

All the things were at last safely housed, and we soon made ourselves comfortable in our new abode, which is luxury itself in this weather when compared with a tent.

There are two huts, one by the edge of the lake, the other about 20 yards away, and it is the latter which we occupy. We enter by a door about five feet high, invariably knocking our heads against the lintel and swearing as we do so. The first room is about nine feet square, with a narrow dresser under the solitary window on the left, and an iron cooking stove in the nearest corner to the right, the more remote one being tenanted by a bed. Round the room at various heights are shelves and hooks adorned by cooking utensils of all kinds, very kindly left for us by their worthy owners; two or three stools complete the furniture; and on the floor are to be seen carved the effigies of departed trout of fabulous weight, with dates and the initials of their captors. Passing on through a still smaller doorway we find ourselves in another room of the same size, but with three beds instead of one, and an open Norwegian fireplace; the same kind of pegs and shelves, and hooks for guns on the wall; more profile fishes, and walls covered with records in pencil of game killed by former inhabitants, with occasional amusing notes. This is our dining, drawing, and bed room; the other is only used as kitchen.

The men's hut near the water is also divided into two rooms: the outer and much larger compartment is used as a cellar, larder, and general store-room, and presents, to say the least of it, a somewhat untidy appearance, as bottles, barrels, and boards, a grindstone, reindeer bones, a saw, a side-saddle, and old nets are piled together without any attempt at order. The inner room is very small, about nine feet by four, and there our two men sleep; and there also is a large oven built of stone, and heated by a fire inside it. As we had no bread, we proceeded to bake, and our ignorance of the manners and customs of this oven caused the bread to have a terribly trying time of it; for we did not make it hot enough at the first attempt, and the bread was left lying on the top covered by a cloth for over an hour while the oven was being heated a second time.

All's well that ends well, and this batch of rolls turned out the very best that frail man ever tasted, and consequently at supper we ate enough bread and butter and jam to supply a school feast of the hungriest description.

While the Skipper and John attended to the loaves Esau looked after the fishes, and very soon got a nice dish of half-pounders in the river. As he came back something in the middle of the stream caught his eye. 'It is, yet it can't be--yes, by George, it is, Öla's hat!' wedged in between two rocks, and slightly out of shape, but with the double-seamed, extra quality lining uninjured, and the pure Leghorn straw in very fair condition. The effusion with which Öla received it was a sight to be seen, but no one else exhibited much enthusiasm.

An inventory of our remaining stores reveals the fact that we have heaps of everything except coffee and bacon, which can only last about a week longer. In view of this happy state of things the Skipper proposed to spend a week of wild and reckless profusion and sinful extravagance.

Esau at once pictured himself seated on a grassy slope giving way to Epicurean indulgence, surrounded by three untouched pots of jam, and eating from a fourth with a table-spoon; at his side a cup of tea blacker than ink, and flavoured with condensed milk thicker than cream, while he flipped lumps of sugar into the water instead of pebbles, and commanded Öla to sand the floor of the hut with pepper.

John suggested as an amendment that we should make some exception to show that we possess the power of self-denial. 'Let us,' said he, 'deny ourselves in some one thing. Not in luxuries, which are getting scarce; in that there would be no merit. No; rather let us exercise our virtue in respect of what we have in the greatest abundance, and thereby show a great and shining example to the world. Let us abstain entirely from water.' (He had ascertained that there was plenty of whisky.)

Esau rose to oppose the remarks of the honourable gentleman. 'Such self-denial would be a good action, but the constant performance of virtuous actions tends to make one haughty. I dare say you fellows don't know this, but I do, because I've tried it. I prefer to be wicked and humble.'

The motion was not pressed to a division.

We are well provided with all kinds of food, for we found in the larder a shoulder of venison, and we have any amount of ryper, which, as John says, 'will save our bacon, though they could not save their own;' and so with a comfortable hut to live in, a river full of fish at our door, and a blazing fire to sit round, life assumes a rosy hue, and we go to sleep in real beds with bright hopes of the future.

The Skipper was heard to murmur as he turned over to sleep, 'I say, what bread that is! When I get home I shall publish a pamphlet, and teach all the world to bake like that.'

It is rather rough on the Skipper's pamphlet to publish his recipe here, but this is copied from his journal:--

'Take dough in large quantities and place it on a tin. Heat the oven till you are sick to death of piling on wood. Smoke a pipe, and remove the ashes. Place the dough in the oven, and leave home for an indefinite period. If you ever return, remove the decomposed particles, and let them get warm in the sun, or else freeze in the snow, it really don't matter a bit. Now heat the oven and recommit them. Brood over the oven exhibiting the tenderest solicitude. They will soon be done, and perhaps will be good, perhaps not; nobody can tell.'

_September 9._--Last night was very cold, and this morning there was ice on the lake, and the bilge-water in the boat was frozen solid. Esau and Jens went up the lake in the boat to stalk, and the Skipper accompanied them to fish, while John fished nearer home.

About six o'clock the boat was seen returning loaded with the head and skin of a very fine buck, and Esau gave us his history thus:--

'As soon as we landed halfway up the lake we found the spoor of two very large bucks and a smaller one which had swum across the lake in the night. They seemed to have gone towards the Tyknings glacier, so we went in that direction also. The wind was as bad as it could be in that valley, for we were obliged to walk exactly with it at first instead of against it, in order to get round a sufficiently large piece of country, and then work back against the wind. We walked a couple of miles without seeing anything, and at last got close to the Tyknings glacier and the iceberg lake at its foot. You know that lake well enough, Skipper, full of lumps of ice, some of them as big as this hut, which keep breaking off from the projecting glacier as it slides down; and I dare say you remember what an awful deathly stillness reigns there and what a dismal sight the lake is, cold and black under the shade of the crags which close in its sides.

'Well, we sat down there and used the glasses for a long time----'

'What do you mean by "using the glasses?"' interrupted John; 'drinking whisky and water?'

Esau withered him with a look and went on.

'Well, "spied," if you like, spied for a long time without seeing anything; and we had just walked on again a few yards, when the silence was suddenly broken by a cry from Jens of "Reins," and there, 300 yards in front of us, was a noble buck which had evidently been concealed from our view by some rocks, and had now smelt us and was departing at a stately trot, apparently despising undignified hurry.

'I fancy his intention was to trot away at that long swinging pace, and get into Asiatic Russia in time for tea; so I grabbed the rifle from Jens, as of course, now that he was alarmed, a long shot was our only chance; sat down on a stone, and with the faintest hopes of hitting him, fired twice, and, of course, missed.

'Now here was where my luck came in. If that buck had not been so proud, he could have run straight away from us to the glacier beyond the lake, but we were "betwixt the wind and his nobility," and he wanted to get a clean breeze, and run against it instead of down it. Consequently, when he was about 350 yards away he turned to the right, apparently intending to make a circle round us, and so get the wind in his face.

'Directly he turned broadside to us Jens gave a shrill whistle, and the buck stopped short for a moment, so that I had just time to make a careful shot, and the bullet hit him in the ribs. At the shot he stumbled, but recovered himself instantly, and made off a good deal faster than before, evidently perceiving that things were getting serious, and that "this here warn't no child's play." Before I could fire again he got into the ravine which runs down towards Rus Lake, and was out of our sight.

'We thought there was just a chance of cutting him off in that extremely rough ground, though, of course, we could not tell whether he was much hurt or not; so we ran as hard as we could for about a quarter of a mile, loading as we ran. Suddenly I caught sight of him going very slowly, but luckily he did not see us, so we dodged into a little gully, and after another short run came in sight of him standing still, no doubt owing to his wound, and about 250 yards away.

'This time he saw us, and darted off as fleetly as ever, no longer with his side to us, but straight away. I was dead beat, and Jens had thrown himself down, and was panting like--like----'

'A concertina?' suggested the Skipper.

[Plate: DEATH OF THE 'STOR BOCK' AT THE ICEBERG LAKE, TYKNINGS HÖ.]

'Yes, just so. Anyhow, we could not run another yard; you know what it is on those stones, so I sat down again, and with the rifle going like a pump-handle, fired, and, by the greatest luck, hit him close to the tail, and the bullet went clean through his body and smashed his shoulder. Down he went, and we raised a yell of triumph, whereupon he jumped up again and went off at a slapping pace in a most extraordinary manner. I believe if he could have reached the snow he would have done us even now, but we were between him and the glacier, and he had nothing but rocks to go on, bad enough for a deer with the proper complement of legs and ribs, and very trying indeed to one crippled like this, I'm sure.

'However, he kept going at a great pace for a few hundred yards, and we lay in a state of exhaustion and watched him through the glass. Soon he began to move more slowly, and then to go round and round in a small circle, and at last he lay down. By that time I had partially recovered my wind, so I stalked him with great care and got within a hundred yards of him, took a steady aim for his heart, and pulled. To my horror he bounced up again, and ran like a hare for a dozen yards, and then rolled over and over as dead as Julius Cæsar.

'How Jens and I whooped and shook hands and laughed can be imagined by any one who has seen a grand deer almost escape him, and then, by a bit of luck and a breakneck run, just nailed him when the chance seemed hopeless. After that we lay on our backs and panted for some time, but after finishing the whisky and a large portion of the iceberg lake we recovered sufficiently to skin our prize and cut him up. He is a most splendidly fat "stor bock," Jens says by far the best that has been killed in these parts this year; a beautiful skin, and, best luck of all, his horns have got rid of the velvet, and are fit to take home: and they have fourteen points. I measured the fat on his loins, and it was two and a half inches thick. Jens tried to bring home a hind quarter as well as the head and skin, but before he had gone twenty yards he found that it was too much for him, so turned back and buried it with the rest.'

At this time of year the biggest bucks of a herd seem to separate themselves from the rest and roam about, either alone or perhaps a couple together. We think they act wisely in this respect, as the calves are now old enough to run as fast as their mothers in case of danger, and do not need any paternal protection; and the bucks would no doubt become horribly bored if they remained with their wives and children all the year round; whereas by this system they are quite independent for a time, and roam all over the country, seeing a lot of life and living uncommonly well. Very much like a married man, when he gets away on board a friend's yacht for a couple of months, and comes back quite brightened up at the end of his trip, and positively agreeable and good-tempered to his wife and family, insomuch that they are right glad to see him home again.

Of course the stalker's great object in life is to shoot one of these big bucks; but it is a desire seldom realised, as they are very restless, and only haunt the most secluded and difficult country. We have only met with two others in this expedition, and those the Skipper saw retiring at a good swinging trot over the heights of Memurutungen.

We have obtained some interesting information from Jens about the horns of the reindeer. As every one knows, both the bucks and does have horns, but they shed them at different times: those of the does and smaller bucks are now in velvet, and will not get properly hard until October; they will then remain on all through the winter, and be shed in the spring. But the large bucks have their horns hard now, and will shed them in the winter, and so be defenceless during the time when the snow lies thickest.

All this is undoubtedly true, for Jens is thoroughly trustworthy in his facts, but what is the reason?

Jens does not know, but he gives us another fact. In the winter, when the 'stor bocks' have no horns, the snow is often so deep that only the strongest deer can scrape it away to lay bare the moss which at that season forms their food. Then come the does and smaller bucks, and with their horns push away the unfortunate big ones, and so are saved from starvation, while the ill-treated 'stor bocks' have to work double tides in order to get anything to eat.

We present this fact in all humility to Mr. Darwin as a solution of the problem, 'Why has the female reindeer horns?' Evidently, they originally had none, but by constant pushing at their lords and masters they developed them by degrees; then, by the survival of the fittest, those does with the longest and sharpest horns prospered most, and soon there were none of the hornless does left, and all calves began to have horns as a matter of course.

Esau is inclined to the belief that, by the same line of reasoning, the big bucks, constantly being shot at through untold ages, have developed cast-iron ribs, and that that is the reason why they take such a lot of killing.

Possibly we have worked the theory in the wrong direction. It may be that originally all deer of every kind had horns, and the reindeer doe is the only female which now keeps them, because she alone has to fight for her living; but the snow and the horns together are cause and effect, of that we are convinced.

The _pièce de résistance_ at dinner was a ryper curry, executed in the Skipper's best manner, and worthy of a place amongst the old masters, though providentially none of them were here to help us with it. John also contributed his share to the menu, a roley-poley pudding, which, when it came to table, looked a trifle doughy at the ends, as even the best of such puddings generally do.

John turned to Esau, and in his sweetest manner said, 'Do you like end, old fellow?'

He, a little astonished at this unwonted politeness, replied with equal courtesy, 'No, thank you, I don't think I care about end.'

'Ah,' said John, 'well, the Skipper and I _do_;' and thereupon cut the pudding into two portions, and was giving one to the Skipper and the other to himself, when the proceedings were interrupted by a brief but energetic scene of riot and bloodshed, which was terminated by a treaty of peace on the basis of the _status quo_ as regards the pudding, and subsequent re-division of the same into three parts by a mixed commission.

Among the fish brought in to-day was one enormously long brute which ought to have weighed five pounds, but was only three pounds. The Skipper captured this prize at the outlet of the lake, which seems to be a favourite place for sick and dying fish like this.

Matters of food are generally referred to Esau, because he cares more about eating than the other two, as _they_ say, or because he has got more sense than they have, as _he_ says. The two explanations are probably identical.

When this fish was brought to him for judgment, he promptly said, 'Give it to the men.' The Skipper replied, 'My dear chap, whenever we collect any kind of food that isn't quite nice, you always "give it to the men."'

Esau became grave at once, and answered 'You forget we are not in England. At home, truly, we give the best of everything to our servants, and are thankful for the worst ourselves; but Norway is a country where the canker of civilisation has not yet crept in to taint everything it passes over, and where the noisome worm of increasing independence does not blossom in the heart of every tree. Our men would be proud and happy to chew this aged fish, and we have had instances to convince us that they would be prouder and happier if the aged fish were nearly putrid.'