Boyhood in Norway | ||
IV.
"WHAT was that?" cried Albert, startled by a sharp report which reverberated from the mountains. They had penetrated the forest on the west side, and ranged over the ice for an hour, in a vain search for wolves.
"Hush," said Ralph, excitedly; and after a moment
"How do you know?"
"These woods belong to father, and no one else has any right to hunt in them. He doesn't mind if a poor man kills a hare or two, or a brace of ptarmigan; but these chaps are after elk; and if the old gentleman gets on the scent of elk-hunters, he has no more mercy than Beelzebub."
"How can you know that they are after elk?"
"No man is likely to go to the woods for small game on a day like this. They think the cold protects them from pursuit and capture."
"What are you going to do about it?"
"I am going to play a trick on them. You know that the sheriff, whose duty it is to be on the lookout for elk-poachers, would scarcely send out a posse when the cold is so intense. Elk, you know, are becoming very scarce, and the law protects them. No man is allowed to shoot more than one elf a year, and that one on his own property. Now, you and I will play deputy-sheriffs, and have those poachers securely in the lock-up before night."
"But suppose they fight?"
"Then we'll fight back."
Ralph was so aglow with joyous excitement at the thought of this adventure, that Albert had not the heart to throw cold water on his enthusiasm. Moreover, he was afraid of being thought cowardly
"But, Ralph," he exclaimed, now more than ready to bear his part in the expedition, "I have only shot in my gun. You can't shoot men with bird-shot."
"Shoot men I Are you crazy? Why, I don't intend to shoot anybody. I only wish to capture them. My rifle is a breech-loader and has six cartridges. Besides, it has twice the range of theirs (for there isn't another such rifle in all Odalen), and by firing one shot over their heads I can bring them to terms, don't you see?"
Albert, to be frank, did not see it exactly; but he thought it best to suppress his doubts. He scented danger in the air, and his blood bounded through his veins.
"How do you expect to track them?" he asked, breathlessly.
"Skee-tracks in the snow can be seen by a bat, born blind," answered Ralph, recklessly.
They were now climbing up the wooded slope on the western side of the river. The crust of the
"Biceps," whispered Ralph, who had suddenly discovered something interesting in the snow, "do you see that?"
"Je-rusalem!" ejaculated Albert, with thoughtless delight, "it is a hoof-track!"
"Hold your tongue, you blockhead," warned his friend, too excited to be polite, "or you'll spoil the whole business!"
"But you asked me," protested Albert, in a huff.
"But I didn't shout, did I?"
Again the report of a shot tore a great rent in the wintry stillness and rang out with sharp reverberations.
"We've got them," said Ralph, examining the lock of his rifle. "That shot settles them."
"If we don't look out, they may get us instead," grumbled Albert, who was still offended.
Ralph stood peering into the underbrush, his eyes as wild as those of an Indian, his nostrils dilated, and all his senses intensely awake. His companion, who was wholly unskilled in woodcraft, could see no cause for his agitation, and feared that
"Why did you harm me," it seemed to say, "who never harmed any living thing—who claimed only the right to live my frugal life in the forest, digging up the frozen mosses under the snow, which no mortal creature except myself can eat?"
The sanguinary instinct—the fever for killing, which every boy inherits from savage ancestors—had left Ralph, before he had pulled the knife from the bleeding wound. A miserable feeling of guilt stole over him. He never had shot an elk before; and his father, who was anxious to preserve the noble beasts from destruction, had not availed himself of his right to kill one for many years. Ralph had, indeed, many a time hunted rabbits, hares, mountain-cock, and capercailzie. But they had never destroyed his pleasure by arousing pity for their deaths; and he had always regarded himself as being proof against sentimental emotions.
"Look here, Biceps," he said, flinging the knife into the snow, "I wish I hadn't killed that bull."
"I thought we were hunting for poachers," answered Albert, dubiously; "and now we have been poaching ourselves."
"By Jiminy! So we have; and I never once thought of it," cried the valiant hunter. "I am afraid we are off my father's preserves too. It is well the deputy sheriffs are not abroad, or we might
"But what did you do it for?"
"Well, I can't tell. It's in the blood, I fancy. The moment I saw the track and caught the wild smell, I forgot all about the poachers, and started on the scent like a hound."
The two boys stood for some minutes looking at the dead animal, not with savage exultation, but. with a dim regret. The blood which was gushing from the wound in the breast froze in a solid lump the very moment it touched the snow, although the cold had greatly moderated since the morning.
"I suppose we'll have to skin the fellow," remarked Ralph, lugubriously; "it won't do to leave that fine carcass for the wolves to celebrate Christmas with."
"All right," Albert answered, "I am not much of a hand at skinning, but I'll do the best I can."
They fell to work rather reluctantly at the unwonted task, but had not proceeded far when they perceived that they had a full day's job before them.
"I've no talent for the butcher's trade," Ralph exclaimed in disgust, dropping his knife into the snow. "There's no help for it, Biceps, we'll have to bury the carcass, pile some logs on the top of it, and send a horse to drag it home to-morrow. If it were not Christmas Eve to-night we might take a
"Thanks," replied the admirer of Midshipman Easy, striking a reckless naval attitude. "The marrow of my bones is not so easily curdled. I've been on a whaling voyage, which is more than you have."
Ralph was about to vindicate his dignity by referring to his own valiant exploits, when suddenly his keen eyes detected a slight motion in the underbrush on the slope below.
"Biceps," he said, with forced composure, "those poachers are tracking us."
"What do you mean?" asked Albert, in vague alarm.
"Do you see the top of that young birch waving?"
"Well, what of that!"
"Wait and see. It's no good trying to escape. They can easily overtake us. The snow is the worst tell-tale under the sun."
"But why should we wish to escape? I thought we were going to catch them."
"So we were; but that was before we turned poachers ourselves. Now those fellows will turn the tables on us—take us to the sheriff and collect half the fine, which is fifty dollars, as informers."
"Je-rusalem!" cried Biceps, "isn't it a beautiful scrape we've gotten into?"
"Rather," responded his friend, coolly.
"But why meekly allow ourselves to be captured? Why not defend ourselves?"
"My dear Biceps, you don't know what you are talking about. Those fellows don't mind putting a bullet into you, if you run. Now, I'd rather pay fifty dollars any day, than shoot a man even in self-defence."
"But they have killed elk too. We heard them shoot twice. Suppose we play the same game on them that they intend to play on us. We can play informers too, then we'll at least be quits."
"Biceps, you are a brick! That's a capital idea! Then let us start for the sheriff's; and if we get there first, we'll inform both on ourselves and on them. That'll cancel the fine. Quick, now!"
No persuasions were needed to make Albert bestir himself. He leaped toward his skees, and following his friend, who was a few rods ahead of him, started down the slope in a zigzag line, cautiously steering his way among the tree trunks. The boys had taken their departure none too soon; for they were scarcely five hundred yards down the declivity, when they heard behind them loud exclamations and oaths. Evidently the poachers had stopped to roll some logs (which were lying close by) over the carcass, probably meaning to appropriate it; and
One more tack through alder copse and juniper jungle—hard indeed, and terribly vexatious—and he saw with delight the great open slope, covered with an unbroken surface of glittering snow. The sun (which at midwinter is but a few hours above the horizon) had set; and the stars were flashing forth with dazzling brilliancy. Ralph stopped, as he reached the clearing, to give Biceps an opportunity to overtake him; for Biceps, like all marine animals, moved with less dexterity on the dry land.
"Ralph," he whispered breathlessly, as he pushed himself up to his companion with a vigorous thrust of his skee-staff, "there are two awful chaps close behind us. I distinctly heard them speak."
"Fiddlesticks," said Ralph; "now let us see what you are made of! Don't take my track, or you may impale me like a roast pig on a spit. Now, ready!—one, two, three!"
"Hold on there, or I shoot," yelled a hoarse voice from out of the underbrush; but it was too late; for
The other poacher had barely time to change his course, so as to avoid the snag; but he was unable
"Hold on there," he yelled again, "or I shoot!"
He was not within range, but he thought he could frighten the youngsters into abandoning the race. The sheriff's house was but a short distance up the river. Its tall, black chimneys could he seen looming up against the starlit sky. There was no slope now to accelerate their speed. They had to peg away for dear life, pushing themselves forward with their skee-staves, laboring like plough-horses, panting, snorting, perspiring. Ralph turned his
The poacher, bearing down with all his might on
"Don't force me to hurt ye!" shouted the poacher, threateningly, to Ralph, taking aim once more.
"You can't," Ralph shouted back. "You haven't another shot."
At that instant sounds of sleigh-bells and voices were heard, and half a dozen people, startled by the shot, were seen rushing out from the sheriff's mansion. Among them was Mr. Bjornerud himself, with one of his deputies.
"In the name of the law, I command you to cease," he cried, when he saw down the two figures in menacing attitudes. But before he could say another word, some one fell prostrate in the road before him, gasping:
"We have shot an elk; so has that man down on the ice. We give ourselves up."
Mr. Bjornerud, making no answer, leaped over the prostrate figure, and, followed by the deputy, dashed down upon the ice.
"In the name of the law!" he shouted again, and both rifles were reluctantly lowered.
"I have shot an elk," cried Ralph, eagerly, "and this man is a poacher, we heard him shoot."
"I have killed an elk," screamed the poacher, in the same moment, "and so has this fellow."
The sheriff was too astonished to speak. Never before, in his experience, had poachers raced for dear life to give themselves into custody. He feared that they were making sport of him; in that case, however, he resolved to make them suffer for their audacity.
"You are my prisoners," he said, after a moment's hesitation. "Take them to the lock-up, Olsen, and handcuff them securely," he added, turning to his deputy.
There were now a dozen men—most of them guests and attendants of the sheriff's household—standing in a ring about Ralph and the poacher. Albert, too, had scrambled to his feet and had joined his comrade.
"Will you permit me, Mr. Sheriff," said Ralph, making the officer his politest bow, "to send a message to my father, who is probably anxious about us?"
"And who is your father, young man?" asked the sheriff, not unkindly; "I should think you were doing him an ill-turn in taking to poaching at your early age."
"My father is Mr. Hoyer, of Solheim," said the boy, not without some pride in the announcement.
"What—you rascal, you! Are you trying to, play pranks on an old man?" cried the officer of the law, grasping Ralph cordially by the hand. "You've grown to be quite a man, since I saw you
"Allow me to introduce to you my friend, Mr. Biceps—I mean, Mr. Albert Grimlund."
"Happy to make your acquaintance, Mr. Biceps Albert; and now you must both come and eat the Christmas porridge with us. I'll send a messenger to Mr. Hoyer without delay."
The sheriff, in a jolly mood, and happy to have added to the number of his Christmas guests, took each of the two young men by the arm, as if he were going to arrest them, and conducted them through the spacious front hall into a large cosey room, where, having divested themselves of their wraps, they told the story of their adventure.
"But, my dear sir," Mr. Bjornerud exclaimed, "I don't see how you managed to go beyond your father's preserves. You know he bought of me the whole forest tract, adjoining his own on the south, about three months ago. So you were perfectly within your rights; for your father hasn't killed an elk on his land for three years."
"If that is the case, Mr. Sheriff," said Ralph, "I must beg of you to release the poor fellow who chased us. I don't wish any informer's fee, nor have I any desire to get him into trouble."
"I am sorry to say I can't accommodate you," Bjornerud replied. "This man is a notorious poacher and trespasser, whom my deputies have
"That may be; but I shall then turn my informer's fee over to him, which will reduce his fine from fifty dollars to twenty-five dollars."
"To encourage him to continue poaching?"
"Well, I confess I have a little more sympathy with poachers, since we came so near being poachers ourselves. It was only an accident that saved us!"
Boyhood in Norway | ||