The Modern Vikings

“Now, keep steady!” said Tollef, feeling a sudden shock, as if a wolf had leaped against their improvised house with a view to upsetting it. He felt himself and the boy gliding a foot or two over the smooth ice, but there was no further result from the attack. A minute passed: again there came a shock, and a stronger one than the first. A long, terrible howl followed this second failure. The little boy, clutching his small cooper’s hatchet in one hand, sat pale but determined in the dark, while with the other he clung to his father’s arm.

“Oh, father!” he cried, in terror, “I feel something on my back.”

The father quickly struck a light, for he fortunately had a supply of matches in his pocket, and saw a wolf’s paw wedged in between the ice and the rim of the barrel; and in the same instant he tore the hatchet from his son’s hand and buried its edge in the ice. Then he handed the amputated paw to Thor, and said:

“Put that into your wallet, and the sheriff will pay you a reward for it.[7 - The sheriffs in Norway are by law required to pay, in behalf of the State, certain premiums for the killing of bears, wolves, foxes, and eagles.] For a wolf without paws couldn’t do much harm.”

While he was yet speaking, a third assault upon the barrel lifted one side of it from the ice, and almost overturned it. Instead of pushing against the part nearest the ice, a wolf, more cunning than the rest, had leaped against the upturned bottom.

You can imagine what a terrible night father and son spent together in this constant struggle with the voracious beasts, that never grew weary of attacking their hiding-place. The father was less warmly clad than the son, and, moreover, was obliged to sit on the ice, while Thor could stand erect without knocking against the bottom of the barrel; and if it had not been for the excitement of the situation, which made Tollef’s blood course with unwonted rapidity, it is more than probable that the intense cold would have made him drowsy, and thus lessened his power of resistance. The warmth of his body had made a slight cavity where he was sitting, and whenever he remained a moment still, his trousers froze fast to the ice. It was only the presence of his boy that inspired him with fresh courage, whenever hope seemed about to desert him.

About an hour after the flight of the horse, when five or six wolves’ paws had been cut off in the same manner as the first, there was a lull in the attack, but a sudden increase of the howling, whining, yelping, and barking noise without. Tollef concluded that the wolves, maddened by the smell of blood, were attacking their wounded fellows; and as their howls seemed to come from a short distance, he cautiously lifted one side of the barrel and peered forth; but in the same instant a snarling bark rang right in his ear, and two paws were thrust into the opening. Then came a howl of pain, and another paw was put into Thor’s wallet.

But hark! What is that? It sounds like a song, or rather like a hymn. The strain comes nearer and nearer, resounding from mountain to mountain, floating peacefully through the pure and still air:

“Who knows how near I am mine ending;
So quickly time doth pass away.”

Tollef, in whose breast hope again was reviving, put his ear to the ice, and heard distinctly the tread of horses and of many human feet. He listened for a minute or more, but could not discover whether the sound was coming any nearer. It occurred to him that in all probability the people, being unarmed, would have no desire to cope with a large pack of wolves, especially as to them there could be no object in it. If they saw the barrel, how could they know that there was anybody under it? He comprehended instantly that his only chance of life was in joining those people before they were too far away. And, quickly resolved, he lifted the boy on his left arm, and grasped the hatchet in his disengaged hand. Then, with a violent thrust, he flung the barrel from over him, and ran in the direction of the sound. The wolves, as he had inferred, were lacerating their bleeding comrades; but the moment they saw him, a pack of about a dozen immediately started in pursuit. They leaped up against him on all sides, while he struck furiously about him with his small weapon. Fortunately, he had sharp steel pegs on his boots, and kept his footing well; otherwise the combat would have been a short one. His voice, too, was powerful, and his shouts rose high above the howling of the beasts. He soon perceived that he had been observed, and he saw in the bright moonlight six or eight men running toward him. Just then, as perhaps in his joy his vigilance was for a fraction of a second relaxed, he felt a pull in the fleshy part of his right arm. He was not conscious of any sharp pain, and was astonished to see the blood flowing from an ugly wound. But he only held his boy the more tightly, while he fought and ran with the strength of despair.

Now the men were near. He could hear their voices. But his brain was dizzy, and he saw but dimly.

“Hello, friend; don’t crack my skull for my pains!” someone was shouting close to his ear, and he let his hatchet fall, and he fell himself, too, prostrate on the ice.

The wolves, at the sight of the men, had retired to a safe distance, from which they watched the proceedings, as if uncertain whether to return.

As soon as Tollef had recovered somewhat from his exhaustion and his loss of blood, he and his boy were placed upon a sleigh, and his wound was carefully bandaged. He now learned that his rescuers were on their way to a funeral, which was to take place on the next day, but, on account of the distance to the church, they had been obliged to start during the night. Hence their solemn mood, and their singing of funeral hymns.

After an hour’s ride they reached the cooper’s cottage, and were invited to rest and to share such hospitality as the house could afford. But when they were gone, Tollef clasped his sleeping boy in his arms and said to his wife: “If it had not been for him, you might have had no husband to-day. It was his little whip and toy hatchet that saved our lives.”

Eleven wolves’ paws were found in Thor’s wallet, and, on Christmas eve, he went to the sheriff with them and received a reward which nearly burst his old savings-bank, and compelled his mother to buy a new one.

MAGNIE’S DANGEROUS RIDE

I

Magnie was consumed with the hunting fever. He had been away to school since he was ten years old, and had never had the chance of doing anything remarkable. While his brother, Olaf, who was a midshipman in the navy, roamed about the world, and had delightful adventures with Turks and Arabs, and all sorts of outlandish people, Magnie had to scan Virgil and Horace and torment his soul with algebraic problems. It was not at all the kind of life he had sketched out for himself, and if it had not been his father who had imposed it upon him, he would have broken away from all restraints and gone to Turkey or China, or some place where exciting things happened. In the meanwhile, as he lacked money for such an enterprise, he would content himself with whatever excitement there was in hunting, and as his brothers, Olaf and little Edwin (who was fourteen years old), were also at home for the vacation, there was a prospect of many delightful expeditions by sea and by land. Moreover, their old friend Grim Hering-Luck, who was their father’s right-hand man, had promised to be at their disposal and put them on the track of exciting experiences. They had got each a gun, and had practised shooting at a target daily since their return from the city. Magnie, or Magnus Birk, as his real name was, had once (though Olaf stoutly maintained that it was mere chance) hit the bull’s-eye at a hundred yards, and he was now eager to show his skill on something more valuable than a painted target. It was, therefore, decided that Grim and the boys should go reindeer-hunting. They were to be accompanied by the professional hunter, Bjarne Sheepskin.

It was a glorious morning. The rays of the sun shot from the glacier peaks in long radiant shafts down into the valley. The calm mirror of the fiord glittered in the light and fairly dazzled the eye, and the sea-birds drifted in noisy companies about the jutting crags, plunged headlong into the sea, and scattered the spray high into the air. The blue smoke rose perpendicularly from the chimneys of the fishermen’s cottages along the beach, and the housewives, still drowsy with sleep, came out, rubbed their eyes and looked toward the sun to judge of the hour. One boat after another was pushed out upon the water, and the ripples in their wakes spread in long diverging lines toward either shore. The fish leaped in the sun, heedless of the gulls which sailed in wide circles under the sky, keeping a sharp lookout for the movements of the finny tribe. The three boys could only stand and gaze in dumb astonishment upon the splendid sights which the combined heavens, earth, and sea afforded. Their father, who was much pleased with their determination and enterprise, had readily given his consent to the reindeer hunt, on condition that Grim should take command and be responsible for their safety. They were now mounted upon three sturdy ponies, while their provisions, guns, and other commodities were packed upon a fourth beast – a shaggy little monster named Bruno, who looked more like a hornless goat than a horse. Bjarne Sheepskin, a long, round-shouldered fellow, with a pair of small, lively eyes, was leading this heavily laden Bruno by the bridle, and the little caravan, being once set in motion, climbed the steep slopes toward the mountains with much persistence and dexterity. The ponies, which had been especially trained for mountain climbing, planted their hoofs upon the slippery rocks with a precision which was wonderful to behold, jumped from stone to stone, slipped, scrambled up and down, but never fell. As they entered the pine forest, where the huge trunks grew in long, dark colonnades, letting in here and there stray patches of sunshine, partridges and ptarmigan often started under the very noses of the horses, and Magnie clamored loudly for his gun, and grew quite angry with Bjarne, who would allow “no fooling with tomtits and chipmunks, when they were in search of big game.” Even hares were permitted to go unmolested; and it was not until a fine capercailzie[8 - A species of grouse.] cock tumbled out of the underbrush close to the path, that Bjarne flung his gun to his cheek and fired. The capercailzie made a somersault in the air, and the feathers flew about it as it fell. Bjarne picked it up quietly, tied its legs together, and hung it on the pommel of Edwin’s saddle. “That will make a dinner for gentlefolks,” he said, “if the dairy-maids up on the saeters should happen to have nothing in the larder.”

Gradually, as they mounted higher, the trees became more stunted in their growth, and the whole character of the vegetation changed. The low dwarf-birch stretched its long, twisted branches along the earth, the silvery-white reindeer-moss clothed in patches the barren ground, and a few shivering alpine plants lifted their pale, pink flowers out of the general desolation. As they reached the ridge of the lower mountain range the boys saw before them a scene the magnificence of which nearly took their breath away. Before them lay a wide mountain plain, in the bottom of which two connected lakes lay coldly glittering. Round about, the plain was settled with rude little log-houses, the so-called saeters, or mountain dairies, where the Norse peasants spend their brief summers, pasturing their cattle.

They started at a lively trot down the slope toward this highland plain, intending to reach the Hasselrud saeter, where they expected to spend the night; for it was already several hours past noon, and there could be no thought of hunting reindeer so late in the day. Judging by appearances, the boys concluded that fifteen or twenty minutes would bring them to the saeter; but they rode on for nearly two hours, and always the cottages seemed to recede, and the distance showed no signs of diminishing. They did not know how deceptive all distances are in this wondrously clear mountain air, whose bright transparency is undimmed by the dust and exhalations of the lower regions of the earth. They would scarcely have believed that those huge glacier peaks, which seemed to be looming up above their very heads, were some eight to twelve miles away, and that the eagle which soared above them was far beyond the range of their rifles.

It was about five o’clock when they rode in upon the saeter green, where the dairy-maids were alternately blowing their horns and yodelling. Their long flaxen braids hung down their backs, and their tight-fitting scarlet bodices and white sleeves gave them a picturesque appearance. The cattle were lowing against the sky, answering the call of the horn. The bells of cows, goats, and sheep were jangled in harmonious confusion; and the noise of the bellowing bulls, the bleating sheep, and the neighing horses was heard from all sides over the wide plain.

The three brothers were received with great cordiality by the maids, and they spent the evening, after the supper was finished, in listening to marvellous stories about the ogres who inhabited the mountains, and the hunting adventures with which Bjarne Sheepskin’s life had been crowded, and which he related with a sportsman’s usual exaggerations. The beds in one of the saeter cottages were given up to the boys, and they slept peacefully until about four o’clock in the morning, when Grim aroused them and told them that everything was ready for their departure. They swallowed their breakfast hastily, and started in excited silence across the plateau. Edwin and the horses they left behind in charge of the dairy-maids, but took with them an old staghound who had some good blood in him, and a finer scent than his sedate behavior and the shape of his nose would have led one to suppose.

Light clouds hovered under the sky; the mist lay like a white sheet over the mountain, and drifted in patches across the plain. Bjarne and Grim were carrying the guns, while Olaf led the hound, and Magnus trotted briskly along, stopping every now and then to examine every unfamiliar object that came in his way. The wind blew toward them, so that there was no chance that their scent could betray them, in case there were herds of deer toward the north at the base of the glaciers. They had not walked very far, when Bjarne put his hand to his lips and stooped down to examine the ground. The dog lifted his nose and began to snuff the air, wag his tail, and whine impatiently.

“Hush, Yutul,” whispered Bjarne; “down! down, and keep still!”

The dog crouched down obediently and held his peace.

“Here is a fresh track,” the hunter went on, pointing to a hardly perceptible depression in the moss. “There has been a large herd here – one buck and at least a dozen cows. Look, here is a stalk that has just been bitten off, and the juice is not dry yet.”

“How long do you think it will be before we shall meet them?” asked Magnus, breathlessly. The hunting-fever was throbbing in his veins, and he crawled cautiously among the bowlders with his rifle cocked.

“Couldn’t tell; may be an hour, may be three. Hand me your field-glass, Lieutenant, and I will see if I can catch sight of ’em. A gray beast ain’t easily seen agin the gray stone. It was fer the same reason I wanted ye to wear gray clothes; we don’t want to give the game any advantage, fer the sentinels be allers on the lookout fer the herd, and at the least bit of unfamiliar color, they give their warnin’ snort, and off starts the flock, scudding away like a drift of mist before the wind.”

Crouching down among the lichen-clad rocks, all listened in eager expectation.

“Down!” whispered Bjarne, “and cock rifles! A pair of antlers agin the snow! Hallo! it is as I thought – a big herd. One, two, three – five – seven – ten – fourteen! One stunnin’ buck, worth his forty dollars at least. Now follow me slowly. Look out for your guns! You, Grim, keep the dog muzzled.”

The boys strained their eyes above the edge of the stones, but could see nothing. Their hearts hammered against their sides, and the blood throbbed in their temples. As far as their eyes could reach they saw only the gray waste of bowlders, interrupted here and there by patches of snow or a white glacier-stream, which plunged wildly over a precipice, while a hovering moke indicated its further progress through the plain. Nevertheless, trusting the experience of their leader, they made no remark, but crept after him, choosing like him every available stone for cover. After half an hour of this laborious exercise, Bjarne suddenly stretched himself flat upon the ground, and the others, though seeing no occasion for such a manœuvre, promptly followed his example. But the next moment enlightened them. Looming up against the white snow, some sixty or a hundred feet from them, they saw a magnificent pair of antlers, and presently the whole body of a proud animal was distinctly visible against the glacier. In the ravine below a dozen or more cows with their calves were nibbling the moss between the stones, but with great deliberateness, lifting their heads every minute and snuffing the air suspiciously; they presently climbed up on the hard snow and began a frolic, the like of which the boys had never seen before. The great buck raised himself on his hind-legs, shook his head, and made a leap, kicking the snow about him with great vehemence. Several of the cows took this as an invitation for a general jollification, and they began to frisk about, kicking their heels against the sky and shaking their heads, not with the wanton grace of their chief, but with half-pathetic attempts at imitation. This, Magnus thought, was evidently a reindeer ball; and very sensible they were to have it early in the morning, when they felt gay and frisky, rather than in the night, when they ought to be asleep. What troubled him, however, was that Bjarne did not shoot; he himself did not venture to send a bullet into the big buck, although it seemed to him he had an excellent aim. The slightest turn in the wind would inevitably betray them, and then they would have had all their toil for nothing. He would have liked to suggest this to Bjarne; but in order to do this, he would have to overtake him, and Bjarne was still wriggling himself cautiously forward among the stones, pushing himself on with his elbows, as a seal does with his flippers. In his eagerness to impart his counsel to Bjarne, Magnus began to move more rapidly; raising himself on his knees he quite inadvertently showed his curly head above a bowlder. The buck lifted his superb head with a snort, and with incredible speed the whole herd galloped away; but in the same moment two bullets whistled after them, and the buck fell flat upon the snow. The cow which had stood nearest to him reared on her hind-legs, made a great leap, and plunged headlong down among the stones. With a wild war-whoop, the boys jumped up, and Magnus, who had come near ruining the whole sport, seized, in order to make up for his mishap, a long hunting-knife and rushed forward to give the buck the coup-de-grace,[9 - The finishing-stroke.] in accordance with the rules of the chase. Bounding forward with reckless disregard of all obstacles, he was the first down on the snow. In one instant he was astride of the animal, and had just raised his knife, when up leaped the buck and tore away along the edge of the snow like a gust of wind. The long-range shot, hitting him in the head, had only stunned him, but had not penetrated the skull. And, what was worse, in his bewilderment at the unexpected manœuvre, Magnus dropped his knife, seizing instinctively the horns of the reindeer to keep from falling. Away they went with a terrific dizzying speed. The frightened boy clung convulsively to the great antlers; if he should fall off, his head would be crushed against the bowlders. The cold glacier-wind whistled in his ears, and stung his face like a multitude of tiny needles. He had to turn his head in order to catch his breath; and he strained his eyes to see if anything was being done by his companions for his rescue. But he could see nothing except a great expanse of gray and white lines, which ran into each other and climbed and undulated toward him and sloped away, but seemed associated with no tangible object. He thought, for a moment, that he saw Grim Hering-Luck aiming his gun, but he seemed to be up in the sky, and to be growing huger and huger until he looked more like a fantastic cloud than a man. The thought suddenly struck him that he might be fainting, and it sent a thrill of horror through him. With a vehement effort he mastered his fear and resolved that, whatever happened, he would not give way to weakness. If he was to lose his life, he would, at all events, make a hard fight for it; it was, on the whole, quite a valuable life, he concluded, and he did not mean to sell it cheaply.

Troubling himself little about the direction his steed was taking, he shut his eyes, and began to meditate upon his chances of escape; and after some minutes, he was forced to admit that they seemed very slim. When the buck should have exhausted his strength, as in the course of time he must, he would leave his rider somewhere in this vast trackless wilderness, where the biting wind swept down from the eternal peaks of ice, where wolves roamed about in great hungry companies, and where, beside them, the reindeer and the ptarmigan were the only living things amid the universal desolation. When he opened his eyes again, Magnus discovered that the buck had overtaken the fleeing herd, which, however, were tearing away madly at his approach, being evidently frightened at the sight and the scent of the unfamiliar rider. The animal was still galloping on, though with a less dizzying rapidity, and Magnus could distinguish the general outline of the objects which seemed to be rushing against him, as if running a race in the opposite direction. The herd were evidently betaking themselves into the upper glacier region, where no foot less light and swift than theirs could find safety among the terrible ravines and crevasses.

Fully an hour had passed, possibly two, and it seemed vain to attempt to measure the distance which he had passed over in this time. At all events, the region did not present one familiar object, and of Olaf and his companions Magnie saw no trace. The only question was, what chance had they of finding him, if they undertook to search for him, as, of course, they would. If he could only leave some sign or mark by which they might know the direction he had taken, their search might perhaps be rewarded with success. He put one hand in his pocket, but could find nothing that he could spare except a red silk handkerchief. That had the advantage of being bright, and would be sure to attract attention. The dog would be likely to detect it or to catch the scent of it. But he must have something heavy to tie up in the handkerchief, or it might blow “all over creation.” The only thing he could find was a silver matchbox which he had obtained by a trade with Olaf, and which bore the latter’s initials. He carefully emptied it, and put the matches (which he foresaw might prove useful) in his vest-pocket; then tied up the box securely and dropped it, with the handkerchief, upon a conspicuous rock, where its bright color might appear striking and unnatural. He was just on the ridge of what proved to be a second and higher mountain plateau, the wild grandeur of which far transcended that of the first. Before him lay a large sheet of water of a cool green tint, and so clear that the bottom was visible as far as the eye could reach. A river had made its way from the end of this lake and plunged, in a series of short cataracts, down the slope to the lower plain.

It made Magnus shiver with dread to look at this coldly glittering surface, and what was his horror when suddenly his reindeer, in his pursuit of the herd, which were already in the water, rushed in, and began, with loud snorts, to swim across to the farther shore! This was an unforeseen stratagem which extinguished his last hope of rescue; for how could Bjarne track him through the water, and what means would he find of crossing, in case he should guess that the herd had played this dangerous trick on him? He began to dread also that the endurance of the buck would be exhausted before he reached dry land again, and that they might both perish miserably in the lake. In this horrible distress nothing occurred to him except to whisper the Lord’s Prayer; but as his terror increased, his voice grew louder and louder, until he fairly shouted the words, “And deliver us from evil,” and the echoes from the vast solitudes repeated, first clearly and loudly, then with fainter and fainter accents: “And deliver us from evil – and deliver us from evil.” His despairing voice rang strangely under the great empty sky, and rumbled among the glaciers, which flung it back and forth until it died away in the blue distance. It was as if the vast silent wilderness, startled at the sound of a human voice, were wonderingly repeating the strange and solemn words.

A vague sense of security stole over him when he had finished his prayer. But the chill of the icy water had nearly benumbed his limbs, and he feared that the loss of heat would conquer his will, and make him unconscious before the buck should reach the shore. He felt distinctly his strength ebbing away, and he knew of nothing that he could do to save himself. Then suddenly a daring thought flashed through his brain. With slow and cautious movements he drew his legs out of the water, and, standing for a moment erect on the buck’s back, he crawled along his neck and climbed up on the great antlers, steadying himself carefully and clinging with all his might. His only fear was that the animal would shake him off and send him headlong into the icy bath from which he was endeavoring to escape. But, after two futile efforts, during which the boy had held on only by desperate exertion, the buck would probably have resigned himself to his fate, if he had not been in imminent danger of drowning. Magnus was, therefore, much against his will, forced to dip his limbs into the chilly water, and resume his former position. It was a strange spectacle, to see all the horned heads round about sticking out of the water, and Magnus, though he had always had a thirst for adventures, had never expected to find himself in such an incredible situation. Fortunately, they were now approaching the shore, and whatever comfort there was in having terra firma under his feet would not be wanting to him. The last minutes were indeed terribly long, and again and again the buck, overcome with fatigue, dipped his nose under the water, only to raise it again with a snort, and shake his head as if impatient to rid himself of his burden. But the boy, with a spark of reviving hope, clung only the more tenaciously to the antlers, and remained unmoved.

At last – and it seemed a small eternity since he had left his brother and companions – Magnus saw the herd scramble up on the stony beach. The buck he rode was soon among the foremost, and, having reached the land, shook his great body and snorted violently.

“Now’s my chance,” thought Magnus; “now I can slide off into the snow before he takes to his heels again.”

But, odd as it may seem, he had a reluctance to part company with the only living creature (except the wolves) that inhabited this awful desert. There was a vague chance of keeping from freezing to death as long as he clung to the large, warm animal; while, seated alone upon this bleak shore, with his clothes wringing wet, and the cold breath of the glacier sweeping down upon him, he would die slowly and miserably with hunger and cold. He was just contemplating this prospect, seeing himself in spirit lying dead upon the shore of the lake, and picturing to himself the grief of his brother and father, when suddenly his glance was arrested by what seemed a faint column of smoke rising from among the bowlders. The herd of reindeer had evidently made the same discovery, for they paused, in a startled manner, and wheeled about toward the easterly shore, past which a branch of the glacier was pushing downward into the lower fiord-valley.

Magnie, who had by this time made up his mind not to give up his present place except for a better one, strained his eye in the opposite direction, to make sure that he was not deceived; and having satisfied himself that what he saw was really smoke, he determined to leap from his seat at the very first opportunity. But as yet the speed of the buck made such a venture unsafe. With every step, however, the territory was becoming more irregular, and made the progress even of a reindeer difficult.

Magnus drew up his feet, and was about to slide off, having planned to drop with as slight a shock as possible upon a flat moss-grown rock, when, to his utter amazement, he saw a human figure standing at the edge of the glacier, and aiming a rifle, as it appeared, straight at his head. He tried to scream, but terror choked his voice. He could not bring forth a sound. And before even the thought had taken shape in his bewildered brain he saw a flash, and heard the report of a shot which rumbled away with tremendous reverberations among the glaciers. There was a surging sound in his ears, and strange lights danced before his eyes. He thought he must be dead.

II

Magnie never knew how long he was unconscious. The first thing he remembered was a delicious sense of warmth and comfort stealing through him, and strange, unintelligible sounds buzzing in the air about him. Somebody was talking kindly to him, and a large, warm hand was gliding over his forehead and cheeks. The peace and warmth were grateful to him after the intense strain of his dangerous ride. He was even loth to open his eyes when his reviving memory began to make the situation clear to him.

“It was a reckless shot, Harry,” he heard someone say in a foreign tongue, which he soon recognized as English, “even if it did turn out well. Suppose you had sent your bullet crashing through the young fellow instead of the buck. How would you have felt then?”

“I should have felt very badly, I am sure,” answered a younger voice, which obviously belonged to Magnie’s rescuer; “but I followed my usual way of doing things. If I didn’t act that way, I shouldn’t act at all. And you will admit, Uncle, it is a queer sort of thing to see a fellow come riding on a reindeer buck, in the midst of a wild herd, and in a trackless wilderness like this, where nobody but wolves or geologists would be apt to discover any attractions. Now, I saw by the young man’s respectable appearance that he couldn’t be a geologist; and if he was a wolf, I didn’t mind much if I did shoot him.”

At this point Magnie opened his eyes and stared wonderingly about him. He found himself in a small, cramped room, the walls of which were draped with canvas, and scarcely high enough under the ceiling to allow a man to stand erect. Against the walls a number of shining brass instruments were leaning, and in a corner there was a hearth, the smoke of which escaped through a hole in the roof. Two bunks filled with moss, with a sheet and a blanket thrown over each, completed the outfit of the primitive dwelling. But Magnie was more interested in the people than in the looks of the room. A large, blond, middle-aged man, inclined to stoutness, was holding Magnie’s hand as if counting his pulse-beat, and a very good-looking young fellow, of about his own age, was standing at the hearth, turning a spit upon which was a venison steak.

“Hallo! Our young friend is returning from the land of Nod,” said the youth who had been addressed as Harry. “I am glad you didn’t start on a longer journey, young chap, when I fired at you; for if you had you would have interfered seriously with my comfort.”

Magnie, who was a fair English scholar, understood perfectly what was said to him, but several minutes elapsed before he could collect himself sufficiently to answer. In order to gain time, he made an effort to raise, himself and take a closer look at his surroundings, but was forced by the older man to abandon the attempt.

“Not so fast, my dear, not so fast;” he said, stooping over him, and gently pushing him back into a reclining position. “You must remember that you have a big lump on your head from your fall, and it won’t do to be frisky just yet. But before conversing further, it might be well to ascertain whether we understand each other.”