TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.
—The transcriber of this project created the book coverimage using the front cover of the original book. The imageis placed in the public domain.
The Trail of the Elk
THE RÉ VALLEY SWEDE
The Trail of the Elk
from the Norwegian of H. Fonhus
illustrated by Harry
Rountree
Jonathan Cape
Eleven Gower Street, London
First published 1922
All Rights Reserved
The Trail of the Elk
The Trail of the Elk
§ 1
THIS is the story of a wizard elk—Rauten,as people called him. He wasa human being in animal guise.
The story begins in Ré Valley, which lieslike a yawning gap between mountains, longand flat with borders of forests so dark thatthey look as though part of the blackness ofnight lingered in them. A river movessluggishly along the bottom of the valley,making its way slowly and carefully betweenstretches of light-red sand. It runs northwards,a rare thing in Norway.
There are bogs along the banks of the river,bearing tall, stiff sedge, and when the weatheris calm they appear to be bristling. But insunshine and wind they sway to and fro likeundulating carpets of silk. Sometimes a longneck appears, and a crane moves with hismeasured stride, in which there is peace andcontentment. For the crane does not trouble[14]himself about the past or the future. Thepresent with its long round of days suffices forhim.
An ancient mountain farm lies there withits fence all tumbled down. The thin pastureis covered here and there with copses. Thehouses rot and are never rebuilt. At one timebears were so troublesome round about TolleivMountain Farm that it was impossible toremain there, and even to-day it often happens,especially in the autumn, that a bear is seenfeeding on berries far up the mountain side.
But in the