CHAPTER IX.

Journey to Brunberg.-Accident to Sledge.-Woman frozen to death.-Shooting Bears from a Gäll.-Bear-traps.-Brunberg.

At daylight on the succeeding morning, Monday, 7th of January, after directing my landlord to convey my sledge and baggage to Sälje, I took my dogs and a guide along with me, and, striking into the forest, I proceeded on foot for the same destination.

I was in hopes I might have fallen in with a bear in the vicinity of Gäll-sjön, a lake situated at some few miles to the N.E. of my quarters; but that good fortune did not attend me, though I met with an old lair where one of those animals had passed the winter months some few years previously. Immediately near to this den lay a young pine, thicker than my leg, which the beast had cut in two with his fangs.

At nightfall, and after having beaten a very wild range of forest to the northward of Gällsjön, we faced for Sälje, where we arrived a little

after it was dark. Here Elg also, having fulfilled my instructions, shortly afterwards made his

appearance.

At daylight on the following morning, Tuesday the 8th of January, we had twenty-four degrees of cold. At this time, my sledge was to the door, and we were on the point of starting for Brunberg, when the horse, taking alarm at the bells attached to the harness, bolted without his driver, and went off at full speed.

This was not a very agreeable occurrence; but the adventure ended much better than I anticipated; for though, after the lapse of about ten minutes, the horse was brought back again with the broken shafts dangling at his heels, the sledge itself, together with the baggage, had not, as we afterwards ascertained, received the slighest injury.

The accident, however, delayed us for a short time, and indeed altogether prevented us from proceeding in my Finlandeze sledge, in conse quence of suitable shafts not being procurable at the instant. But this was of the less consequence, as I had another sledge, which I occasionally used for the conveyance of baggage, lying at Sälje; and in this we shortly afterwards proceeded on our journey.

About four miles beyond Sälje we came to Näs, a rather considerable hamlet situated upon the Klar. Here we bargained with a peasant to

convey us to Brunberg, there being no regular post to that place, then at something more than fourteen miles distance, for which we agreed to give him less than three shillings of our money.

Our route to Brunberg lay over Moss-sjön, near to which we had recently killed the four bears. The shores of this lake, and the morasses, &c. in its vicinity, is a favourite resort for capercali in the winter, and we had therefore hoped to have fallen in with a pack or two of those birds. In this, however, we were disappointed, which was probably attributable to the stormy state of the weather, as at such times the capercali seldom sit high upon the pines, whence they may be seen from a distance, but are mostly to be met with on the ground, or in the body of the trees, in which situation they are not of course so easily discernible.

Towards the afternoon, and soon after passing Moss-sjön, Elg and myself left the peasant to make the best of his way to Brunberg, with the sledge and dogs; whilst, in the hopes of falling in with something or other, we ourselves took a cast through the forest, and faced on foot for that place. But with the exception of a wounded capercali, which Elg said had been injured by a trap, we did not kill a single head of game, of any sort or kind. I managed, however, to miss a black-cock with my rifle.

On our way through the forest, Elg related to me an affecting circumstance. During the early

part of the same winter, a poor woman in the vicinity of Brunberg was missed from her home. On this becoming known, an immediate search of the adjacent country took place; but though there were a considerable number of persons, and Elg among the rest, engaged in the search, it was not until after the lapse of several days that she was found. The poor creature, who was lying at the foot of a pine, was then a corpse, having perished without doubt from the severity of the weather.

Other instances also came to my knowledge, where people, and children in particular, had been missed from their homes. When circumstances of this kind occurred, and the neighbours were unable to find the lost individual, information was sent to the Länsman, and, in consequence, a large portion of the population of the district was at once ordered out to search the surrounding forests.

A little before we reached Brunberg, Elg pointed out to me, between three pines growing immediately near to each other, and at some twenty-five or thirty feet from the ground, a small stand, or gäll, as it is termed in Sweden. This he had erected himself, and from hence he had at different periods shot three large bears.

His plan of proceeding, which was common throughout the northern forests, was the following. During the winter months, he would deposit the carcass of a cow or horse immediately near

to the gäll. When the bear, therefore, left his winter-quarters, and when, from the difficulty of procuring sustenance, in the early part of the summer, he is roaming the forest in every direction in search of food, the smell of the carrion not unfrequently tempted him to the spot.

Elg visited this lure nearly daily; and when he found a bear had been feasting upon it, he lost no time in perching himself up in his gäll. As it is during the night-time, however, that these animals most commonly feed, he seldom got into his stand until the shades of evening were setting in. Here, unless the bear made his appearance previously, he remained in the most profound silence, and with all his eyes about him, until the sun was well above the horizon on the following morning.

This silence and watchfulness, indeed, were very necessary, for Elg described the approach of these animals to the carrion to be in general so cautious, that the slightest noise would have alarmed them. Soon after sunset, and a little before sunrise, he stated to be the time at which the bear most commonly made his appearance.

In one instance, Elg neglected to look after his lure for some few days: of this the bears had fully benefited, for, on his return, he found they had devoured nearly the whole of it. For that particular season, therefore, as no other carrion was procurable, his sport was at an end.

Poor Elg sometimes suffered very much from