"And now,"
concluded he, "I will tell your ladyship how I came by this scar on my
forehead. A few years ago I was visiting our friend Leonard, your
husband, my dear lady, at his castle at Hidvar, and whilst there we
spent two weeks among the glaciers."
"Night and day?" enquired the astonished Henrietta.
"Well, at night we built ourselves huts out of the branches of fir
trees. If, however, no rain fell we encamped in the open round our
watch-fire snugly wrapped up in our _bundas_[6]. Splendid fun I can
tell you! For two days, when our stores gave out, we lived on nothing
but bilberries and broiled bear's flesh."
[Footnote 6: Sheepskins.]
"You were badly off then."
"No, on the contrary, the paws of a bear are great delicacies, only we
had no salt to salt them with."
"Why did you not return home?"
"We could not, for four days together we had been on the track of a
blood-bear. Do you know what a blood-bear is? A bear is a very mild,
harmless sort of a beast in general, and is quite content with honey,
berries, and roots; but let him once taste blood and he rages about like
a lion, and more than that, he has a decided preference for human blood
before all other kinds of blood. We had been pursuing one of these old
malefactors four days running, as I have said; four times we got within
range of him and four times he broke away. He carried a few bullets away
with him beneath his hide, indeed, but a lot he cared about that! He
gave one or two of our badly-aiming huntsmen a clout on the head which
sent them flying, stripped the skin from the head of one of the beaters
and then took refuge in the wilderness.
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