breathlessly for hours, and it will lead to a sheer precipice.
Whether the explanation is suicide, or a reprehensible tendency on
the part of the animal towards practical joking, you are left to
decide for yourself. Then, with many rough miles between you and
your rest, you abandon the chase.

But I speak from personal experience merely.

All day long we had tramped through the pitiless rain, stopping only
for an hour at noon to eat some dried venison and smoke a pipe
beneath the shelter of an overhanging cliff. Soon afterwards Michael
knocked over a ryper (a bird that will hardly take the trouble to hop
out of your way) with his gun-barrel, which incident cheered us a
little; and, later on, our flagging spirits were still further
revived by the discovery of apparently very recent deer-tracks.
These we followed, forgetful, in our eagerness, of the lengthening
distance back to the hut, of the fading daylight, of the gathering
mist. The track led us higher and higher, farther and farther into
the mountains, until on the shores of a desolate rock-bound vand it
abruptly ended, and we stood staring at one another, and the snow
began to fall.

Unless in the next half-hour we could chance upon a saeter, this
meant passing the night upon the mountain. Michael and I looked at
the guide; but though, with characteristic Norwegian sturdiness, he
put a bold face upon it, we could see that in that deepening darkness
he knew no more than we did. Wasting no time on words, we made
straight for the nearest point of descent, knowing that any human
habitation must be far below us.