ody or mind, he gave the two
things camphor and asafoetida,--sometimes together, and sometimes
separately; and always in corn-brandy. Oddo could not refrain from
trying what these drugs were like; so he helped himself to some of each;
and, as he could get no corn-brandy till dinner-time, he was eating the
medicines without. Such was the cause of his wry faces. If he had been
anything but a Norway boy, he would have been the invalid of the house
to-day, from the quantity of rich cake he had eaten: but Oddo seemed to
share the privilege, common to Norwegians, of being able to eat
anything, in any quantity, without injury. His wry faces were from no
indigestion, but from the savour of asafoetida, unrelieved by brandy.

Wooden dwellings resound so much as to be inconvenient for those who
have secrets to tell. In the porch of Peder's house, Oddo had heard all
that passed within. It was good for him to have done so. He became
more sensible of the pain he had given, and more anxious to repair it.
"Dear Erica," said he, "I want you to do a very kind thing for me. Do
get leave for me to go with Rolf after the bears. If I get one stroke
at them,--if I can but wound one of them, I shall have a paw for my
share; and I will lay it out for Nipen. You will, will you not?"

"It must be as Erlingsen chooses, Oddo: but I fancy you will not be
allowed to go just now. The bears will think the doctor's physic-sledge
is coming through the woods, and they will be shy. Do stand a little
further off. I cannot think how it is that you are not choked."

"Suppose you go for an airing," said the doctor, who now joined them.
"If you must not go in the way of the bears, there is a reindeer,--"

"O, where?" cried Oddo.

"I saw one,--all alone,--on the Salten heights. If you run that way,
with the wind behind you, the deer will give you a good run;--up
Sulitelma, if you like, and you will have got rid of the camphor before
you come back. And be sure you bring me some Iceland moss, to pay me
for what you have been helping yourself to."

When Oddo had convinced himself that Olaf really had seen a reindeer on
the heights, three miles off, he said to himself, that if deer do not
like camphor, they are fond of salt; and he was presently at the
salt-box, and then quickly on his way to the hills with his bait. He
considered his chance of training home the deer much more probable than
that Erlingsen and his grandfather would allow him to h