atches of
green meadow gleam through the dark pine depths.

The clear blue sky changes to a faint haze in the hilly distance. The
gentle air is perfumed with the odor of the forest. A Sabbath stillness
broods over all. The sun has swung around to the northwest, and skims
along the horizon as if loth to leave such a sweet scene.

Evening was settling down on the Norwegian _saeter_, or summer herd
ground. Riding along the trail through the pines appeared a young man.
He was evidently not at home in the forest, as he peered anxiously
through every opening. His dress and bearing indicated that he was not a
woodsman nor a herder of cattle. Pausing on a knoll, he surveyed the
scene around him, and took off his hat that the evening breeze might
cool his face. Suddenly, there came echoing through the forest, from
hill to hill, the deep notes of the _lur_. The traveler listened, and
then urged his horse forward. Again and again the blast reverberated,
the notes dying in low echoes on the distant hills. From another rise,
the rider saw the girl who was making all this wild music. She was
standing on a high knoll. Peering down into the forest, she recognized
the traveler and welcomed him with an attempt at a tune on her long,
wooden trumpet.

"Good evening, Hansine," said he, as his horse scrambled up the path
close by, "your _lur_ made welcome music this evening."

"Good evening, Hr. Bogstad," said she, "are you not lost?"

"I was, nearly, until I heard you calling your cows. It is a long way up
here--but the air and the scenery are grand."

"Yes, do you think so? I don't know anything about what they call grand
scenery. I've always lived up here, and it's work, work all the
time--but those cows are slow coming home." She lifted her _lur_ to her
lips and once more made the woods ring.

Down at the foot of the hills, where the pines gave place to small,
grassy openings, stood a group of log huts, towards which the cows were
now seen wending.

"Come, Hr. Bogstad, I see the cows are coming. I must go down to meet
them."

They went down the hill together. The lowing cows came up to the
stables, and as the herd grew larger there was a deafening din. A girl
was standing in the doorway of one of the cabins, timidly watching the
noisy herd.

"Come, give the cows their salt," laughingly shouted Hansine to her.

"And get hooked all to pieces? Not much."

"You little coward. What good would you be on a _saeter_? What do you