by men who live on the
raft during its journey.

It was one of the log-drivers who had been caught while he was trying to
push the logs out into the channel; and now his leg was broken.

"We can take him to Gellivare in one of our kaerra," said Lieutenant
Ekman, when, with the help of Erik and his father, the man had finally
been rescued and carried ashore.

Accordingly, he was lifted into the cart with Erik, while Gerda snuggled
into the seat between Birger and her father; and the journey over the
rough woodland road was made as carefully as possible.

Several interesting things were discovered while the doctor from the
mines was setting the broken leg. The most important of all was that this
stalwart lumberman had a father who was a lighthouse keeper.

"Ask him if it is the Sea-gull Light," begged Gerda, when she heard of
it; "and find out if Karen is his sister."

And it was indeed so. The young man had been in the woods all winter, and
was on his way to the lighthouse, which he had hoped to reach in a few
days, for the river current was swift and the logs were making good
progress down to Lulea.

"You shall reach home sooner than you expected," said Lieutenant Ekman
the next morning, "for you shall go with us this very day."

"Fine! Fine! Fine!" cried Gerda joyously when she heard of it. "Pack your
bundle, Erik, for you are going with us, too."

While their clothes, and all the little keepsakes of the trip, were being
hurried into the satchels, Gerda's tongue flew fast with excitement, and
her feet flew to keep it company.

"What do you suppose Karen will say, when she sees us bringing her
brother over the rocks?" she ran to ask Birger in one room, and then ran
to ask her father in another.

At nine o'clock the injured man was moved into the train, the children
took their last look at the mining town, and then began their return over
the most northerly railroad in the world, back through the swamps and
forests, across the Polcirkel, and out of Lapland.

Lulea was reached at last and Josef Klasson was transported from the
train to the steamer, "Just as if he were a load of iron ore from the
mines," Birger declared.

"Not quite so bad as that," said his father, and took the twins to see
the great hydraulic lift that takes up a car loaded with ore, as easily
as a mother lifts her baby, and dumps the whole load into the hold of a
vessel.

The children were so full of interest in all the new life around