, curling his tail tight on his back as he did so, shook the hay
from the great antlers as though they were a bunch of twigs, and slowly
followed Sveggum at the end of the tight halter. He was so sleepy and
slow that Borgrevinck impatiently gave him a kick, and got for response
a short snort from the Buk, and from Sveggum an earnest warning, both
of which were somewhat scornfully received. The tinkling bells on the
harness had been replaced, but Borgrevinck wanted them removed. He
wished to go in silence. Sveggum would not be left behind when his
favorite Ren went forth, so he was given a seat in the horse-sleigh
which was to follow, and the driver thereof received from his master a
secret hint to delay.

Then, with papers on his person to death-doom a multitude of misguided
men, with fiendish intentions in his heart as well as the power to
carry them out, and with the fate of Norway in his hands, Borgrevinck
was made secure in the sled, behind the White Storbuk, and sped at dawn
on his errand of desolation.

At the word from Sveggum the White Ren set off with a couple of bounds
that threw Borgrevinck back in the pulk. This angered him, but he
swallowed his wrath on seeing that it left the horse-sleigh behind. He
shook the line, shouted, and the Buk settled down to a long, swinging
trot. His broad hoofs clicked double at every stride. His nostrils, out
level, puffed steady blasts of steam in the frosty morning as he
settled to his pace. The pulk's prow cut two long shears of snow, that
swirled up over man and sled till all were white. And the great ox-eyes
of the King Ren blazed joyously in the delight of motion, and of
conquest too, as the sound of the horse-bells faded far behind.

Even masterful Borgrevinck could not but mark with pleasure the noble
creature that had balked him last night and now was lending its speed
to his purpose; for it was his intention to arrive hours before the
horse-sleigh, if possible.

Up the rising road they sped as though downhill, and the driver's
spirits rose with the exhilarating speed. The snow groaned ceaselessly
under the prow of the pulk, and the frosty creaking under the hoofs of
the flying Ren was like the gritting of mighty teeth. Then came the
level stretch from Nystuen's hill to Dalecarl's, and as they whirled by
in the early day, little Carl chanced to peep from a window, and got
sight of the Great White Ren in a white pulk with a white driver, just
as it is in the storie