way into the mountains. That was the story he would tell, of
course, and as there had been no witnesses present, there was no way of
disproving it.

Abandoning, however, for the time being all thought of revenge, Erik
determined to bend all his energies to the recovery of Lady Clare. He
felt confident that she had run away from her assailant, and was now
roaming about in the mountains. He therefore organized a search party
of all the male servants on the estate, besides a couple of volunteers,
making in all nine. On the evening of the first day's search they put up
at a saeter or mountain chalet. Here they met a young man named Tollef
Morud, who had once been a groom at John Garvestad's. This man had a bad
reputation; and as the idea occurred to some of them that he might know
something about Lady Clare's disappearance, they questioned him at great
length, without, however, eliciting a single crumb of information.

For a week the search was continued, but had finally to be given up.
Weary, footsore, and heavy hearted, Erik returned home. His grief at the
loss of Lady Clare began to tell on his health; and his perpetual plans
for getting even with John Garvestad amounted almost to a mania, and
caused his father both trouble and anxiety. It was therefore determined
to send him to the military academy in the capital.

Four or five years passed and Erik became a lieutenant. It was during
the first year after his graduation from the military academy that he
was invited to spend the Christmas holidays with a friend, whose parents
lived on a fine estate about twenty miles from the city. Seated in their
narrow sleighs, which were drawn by brisk horses, they drove merrily
along, shouting to each other to make their voices heard above the
jingling of the bells. About eight o'clock in the evening, when the moon
was shining brightly and the snow sparkling, they turned in at a wayside
tavern to order their supper. Here a great crowd of lumbermen had
congregated, and all along the fences their overworked, half-broken-down
horses stood, shaking their nose-bags. The air in the public room was so
filled with the fumes of damp clothes and bad tobacco that Erik and his
friend, while waiting for their meal, preferred to spend the time under
the radiant sky. They were sauntering about, talking in a desultory
fashion, when all of a sudden a wild, joyous whinny rang out upon the
startled air.

It came from a rusty, black, decrepit-looking