an, the peasants would soon have ceased to pursue him and
have left him in peace in the mountains. But they feared great
disaster to the district, because he who had raised his hand
against the servant of God was still unpunished. When Tord came
down to the valley with game, they offered him riches and pardon
for his own crime if he would show them the way to Berg Rese's
hole, so that they might take him while he slept. But the boy
always refused; and if any one tried to sneak after him up to the
wood, he led him so cleverly astray that he gave up the pursuit.

Once Berg asked him if the peasants had not tried to tempt him
to betray him, and when he heard what they had offered him as a
reward, he said scornfully that Tord had been foolish not to accept
such a proposal.

Then Tord looked at him with a glance, the like of which Berg Rese
had never before seen. Never had any beautiful woman in his youth,
never had his wife or child looked so at him. "You are my lord, my
elected master," said the glance. "Know that you may strike me and
abuse me as you will, I am faithful notwithstanding."

After that Berg Rese paid more attention to the boy and noticed
that he was bold to act but timid to speak. He had no fear of
death. When the ponds were first frozen, or when the bogs were most
dangerous in the spring, when the quagmires were hidden under
richly flowering grasses and cloudberry, he took his way over them
by choice. He seemed to feel the need of exposing himself to
danger as a compensation for the storms and terrors of the ocean,
which he had no longer to meet. At night he was afraid in the
woods, and even in the middle of the day the darkest thickets or
the wide-stretching roots of a fallen pine could frighten him. But
when Berg Rese asked him about it, he was too shy to even answer.

Tord did not sleep near the fire, far in in the cave, on the bed
which was made soft with moss and warm with skins, but every night,
when Berg had fallen asleep, he crept out to the entrance and lay
there on a rock. Berg discovered this, and although he well
understood the reason, he asked what it meant. Tord would not
explain. To escape any more questions, he did not lie at the door
for two nights, but then he returned to his post.

One night, when the drifting snow whirled about the forest tops and
drove into the thickest underbrush, the driving snowflakes found
their way into the outlaws' cave. Tord, who lay just inside the
entran