He heard the officers at the door! He staggered to his feet, and was
making wild plans to fight the pursuers, when it occurred to him that he
had only dreamed. He sat down, faint, but mightily relieved.

Then he laughed, and it came to him that opposition was a part of the
great game of life. To do a thing was to jostle others, and to jostle
and be jostled was the fate of every man of power. "He that endureth
unto the end shall be saved."

The world was before him--the flowers still bloomed, and plants nodded
their heads in the meadows; the summer winds blew across the fields of
wheat, the branches waved. He was strong--he could plant and plow, or
dig ditches, or hew lumber!

Some one was hammering on the door; they had been knocking for fully
five minutes--ah! There had been no murder, so surely it was not the
officers.

He arose slowly and opened the door, murmuring apologies. A letter for
Carolus Linnaeus! The letter was from Baron Reuterholm of Dalecarlia. It
contained a draft for twenty-five pounds, "as a token of good faith,"
and begged that Linnaeus would accept charge of an expedition to survey
the natural resources of Dalecarlia in the same way that he had Lapland,
only with greater minuteness. Linnaeus read the letter again. The draft
fluttered from his fingers to the floor.

"Pick that up!" he peremptorily ordered of the messenger. He wanted to
see if the other man saw it too.

The other man did pick it up! Linnaeus was not dreaming, then, after
all!

* * * * *

This second expedition had two objects: one was the better education of
Baron Reuterholm's two sons, and the other the survey. One of these sons
was at the University of Upsala, and he had conceived such an admiration
for Linnaeus that he had written home about him. No man knows what he is
doing: we succeed by the right oblique. Little did Linnaeus guess that he
was preparing the way for great good fortune. The second excursion was
one of luxury. It lacked all the hardships of the first, and involved
the management of a party. Reuterholm was a rich Jewish banker, and a
man in close touch with all Swedish affairs of State. This time Linnaeus
was provided with ample funds.

Linnaeus had a genius for system--a head for business. He classified men,
and systematized his work like a general in the field. There were seven
young naturalists in the party, and to each Linnaeus assigned a special
work, with orders to han