d and foot from every man in
Sweden, that they might never revolt again. Now all felt that there was
nothing left but fight. In great haste the Dalecarlians sent after
Gustavus and brought him back. They held a great meeting, and to it came
Gustavus' wood-cutter friend, Liss Lars. He made a great homely speech,
saying, "This Gustavus, son of Eric, is a man. He has threshed with me,
and I know him. We can trust him, and sense has he, more than all of us
put together. He must be our leader."

All swore fealty to Gustavus; and he bade them make swords and spears
and arrows on their own anvils, while he went on again to rouse the
other provinces. King Christian had been called home by a rumor of
rebellion there, but his lieutenants thought to crush this little
uprising of the Dalecarlians as easily as they had a few others, and one
of them marched promptly there with a large force. The brave peasants,
led by Liss Lars and another, attacked him as he was crossing a river
and defeated him with great slaughter. Gustavus heard rumors of the
battle, and that his little army was destroyed. In wild haste he
galloped back to Dalecarlia to find them celebrating their victory.

Now did the men he had roused in every quarter come pouring in; and he
drilled them, and trained them, and encouraged them, became head and
hand and heart for them all, till soon he had such an army that he might
fairly hope to match any force the Danes could bring against him. Then
he sent out a proclamation declaring Christian deposed for his cruel and
bloody tyranny, and calling all true Swedes to join him in making war
upon the oppressor.

Thus did this young man at twenty-five become the leader of a great
rebellion, which he himself had created and controlled. He led his men
against one fortress after another. There were long sieges and terrible
battles; but Gustavus proved himself as great a general as he was a man;
and two years later, in 1525, Stockholm, the last town remaining to the
Danes in Sweden, surrendered to his army. Christian himself had been
unable to leave Denmark, but he was in constant communication with his
lieutenants, and wild was his rage at the continued success of his young
opponent. Gustavus's mother and sister, with many other Swedish ladies,
had fallen into the king's hands at the time of those wholesale murders;
and he tried to frighten the hero with threats of what he would do to
them; but poor Gustavus had learned only too s