thieves for the
safety of our herds, has long troubled me.'

'On your own responsibility!' grumbled the old man, drawing Arwed
mysteriously aside. 'You will find the robbers' camp,' he whispered to
him, 'by turning to the left and then proceeding straight forward to
the foot of the mountains. You will then turn to the right into a
ravine, and again to the left, following the banks of a glacier rivulet
until you discover what you seek. You will know the place by the swarms
of carrion birds who scent their future prey there, and consequently
never leave the rocks.'

'Your description may appear very plain to you, friend Jervis,' said
Arwed, 'but it is nevertheless hardly intelligible to me. Grant me a
guide to the place. I will richly reward him.'

'Jackmock!' cried the Laplander's wife, and a short, thick, nine-pin
looking fellow sprang forward, whom Jervis directed to guide the
Swedish gentleman to the Ravensten in the mountains.

'Certainly!' answered the fellow. 'If not entirely there, yet so near
that he can see it at a distance.' Whereupon he hastened to get his
staff and traveling bag, and soon again stood before Arwed, ready for
the march.

'I am already under great obligations to you,' said Arwed to the woman.
'Yet--yet one more question I wish to ask in the strictest confidence.
You come from where I wish to go. Perhaps you have accidentally learned
something of a fine, tall old gentleman who, since yesterday, may have
fallen into wicked hands?'

'You wish to know much, and require us to do dangerous things!'
grumbled the patriarch.

'You have already told me so much,' urged Arwed, 'why not unreservedly
tell me all? By my God, I will not abuse your confidence.'

'Who can deny you any thing?' whispered the woman, laughing. 'According
to the information we received yesterday about sunset, you will indeed
find him whom you seek upon the Ravensten; but whether living or dead,
I cannot undertake to say.'

Arwed turned to go.

'Take care of yourself,' said the good woman in bidding him God speed.
'Naddock shows no mercy to an enemy. If you fall into his hands as an
opponent, you are lost.'

'We are all in the hands of God,' answered Arwed with confidence; and,
shaking hands with Jervis, he followed his guide into the forest.

CHAPTER XLIV.

They had been traveling silently for some hours, when the forest
opened, and an arm of the mountain which divides the Umea Lappm