THE PRECIOUS GIRDLE

       Table of Contents

      Wednesday, June fifteenth.

      The eagle kept on flying until he was a long distance north of Stockholm. Then he sank to a wooded hillock where he relaxed his hold on the boy.

      The instant Thumbietot was out of Gorgo's clutches he started to run back to the city as fast as he could.

      The eagle made a long swoop, caught up to the boy, and stopped him with his claw.

      "Do you propose to go back to prison?" he demanded.

      "That's my affair. I can go where I like, for all of you!" retorted the boy, trying to get away. Thereupon the eagle gripped him with his strong talons, and rose in the air.

      Now Gorgo circled over the entire province of Uppland and did not stop again until he came to the great water-falls at Älvkarleby where he alighted on a rock in the middle of the rushing rapids below the roaring falls. Again he relaxed his hold on the captive.

      The boy saw that here there was no chance of escape from the eagle. Above them the white scum wall of the water-fall came tumbling down, and round about the river rushed along in a mighty torrent. Thumbietot was very indignant to think that in this way he had been forced to become a promise-breaker. He turned his back to the eagle and would not speak to him.

      Now that the bird had set the boy down in a place from which he could not run away, he told him confidentially that he had been brought up by Akka from Kebnekaise, and that he had quarrelled with his foster-mother.

      "Now, Thumbietot, perhaps you understand why I wish to take you back to the wild geese," he said. "I have heard that you are in great favour with Akka, and it was my purpose to ask you to make peace between us."

      As soon as the boy comprehended that the eagle had not carried him off in a spirit of contrariness, he felt kindly toward him.

      "I should like very much to help you," he returned, "but I am bound by my promise." Thereupon he explained to the eagle how he had fallen into captivity and how Clement Larsson had left Skansen without setting him free.

      Nevertheless the eagle would not relinquish his plan.

      "Listen to me, Thumbietot," he said. "My wings can carry you wherever you wish to go, and my eyes can search out whatever you wish to find. Tell me how the man looks who exacted this promise from you, and I will find him and take you to him. Then it is for you to do the rest."

      Thumbietot approved of the proposition.

      "I can see, Gorgo, that you have had a wise bird like Akka for a foster-mother," the boy remarked.

      He gave a graphic description of Clement Larsson, and added that he had heard at Skansen that the little fiddler was from Hälsingland.

      "We'll search for him through the whole of Hälsingland—from Ljungby to Mellansjö; from Great Mountain to Hornland," said the eagle. "To-morrow before sundown you shall have a talk with the man!"

      "I fear you are promising more than you can perform," doubted the boy.

      "I should be a mighty poor eagle if I couldn't do that much," said

       Gorgo.

      So when Gorgo and Thumbietot left Älvkarleby they were good friends, and the boy willingly took his mount for a ride on the eagle's back. Thus he had an opportunity to see much of the country.

      When clutched in the eagle's talons he had seen nothing. Perhaps it was just as well, for in the forenoon he had travelled over Upsala, Österby's big factories, the Dannemora Mine, and the ancient castle of Örbyhus, and he would have been sadly disappointed at not seeing them had he known of their proximity.

      The eagle bore him speedily over Gästrikland. In the southern part of the province there was very little to tempt the eye. But as they flew northward, it began to be interesting.

      "This country is clad in a spruce skirt and a gray-stone jacket," thought the boy. "But around its waist it wears a girdle which has not its match in value, for it is embroidered with blue lakes and green groves. The great ironworks adorn it like a row of precious stones, and its buckle is a whole city with castles and cathedrals and great clusters of houses."

      When the travellers arrived in the northern forest region, Gorgo alighted on top of a mountain. As the boy dismounted, the eagle said:

      "There's game in this forest, and I can't forget my late captivity and feel really free until I have gone a-hunting. You won't mind my leaving you for a while?"

      "No, of course, I won't," the boy assured him.

      "You may go where you like if only you are back here by sundown," said the eagle, as he flew off.

      The boy sat on a stone gazing across the bare, rocky ground and the great forests round about.

      He felt rather lonely. But soon he heard singing in the forest below, and saw something bright moving amongst the trees. Presently he saw a blue and yellow banner, and he knew by the songs and the merry chatter that it was being borne at the head of a procession. On it came, up the winding path; he wondered where it and those who followed it were going. He couldn't believe that anybody would come up to such an ugly, desolate waste as the place where he sat. But the banner was nearing the forest border, and behind it marched many happy people for whom it had led the way. Suddenly there was life and movement all over the mountain plain; after that there was so much for the boy to see that he didn't have a dull moment.