and threw it back on the table; he picked it up and tore it to shreds.

"I'm sorry you've seen it," he said. "We linesmen have a way of doing that
sort of thing, and I'd forgotten I'd left it here."

Soon after this he went out.

He stayed that night and next day, and found a means of repaying me by
washing some of my clothes and making himself useful in other ways. There
was a large tub outside the hut--had been since the Lapps lived there--
which was cracked and leaked abundantly, but Solem stopped the cracks with
bacon fat and boiled my clothes in it. It was very funny to watch him
imperturbably skimming off the fat that floated up.

He seemed to want to stay till we had finished the provisions again, and
then to go with me to the village; but when he heard I was going the other
way, to the mountain farm somewhere under the great peaks of the Tore,
where summer visitors stayed and many travelers passed, he wanted to go
there, too. He was a bird of passage.

"Can't I come with you and help you carry?" he asked me. "I'm used to farm
work, too, and perhaps I can get a job there."




VIII


The bustle of spring season had already started at the great farm; men and