erfected,--army officers being secretly misled and
won over by the specious talk of "their country's wrongs," and each
move made Borgrevinck more surely the head of it all,--when a quarrel
between himself and the "deliverer" occurred over the question of
recompense. Wealth untold they were willing to furnish; but regal
power, never. The quarrel became more acute. Borgrevinck continued to
attend all meetings, but was ever more careful to centre all power in
himself, and even prepared to turn round to the king's party if
necessary to further his ambition. The betrayal of his followers would
purchase his own safety. But proofs he must have, and he set about
getting signatures to a declaration of rights which was simply a veiled
confession of treason. Many of the leaders he had deluded into signing
this before the meeting at Laersdalsoren. Here they met in the early
winter, some twenty of the patriots, some of them men of position, all
of them men of brains and power. Here, in the close and stifling
parlor, they planned, discussed, and questioned. Great hopes were
expressed, great deeds were forecast, in that stove-hot room.

Outside, against the fence, in the winter night, was a Great White
Reindeer, harnessed to a sled, but lying down with his head doubled
back on his side as he slept, calm, unthoughtful, ox-like. Which seemed
likelier to decide the nation's fate, the earnest thinkers indoors, or
the ox-like sleeper without? Which seemed more vital to Israel, the
bearded council in King Saul's tent, or the light-hearted shepherd-boy
hurling stones across the brook at Bethlehem? At Laersdalsoren it was
as before: deluded by Borgrevinck's eloquent plausibility, all put
their heads in the noose, their lives and country in his hands, seeing
in this treacherous monster a very angel of self-sacrificing
patriotism. All? No, not all. Old Sveggum was there. He could neither
read nor write. That was his excuse for not signing. He could not read
a letter in a book, but he could read something of the hearts of men.
As the meeting broke up he whispered to Axel Tanberg: "Is his own name
on that paper?" And Axel, starting at the thought, said: "No." Then
said Sveggum: "I don't trust that man. They ought to know of this at
Nystuen." For there was to be the really important meeting. But how to
let them know was the riddle. Borgrevinck was going there at once with
his fast Horses.

Sveggum's eye twinkled as he nodded toward the Storbuk, s