CHAPTER XXIII

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING

It was the head, the horns of a _reindeer_ that now appeared before Andy’s frightened eyes: a reindeer that flew past him with beating hoofs and big black frightened eyes and continued toward the river’s edge.

A Lapp dog was in pursuit, tight at his heels. They plunged by without taking any notice of the children beside the sled. Of such little creatures the deer, and much less the dog, had no fear.

With a hallooing cry came a Lapp from the birch grove and ran quickly forward on broad short skiis. A Lapp boy followed in his trail.

Andy did not believe his eyes.

‘_Mattes Klip!_’

It was a Lapp from their own home tract in the mountains, one who had a tent only sixty miles above their own parish.

The Lapp gave a cry.

‘Isn’t it Andy from High Peak village in the mountains? And, God help us, little ones even thinner than Lapp’s children. Food scarce for mountain children this year!’

‘Mattes! Oh, that it is _Mattes_!’

Maglena, who still trembled in every limb, went toward the Lapp.

Magnus hardly dared lift his head from the sled.

This time he really believed that fright had been the death of him, for he could not move from the spot. Besides, the thought still held him that the hallooing came from the farmhand and the Wicked Farm boys, and the barking from Knife.

Magnus could not all at once turn all these ideas upside down or downside up. He had to have time to straighten it all out within him.

So he stayed where he was, scraping the small of his leg against the edge of the sled and standing almost on his head in the sheepskin robe. It was only when a smart blow descended on that part of his body that he all too carelessly exposed that he tumbled backwards and stood on the ground.

‘Little fellow scared out of his wits, big man otherwise up in the mountains,’ said Mattes.

‘This time they nearly did for me. It isn’t any fun to think that you’re going to be bitten to death by a dog.’

Mattes had taken on a sorrowful look, but his happy even Lapp temper soon came forth again.

‘Good luck now that reindeer got of herd this morning. Been mad and run after it in snow-water all day. Satisfied now with running deer. Nerlja glad to stop too. Give food to you all.’

The Lapp took forth out of ‘the Lapp’s cupboard’ (the full jacket above the belt) a piece of reindeer cheese and hard bread, which Nerlja, his son, as well as the others, hungrily accepted.

‘Not far from herd now. Deer there now. To-night Swedish children will be little Lapps in tent with old Lapp.’

‘Oh, goodness, Mattes, let’s go!’ cried Maglena eagerly and pulled Mattes’s sleeve. ‘I hear a gray dog up on the bank; he’s whining and hunting a trail. I hear the boys hallooing too.’

Maglena pulled Mattes down to the ice.

Little Nerlja watched how Andy fussed over the sled. He thought that Swedish people had a lot of trouble when they were wandering; no ‘akkja’ [15] in which one could tie fast everything one wanted along and no deer to pull one through the miles of wilderness.

[15] Akkja is the Lappish word for a sort of sled drawn by reindeer, shaped like a boat, without runners of any kind, lined with furs and large enough for one person only.

Their clothes were worst of all, especially their shoes.

Andy and Magnus had grown-ups’ shoes, soaking wet, and stuffed with hay. Their long trousers with patches, and their long-sleeved jackets without belts were uncomfortable wearisome things. A Lapp neither would nor could move about in such clothes.

Little Nerlja hopped and jumped, lithe as a pine-marten in his short deerskin kilts with the close-fitting trousers bound at the small of the leg with bright bands and tassels. On his feet he had the feather-weight Laplanders’ fur boots.

The blue pointed cap with the green stripe sat as lightly as a mere nothing on his head. The Lapp boy laid his skiis and ski-staff on the sled and took hold of the rope to help Andy pull.

The Lapp was much amused at their undaunted act of taking a goat with them on such a journey. A goat was nearly as easily fed and cared for as a deer. She came running from the bushes when Maglena called her, full-fed and content.

Maglena nearly fell, for she could not help looking back in the direction from which she heard clearly the barking of dogs and hallooing. When they came out to the middle of the wide river, she could see the village they had passed. Up there she saw the fields with bare spots, slopes, and ditches. She could see the dark woods where their green cottage was. And she hid herself shivering behind Mattes. There, just where the road turned toward the river, she saw a gray dog dash forward, whining and growling. Farther up on the river-bank appeared two heavy men and three boys, also a girl. Like hungry wolves they greedily hunted their prey.

Maglena took tighter hold of Mattes’s coat. Magnus held on no less tightly.