“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 Haelsingland.

“We’ll search for him through the whole of Haelsingland—­from Ljungby to Mellansjoe; 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 Aelvkarleby 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, Oesterby’s big factories, the Dannemora Mine, and the ancient castle of Oerbyhus, and he would have been sadly disappointed at not seeing them had he known of their proximity.

The eagle bore him speedily over Gaestrikland.  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?”