“You are right,” answered her father; and at the same moment Erik looked back and shouted, “We must hurry.  Perhaps we can reach my father’s tent before the rain comes.”

Then, glancing up again at the black clouds, he said to Birger, “We shall soon hear the pounding of Thor’s hammer.”

“How do you happen to know about the old Norse gods?” questioned Birger.

“I have been to school in Jockmock, and I read books,” replied Erik, urging on his horse to a race with the clouds; but the clouds won, for the little party had gone scarcely an English mile before they were in the midst of a thunder-storm.  Over rocks and rills, under low-hanging boughs of pine and birch trees rattled the carts along the rough woodland road.  The rain poured down in sheets, zigzag lightning flashed across the sky, and a peal of thunder crashed and rumbled through the forest.

Lieutenant Ekman threw his coat over Gerda, covering her from head to foot, and called to Erik that they must stop.  As he spoke, a second flash of lightning showed a great boulder beside the road and Erik answered, “Here we are at my father’s tent.  It is just beyond that rock.”

Another moment, and with one last jounce and jolt, the two carts had rounded the turn in the road and stopped in a small clearing beside a lake.  The arrival of the carts, or kaerra, as they are called in Sweden, had brought the whole family of Lapps to the door of the tent.  There they stood, huddled together,—­Erik’s father, mother, brother and sisters,—­looking out to see who was arriving in such a downpour.

Lieutenant Ekman jumped down, gathered Gerda up in his arms, coat and all, and ran toward the tent.  Birger followed, while Erik waited to tie the horses to a tree.

Immediately the group at the doorway disappeared inside the tent, making way for the strangers to enter, and when Gerda had shaken herself out of her father’s coat, a scene of the greatest confusion greeted her eyes.

The frame of the tent was made of poles driven into the ground and drawn together at the top.  It was covered with a coarse woolen cloth which is made by the Lapps and is very strong.  A cross-pole was fastened to the frame to support the cooking-kettle, under which wood had been placed for a fire.

An opening had been left at the top of the tent to allow the smoke to escape.  Birger had often made such a tent of poles and canvas when he was spending the summer with his grandmother in Dalarne.

At the right of the entrance was a pile of reindeer skins, and there, huddled together with the three children, were four big dogs.  The dogs stood up and began to growl, but Erik’s father, who was a short, thick-set man with black eyes and a skin which was red and wrinkled from exposure to the cold winds, silenced them with a word.  He then helped Erik spread some dry skins for the visitors on the left side of the tent.

The Lapp mother immediately busied herself with lighting the fire, putting some water into the kettle to boil, and grinding some coffee.  As she moved about the tent, Gerda saw that a baby, strapped to a cradle-board, hung over her back.