Part 9

“In the name of the law!” he shouted again, and both rifles were reluctantly lowered.

“I have shot an elk,” cried Ralph, eagerly, “and this man is a poacher, we heard him shoot.”

“I have killed an elk,” screamed the poacher, in the same moment, “and so has this fellow.”

The sheriff was too astonished to speak. Never before, in his experience, had poachers raced for dear life to give themselves into custody. He feared that they were making sport of him; in that case, however, he resolved to make them suffer for their audacity.

“You are my prisoners,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation. “Take them to the lock-up, Olsen, and handcuff them securely,” he added, turning to his deputy.

There were now a dozen men--most of them guests and attendants of the sheriff’s household--standing in a ring about Ralph and the poacher. Albert, too, had scrambled to his feet and had joined his comrade.

“Will you permit me, Mr. Sheriff,” said Ralph, making the officer his politest bow, “to send a message to my father, who is probably anxious about us?”

“And who is your father, young man?” asked the sheriff, not unkindly; “I should think you were doing him an ill-turn in taking to poaching at your early age.”

“My father is Mr. Hoyer, of Solheim,” said the boy, not without some pride in the announcement.

“What--you rascal, you! Are you trying to, play pranks on an old man?” cried the officer of the law, grasping Ralph cordially by the hand. “You’ve grown to be quite a man, since I saw you last. Pardon me for not recognizing the son of an old neighbor.”

“Allow me to introduce to you my friend, Mr. Biceps--I mean, Mr. Albert Grimlund.”

“Happy to make your acquaintance, Mr. Biceps Albert; and now you must both come and eat the Christmas porridge with us. I’ll send a messenger to Mr. Hoyer without delay.”

The sheriff, in a jolly mood, and happy to have added to the number of his Christmas guests, took each of the two young men by the arm, as if he were going to arrest them, and conducted them through the spacious front hall into a large cosey room, where, having divested themselves of their wraps, they told the story of their adventure.

“But, my dear sir,” Mr. Bjornerud exclaimed, “I don’t see how you managed to go beyond your father’s preserves. You know he bought of me the whole forest tract, adjoining his own on the south, about three months ago. So you were perfectly within your rights; for your father hasn’t killed an elk on his land for three years.”

“If that is the case, Mr. Sheriff,” said Ralph, “I must beg of you to release the poor fellow who chased us. I don’t wish any informer’s fee, nor have I any desire to get him into trouble.”

“I am sorry to say I can’t accommodate you,” Bjornerud replied. “This man is a notorious poacher and trespasser, whom my deputies have long been tracking in vain. Now that I have him I shall keep him. There’s no elk safe in Odalen so long as that rascal is at large.”

“That may be; but I shall then turn my informer’s fee over to him, which will reduce his fine from fifty dollars to twenty-five dollars.”

“To encourage him to continue poaching?”

“Well, I confess I have a little more sympathy with poachers, since we came so near being poachers ourselves. It was only an accident that saved us!”

THE NIXY’S STRAIN

Little Nils had an idea that he wanted to be something great in the world, but he did not quite know how to set about it. He had always been told that, having been born on a Sunday, he was a luck-child, and that good fortune would attend him on that account in whatever he undertook.

He had never, so far, noticed anything peculiar about himself, though, to be sure, his small enterprises did not usually come to grief, his snares were seldom empty, and his tiny stamping-mill, which he and his friend Thorstein had worked at so faithfully, was now making a merry noise over in the brook in the Westmo Glen, so that you could hear it a hundred yards away.

The reason of this, his mother told him, according to the superstition of her people, was that the Nixy and the Hulder and the gnomes favored him because he was a Sunday child. What was more, she assured him, that he would see them some day, and then, if he conducted himself cleverly, so as to win their favor, he would, by their aid, rise high in the world, and make his fortune.

Now this was exactly what Nils wanted, and therefore he was not a little anxious to catch a glimpse of the mysterious creatures who had so whimsical a reason for taking an interest in him. Many and many a time he sat at the waterfall where the Nixy was said to play the harp every midsummer night, but although he sometimes imagined that he heard a vague melody trembling through the rush and roar of the water, and saw glimpses of white limbs flashing through the current, yet never did he get a good look at the Nixy.

Though he roamed through the woods early and late, setting snares for birds and rabbits, and was ever on the alert for a sight of the Hulder’s golden hair and scarlet bodice, the tricksy sprite persisted in eluding him.

He thought sometimes that he heard a faint, girlish giggle, full of teasing provocation and suppressed glee, among the underbrush, and once he imagined that he saw a gleam of scarlet and gold vanish in a dense alder copse.

But very little good did that do him, when he could not fix the vision, talk with it face to face, and extort the fulfilment of the three regulation wishes.

“I am probably not good enough,” thought Nils. “I know I am a selfish fellow, and cruel, too, some-times, to birds and beasts. I suppose she won’t have anything to do with me, as long as she isn’t satisfied with my behavior.”