But the incident warned the gamekeeper that his guest was not safe anywhere in that vicinity, and to get him away unobserved he hid him in a large load of hay and drove off towards the forest. On the way some of the Danish scouts were met, and these, having some suspicion of Swen, began poking their lances through the hay. One of these wounded Gustavus in the leg, but he lay silent and motionless and the scouts soon went their way. But the cut on the concealed man's leg bled so freely that blood soon began to run from the cart and tinge the snow. Seeing this, Swen, fearing that the trail of blood might betray him, opened his knife and thrust it into the leg of his horse, so that if any one should perceive the blood stains he could assign this as their cause. He finally delivered his charge to the care of some loyal gamekeepers on the edge of the forest; but these, not considering their houses safe as hiding-places, took him into the forest, where he lay hidden for three days under a great fallen fir tree, they bringing him food and drink. Finding even this place insecure, he went deeper into the woods and sought shelter under a lofty fir tree which stood on a hill in the midst of a marsh. The place has ever since been called "The King's Height." Finally the effort of the Danish agents to find him relaxed and his faithful friends conducted him through the vast forests to Raettwik's Church, at the eastern end of the great Lake Silja. His perils were yet by no means at an end. He spoke of his purpose at this place to an assembly of the peasants and was pleased to find that they listened to him with willing ears. Having thus sown his first seed in favorable soil, he proceeded to Mora on the northern end of the lake, where the priest received him in a friendly manner. But he was being sought by the Danes in that district and the priest did not dare to hide him in his own house, but committed him to the care of a peasant named Tomte Mattes. As the search was becoming active he was concealed in a vaulted cellar, reached by a trap-door in the floor. He had not been long there when the Danish scouts, who were searching the whole district, reached the peasant's house, where they found his wife in the midst of her brewing of Christmas ale. As they entered, the shrewd woman turned a great tub over the trap-door, so that they did not perceive it, and thus for the third time the future king of Sweden owed his liberty and life to a woman's wit. Shortly after that, at one of the Christmas festivals, as the men of Mora were leaving the church, Gustavus called them to him where he stood on a low mound beside the churchyard and addressed them in earnest tones, while they gazed with deep sympathy on the manly form of the young noble of whose sufferings and those of his family they were well aware.