Kari told the captain about the gulls that evening when they were eating supper in the dining room on the boat. The captain said, “During the night the boat will pass a mountain where thousands and thousands of birds roost on the rocks.” “Can we see the birds from the boat?” asked Lars. “You could see them,” replied the captain, “if you were awake, but the boat will pass that rock at three o’clock in the morning. You will be sound asleep.” But Lars and Kari begged so hard that the captain promised to have them called when the boat was near the bird roost. Lars and Kari didn’t want to go to bed that night. They watched the sun on the mountain peaks of the islands to their right and then back of them to the north. At ten o’clock the sun was still sending a glowing light over the water. The captain said that it would shine until about eleven that night. But Kari thought that they should go to bed at ten o’clock so that they could get a good sleep before three o’clock. At three o’clock the steward of the boat knocked at the cabin door. Lars and Kari jumped up quickly. Each one pulled on warm stockings and shoes and coat and cap. They hurried to the deck. The sun was shining brightly again; in fact it had risen two hours earlier. [Illustration: BIRDS FRIGHTENED BY THE BOAT] Suddenly the boat moved close to a rocky wall. Such a screaming of bird cries! There on the rocks were so many, many birds that they never could have counted them. And many more, frightened by the boat, were flying about in the air crying wildly. Lars and Kari were delighted to have seen the thousands of birds at their resting place on the rocks, but they were glad to go back to bed, even though the sun was so high in the sky. And they slept until eight o’clock too. Before noon they reached the island where their grandmother lived. A boat came from the shore to meet them. They said good-bye to the captain and the other workers on the boat and went to the shore where their grandmother was waiting for them. Fishing Islands Lars stayed on the island with his grandmother that winter. He went to a larger and better school than the one in Hammerfest. At first Lars thought, “How lonely I shall be when the days are short and the nights are long.” To his surprise he found that the days with little sunshine were the busiest days on the islands. Lars was on one of the Lofoten islands where thousands of fishermen catch fish during the time of the long nights. Late in January the fishing boats began to arrive. Before many days thousands of boats had come. The boats brought thousands and thousands of fishermen. The huts along the coast were soon opened. The quiet spots were now noisy with the chugging of boats and the voices of busy people. Lars soon made friends with some fisher people. One old fisherman told him many things that he wanted to know about the cod, for that is the fish those fishermen came to Lofoten to catch.