flaunted by, in their curved conical head-dresses. There, a Laplandish burgher-maiden ostentatiously displayed herself in her fine cloth dress, decorated with silver buttons from the girdle to the feet, as was the black bodice, and also rendered stiff and unbending with buckles and spangles. High over these rather diminutive figures towered here and there the majestic forms of the blond natives of Sweden, who were moving about like giants among a race of pigmies. The travelers alighted before the door of the sheriff's residence, and the governor immediately entered upon business, which crowded upon him like the unceasing rush of the storm-lashed waves. Megret, with a few internally muttered oaths, was seeking Christine, who had disappeared from his view soon after their arrival, and Arwed remained standing at the house door, amusing himself with watching the confused crowd in the public square. While he was thus employed, a sudden movement occurred among the living masses, as if an island of human heads was forming in one particular spot. Arms, with and without clubs, were ever and anon raised above the thickly crowded heads, and a confused cry arose, in which Arwed soon plainly distinguished the words, 'stop him! stop him!' The next moment a man in a green hunting dress rushed from the square towards the door of the sheriff's house, ran by Arwed with such impetuosity that he came near throwing him down, and hastily entered the room where the governor was holding his official sitting. While the astonished Arwed was looking after the fugitive, a Lapland village constable (or magistrate) came puffing and blowing from the same direction in the square. A dozen other Laplanders followed in his wake, armed with hunting spears, oars and cudgels. With the timidity to which the oppressed are early accustomed by their oppressors, the little constable looked up to the tall Swedish warrior, took off his cap, and with cringing humility asked him if he knew what had become of the green-coat who had just before fled into the house. 'Impossible!' cried he, as Arwed pointed towards the session room; 'how could such a thievish fox seek refuge in the tent of the huntsman? Not that I in the least doubt the truth of your intimation, noble sir,' added he, courteously, 'but Enontekis must have mistaken the man, and he cannot be the one whom we seek.' 'He is the same,' asseverated one of the Laplanders; 'I have marked the features of his face but too well, and should know him among a thousand.' 'So then we must pluck up fresh courage,' said the constable in a very dispirited tone, 'and request an audience of the gentlemen within. Come with me, Enontekis, to enter your complaint; and you others, guard the door, that this beast of prey may not escape.'