He told them, perhaps not without a humorous intention, that Sverre was their man, and advised them, in case he persisted in his refusal, to threaten him with death. Back they went, accordingly, to Sverre, and this time he yielded to their persuasions. He must then have been twenty-four or twenty-five years old. And thus, with two empty hands and seventy ragged and badly armed men, he began the fight for the crown of Norway. He started from Vermeland southward for Viken, and so many gathered about him on the way, that by the time he arrived in the Saurbygd, he had 420 men. These proclaimed him, in spite of his protest, king, and touched his sword in token of allegiance. But when he forbade them to rob and plunder the peasants, the majority grew discontented and left him. In order to test them he ordered them back to Vermeland, but by the time he reached the Eidskog, his band had shrunk to the original seventy. Sverre was now in a serious dilemma. He had announced himself as a claimant to the throne, thereby making himself fair game for any one who could slay him. And to wage war against King Magnus and Erling Skakke with seventy men was too absurd to be considered. In his extremity he sent messengers to Thelemark, where he had heard that some Birchlegs had sought refuge after the battle of Ree, and where there was said to be much dissatisfaction with King Magnus. Wherever he appeared, the peasants met him with hostile demonstrations, and many were those who wished to earn the gratitude of Earl Erling by destroying the runaway priest and his robber band. But it was in these desperate emergencies that the wonderful resources of Sverre's mind became apparent. Though he often had to live on bark and frozen berries, which were dug up from under the snow, his courage never failed him. Though in his journeys through pathless mountain wildernesses, his men dropped dead about him from exposure and hunger, and he had to cover himself with his shield and allow himself to be snowed down, he kept a stout heart in his bosom and rebuked those who talked of suicide. It is told of him that during his march from Sweden to Nidaros, he came to a large mountain lake which it was necessary to cross. Rafts were made, but the men were so exhausted, that it took them a good while to fell the logs. One by one the rafts were launched and rowed across. Sverre himself boarded the last, but it was already so heavily loaded, that the water reached above his ankle. One man, however, who was half dead with weariness, had been left. He crawled down to the edge of the water and begged the king to take him along, as otherwise he must perish. The Birchlegs grumbled loudly, but Sverre commanded them to lay to and take the man aboard. The raft then sank still deeper and the king stood in the icy water up to his knees. It looked for awhile as if they would go to the bottom. But Sverre did not change a mien. They reached, at last,