As good fortune would have it, in her wild flight Elsa had come to the edge of one of the great bogs that cover so large a part of Finland, and her light steps had taken her some distance over its uncertain surface. On she went, springing lightly from tussock to tussock of the coarse grass, till at last she reached a little space of firmer ground, and sank down, exhausted, upon the fallen trunk of a willow tree. Meantime honey-paw also had come to the edge of the bog, but after a few cautious steps had found himself too heavy to gain a foothold on the soft ground, so with another sniff or two he turned about and trotted off. When Elsa saw him going away, she was so worn out with fright, and so very tired, that she did just what any other little girl would have done: she began to cry, and cried and cried as if her heart would break. She sat there sobbing a long time, and was quite sure she would have to stay in that little spot the rest of her life, till the wicked bog witches found her or the bears ate her up; for she did not think she could ever venture on alone. Indeed she cried so hard that she did not notice that she was quite near the bank of a good-sized river that flowed to the east, nor did she know that after a while a large flat-boat drifted in sight. It was laden with a great number of bark-bound barrels, and on the deck a man stood guiding the boat with a long pole. As it floated slowly along, the boatman saw Elsa, and called out in surprise. “Ho, little one! what dost thou in yonder bog? Art lost?” When Elsa heard him, she quickly looked up, and begged piteously that he take her away from that dangerous spot! “That will I do right gladly,” said he; and directing her how to reach the bank in safety, he guided his boat to land and then helped Elsa aboard. He gave her a little box on which to sit, and told her that the heavy barrels arranged in rows in the boat were filled with turpentine which he was floating down the river from the pine woods farther inland. Then looking curiously at Elsa, who sat there still tightly holding her little kantele, which she had unconsciously kept through her flight from honey-paw, he said: “But who art thou, little one?” The man had a good face and a kindly manner that quite reassured Elsa, who, now that her fear of the bear was relieved, had begun to wonder who her companion might be. When she told him her name, “Ah,” he exclaimed, “I know thy father well! But whither art thou going all by thyself?” When Elsa told him of her journey to the peasant Ulricborg, he looked astonished, but told her to have no fear, as he would see her safely to the Ulricborg home, which was down the very river on which they were floating, and at no great distance from the bank.