"You ought to go with your father part of the way over the mountains, Miss Inger-Johanna—see if you could find some lofty bower."
"That is an idea, not at all stupid," broke in the captain, "not impossible, not at all! You could ride all the way to the Grönnelid saeters."
"Ah, if you could carry that through, father!" she exclaimed earnestly. "Now I have also taken a fancy to see what there is there—I believe we always thought the world ended over there at our own saeter pastures."
"I have some blankets on the pack-saddle, and where they can get a roof over my head there will be room enough for you too.—Come, come, Morten, will you let people alone!" The captain took out a roll of tobacco and held a piece out to the stable goat, that was coming, leaping, towards them from the yard. "There, mumble-beard—he will have his allowance, the rascal.—Ma," he called, when he saw her coming from the storehouse, "what would you say if I should take Inger-Johanna with me to-morrow? Then they will have company home on Friday with Ola and the horses—she and Jörgen."
"But, dear Jäger, why should she go up there?"
"She can pass the night at Grönnelid saeter."
"Such a fatiguing trip! It is absolutely without a path and wild where you must go."
"She can ride the horse a good ways beyond the saeter. Svarten will go as steady as a minister with her and the pack-saddle—both on the mountain and in the bog. I will take the dun horse myself." He had become very eager at the prospect of taking her with him. "Certainly, you shall go. You must put a good lot in the provision bag, Ma. We must be off early to-morrow at five o'clock. Tronberg will join us with a horse farther up, so there will be a way of giving you a mount also, Grip."
Grip started on a run with Jörgen towards the yard, finally caught him, and drove him in through the open kitchen window.