As soon as the boy comprehended that the eagle had not carried him off in a spirit of contrariness, he felt kindly toward him.
"I should like very much to help you," he returned, "but I am bound by my promise." Thereupon he explained to the eagle how he had fallen into captivity and how Clement Larsson had left Skansen without setting him free.
Nevertheless the eagle would not relinquish his plan.
"Listen to me, Thumbietot," he said. "My wings can carry you wherever you wish to go, and my eyes can search out whatever you wish to find. Tell me how the man looks who exacted this promise from you, and I will find him and take you to him. Then it is for you to do the rest."
Thumbietot approved of the proposition.
"I can see, Gorgo, that you have had a wise bird like Akka for a foster-mother," the boy remarked.
He gave a graphic description of Clement Larsson, and added that he had heard at Skansen that the little fiddler was from Hälsingland.
"We'll search for him through the whole of Hälsingland—from Ljungby to Mellansjö; from Great Mountain to Hornland," said the eagle. "To-morrow before sundown you shall have a talk with the man!"
"I fear you are promising more than you can perform," doubted the boy.
"I should be a mighty poor eagle if I couldn't do that much," said
Gorgo.