toward Mount Dundret and the midnight sun."

But although Gerda was soon speeding into the mysterious Arctic regions,
she could not forget her new friend in the lonely lighthouse.




CHAPTER V

CROSSING THE POLCIRKEL


"Polcirkel, Birger, Polcirkel!" cried Gerda from her side of the car.

"Polcirkel!" shouted Birger in answer, and sprang to Gerda's seat to look
out of the window.

The slow-running little train groaned and creaked; then came to a stop at
the tiny station-house on the Arctic Circle.

The twins, their faces smeared with vaseline and veiled in mosquito
netting, hurried out of the car and looked around them. Close beside the
station rose a great pile of stones, to mark the only spot where a
railroad crosses the Arctic Circle. This is the most northerly railroad
in the world, and was built by the Swedish government to transport iron
ore to the coast, from the mines four miles north of Gellivare.

As the two children climbed to the top of the cairn, Birger said, "This
is a wonderful place; is it not, Gerda?"