Through the forest and out like flitting shadows, pausing only to make sure that the trail they were following was fresher than any of those which crossed it. Over a pond and across a bog and zigzag up a hill,—they had not grazed a stone or snapped a twig; it seemed that every stride must bring them in sight of the game. Then, on the other side of the slope, Alrek blundered. Descending at lightning speed, he turned his head to look behind, and in so doing unconsciously straightened his body ever so little from the required bend. In a breath he was seated on the snow while his skees finished the coast without him, at the bottom dashing noisily against a stone. Instantly, from somewhere in the white distance, came like an echo the sound of crashing timber, a sound which passed so quickly that if onlyone had heard it he might have doubted his ears.
All three had heard it, however; and the two who reached the bottom still shod looked scathingly upon the third as he came plunging down, breaking through the crust to his knees wherever it covered a hollow.
"I advise you to tie yourself on," one of them jeered; and the other one gibed: "Would you like to hold to my cloak in going down the next hill?"
If he would, the Sword-Bearer did not admit it; but it was something that he was reduced to silence. They swung after him in high feather when he was once more on his runners and off across the valley.
Beyond the next rise there was a plain, fringed by a thicket; and there in the packed and trampled snow and the gnawed branches and peeled bark they found yet more tangible proof of what they had lost.
"We should have got a herd if nobody had spoiled it," Gard grunted.
Before Brand also could voice his reproach,Alrek—darting here and there among the trees in search of the new trail—uttered his low whistle and was off like a hare. Like hounds after hare they were after him, and Vinland trees looked their first upon real skee-running.
Speed, not silence, was the object now. More than once their iron-shod staffs rang sharply against the rocks as they thrust out the poles to change their course, rudder-like. Finding coasting too slow now, they took the last half of each hill at a leap. And when a plain stretched its smooth surface before them, or a frozen pond or a marsh, their speed was the speed of a deer at his best.
And now the hunted were far from their best. The holes which their sharp hoofs had at first cut so cleanly through the crust were becoming haggled. Farther on, the trail itself that had been so straight began to show the wavering of the panic-stricken. At last the hunters came to a place where a wisp of bloody foam stained the white. Only a rigid economy of breath kept back a cheer, and they put the energy saved into fresh speed.
A jump over a pile of boulders, a spurt over a low knoll, and there in the open space beyondwas the prey, six panting froth-flecked creatures, stricken staring with terror.
"But what in the Troll's name are they?" cried Gard and Brand together, at sight of the huge, shaggy, ungainly bodies with antlers like shovels and enormous noses like nothing they had ever seen in their lives.
At the same instant Alrek answered them with the glad cry: "Vinland elk!"
The next instant he had added a command to halt, checking his own advance by a thrust of his skee-staff into the snow, and following that act by casting it aside and swiftly unslinging his bow: "Be on your guard! They have not deer's tempers."
Even as he spoke, the bull in the lead flung up his mighty antlered head and, while the other five moved on, wheeled and faced the foe, like a chief covering his people's retreat.
Alrek paid him the tribute of an admiring murmur, but the withdrawal of the five set the Greenlanders wild with exasperation.
"Charge him!" "Finish him!" "Get him out of the way!" they cried savagely, and startedforward even before their arrows were on their bow-strings.
The only thing they knew clearly after that was that the Vinland elk did not wait to be charged. Gard, who was a length ahead, had suddenly a glimpse of eyes like balls of green fire; something which had looked as fixed as a boulder became, lightning-quick, a hurtling mass descending on him, and he had a vision of terrible sharp-edged forefeet that could mangle a man to jelly.
Dropping his weapons, he turned to run, but lapped his skees and fell headlong. Falling, he uttered a hoarse cry as he saw Brand's hastily aimed arrow bury itself harmlessly in the animal's flank. Then, as he rolled backward, he caught sight of Alrek and regained hope.
Only the Sword-Bearer's brown cheeks, flaming crimson, showed his excitement; the rock beside him was no steadier than the arm that held his bow. Drawing back the string with all his strength, he sent an arrow through the shaggy neck where it joins the body; and the great beast fell forward on his knees and died without a quiver.
As the animal sank, Gard arose, breathing curses on his own awkwardness while he snatched up his scattered weapons, his eyes fixed greedily on the five disappearing over a ridge. And Brand cried fiercely: "There is as much ahead, and more besides!" and leaped forward. And Alrek plucked forth another arrow and drew himself up to spring over the dead forester lying high before him—drew himself up and then paused and hesitated, gazing down at the mighty shape. As nobly warrior-like as he had made his desperate charge, so nobly warrior-like he lay in his death, a leader who had given his life to save his people.
Slowly the young Viking stretched forth his hand. "Stop!" he ordered.
Poised in mid-air, as it were, they looked over their shoulders at him, crying impatiently: "What is the matter?"
This time the Chief of the Champions gave his gesture authority. "Come back. To kill them also would be a low-minded act. He took his death-wound to save them. We have all we need. Come back."
An instant they balanced there, gazing at thewhite ridge over which the last dark form was disappearing. Then the obedience bred in the bones of Gard the Thrall-Born turned him back to his master.
"You are the chief," he muttered.
At the same time Brand the Red made up his mind. "Though you should spend all your breath, you would not hinder me from going!" he cried, and sprang forward.
The arrow which Alrek had drawn forth was still in his hand; in the grasp of his other hand was his bow. Fitting the shaft on the string, he spoke his warning:
"It is unlikely that you will do any hunting for some time if you do not come back."
As a flame to a dry leaf, so was a threat to Brand's temper. Hissing defiance, it flared up, and he redoubled his speed.
Above the creak of his skees he heard at the same instant two sounds,—Gard's voice crying: "Would you kill him?" and the twang of Alrek's bow-string. Then his right arm dropped at his side with an arrow through it. His chief had foretold truly that he would do no more hunting for sometime. It was as much in rage as pain that he caught at the shaft, cursing.
Gard's relief took the form of boisterous laughter; but the Sword-Bearer, as soon as he could make himself heard, spoke gravely:
"If you think you paid too much for your big words, you have only your own foolishness to thank for making the bargain."
Coming slowly back to them, still holding his arm, Brand's face was as white as it had been that day on shipboard; but there was no less of a swagger in his bearing. "Who says I paid too much?" he panted. "I shall say what I choose though you shoot into me every arrow of your quiver.Ifind no fault with the bargain!"
Alrek's gravity yielded to one of his short sudden laughs. "Now if you are satisfied, it is certain that I am," he said, and studied the Red One with twinkling eyes. Amusement was still alight in them when he stepped forward and held out his hand, yet there was also in his manner a new cordiality. "It has never happened to me before to meet a sprout to equal you," he declared. "I foretell that I shall certainly kill you some time,but I promise that I will carve runes about you afterward."
"How do you know that it will be you who does the rune-carving?" Brand retorted; but at the same time he yielded his palm with flattered willingness. A little later he even yielded his wounded arm that the hand which put the shaft in might cut it out again.
Twilight never gathered in upon a more contented party than these three weary hunters, sprawled luxuriously on the fragrant heaps of evergreen boughs around the leaping fire, fed to repletion on the daintiest food they knew, pouring their hearts out in discussion of the day's adventures. They fell asleep wrangling over the placing of the antlers on the booth wall.
The antlers were finally hung over the high-seat, while the hide made a blanket for the bunk below, and the effect was so imposing that every Champion went fur-mad as soon as he saw them. For a month afterward, it took all the chief's authority to keep the fuel pile supplied and cooks at their post. Every lad not told off—and told sternly off—for public service or private drudgery, spent his days in ranging the country in search of spoil, and his nights in dreaming of hunts wherein each dead tree should turn out to be the den of a hibernating bear which he would slay with valorous ease and bring home to deck the high-seat, even as Leif the Lucky had done before him.
The way in which they did finally come into possession of a bearskin, however, was really more dream-like than their dream.
Nothing could have been more peaceful than the beginning of the happening, in the women's room of Karlsefne's booth. Loafing after the noonday meal, Erlend the Amiable had stretched his plump length over the cushions of a bench. At one end of the fire, the long-kirtled forms of Gudrid and her women moved to and fro before their looms. At the other, where the firelight lay brightest, the Sword-Bearer was playing wolf with the baby,—a game evoking so much rumbling growling and squealing laughter that presently it took precedence of the conversation.
"You are spoiling him, Kinsman Alrek," Gudrid said, looking around the edge of her loom with a smile which belied her reproach.
The prettiest of the bondmaids gave her braids a pettish flirt. "That is so," she confirmed. "Yesterday, when it happened that I was at the door trying to talk to Hauk Votsson, I was obliged to turn around and growl between every two words or the child would have deafened us. I do not know what Hauk thought of me."
"If you wish, I will ask him," Erlendoffered,—a piece of flippancy which cost him his comfort, as to save his ears he was obliged to take to instant flight around the looms.
But Alrek, sitting back on his heels, shaking back his long hair, remained intent upon the cradle. "It is the greatest fun," he said, "to see the cub try to frown at me. His eyebrows are like the fuzz on a chicken, yet he tries to make them look like his namesake's, before a laugh gets the better of him. Watch now!"
Small Snorri had been there but seven months; he was still wonderfully new. The maid and Erlend left their chase, and Gudrid came from her loom, and together they watched breathlessly the knitting of the downy brows above the blue eyes, and the slow dawning of the unwilling smile, brighter and brighter, until in each soft cheek a dimple broke.
"He is going to be in every respect like his father!" Gudrid cried, falling on her knees beside him. And she was smothering him with kisses, and the others were looking on sympathetically, when the door was flung open before little Olaf the Fair, rosy and breathless.
"Where is Alrek?" he panted. "I want—Oh! Alrek! What do you think I have seen?"
"Hallad?" shrieked the three bondmaids together.
"Skraellings! Black as crowberries. Crossing the open space west of here. With big packs on their backs. I was up in that tree by the wheat-shed, watching for Brand to slip on the slide I had made to get revenge on him for cuffing me, and—" His voice was lost in the babel of exclamations that came from the bondmaids and from the men peering around the hall door.
Gudrid rose from beside the cradle with a gesture of authority. "Too much noise is here. Since Karlsefne is away it behooves us to be especially careful how we behave. Run, some one of you, to the Icelanders' booth. I know that Snorri is not there, but if it happen that Biorn is, ask him to get a following together and stand ready to receive the wild men. And since it is likely that they will want to buy the same dairy wares as before, Melkorka, you may have charge—but there! Tch! Your heedlessness is such that you would give them three times as much as they required. I shall haveto portion, it out myself. The child I will leave with you, Roswitha—No, you would forget him if a man so much as looked through the door at you! Kinsman!" She laid a white hand on Alrek's brown one as he would have moved past her. "He is more fond of you than of any one, and I would trust you before a hundred girls,—so long as you keep his fingers away from that hatchet in your belt. Will you not stay with him the little while that I must be in the dairy?"
Stay with a baby while the long-looked-forward-to trading went on without him! Frowning involuntarily, the Sword-Bearer hesitated,—and during that pause the Fate who was spinning his life-thread sat with suspended breath, so much hung on his answer.
It can not be denied that it came somewhat grudgingly when it did come. "Why—if itwillbe alittlewhile, kinswoman," he stipulated, turning back.
Gudrid waited to hear no more; with the last word she was off, sweeping the maids like chaff before her. Erlend and Olaf had long since vanished; and now the men could be heard clatteringout of the great next room that was their headquarters.
From the green behind the booths came the clamor of barking dogs and the thud of running feet accompanied by excited voices, now far away, now just outside the door. Gradually the scattered chatter blended into a hum; the hum rose higher and higher; then fell suddenly in a hush so deep that it seemed to the Sword-Bearer he could hear the pat of bare feet and the rustle of boughs put aside; and his fancy conjured up a picture of dark forms with bright-eyed shaggy heads bent under shaggier packs, emerging single file from the white depths of the forest. Directly after, the sound of strange guttural voices speaking words he had never heard told him that some part of his vision was correct.
"Oh, you great hindrance!" he sighed to the tyrant in the cradle.
But as even while he complained, he obeyed the command of the chubby fists by picking up the soft little body as gently as a woman would have done, and tossing and dandling it in his strong brown hands as no woman could have done, thetyrant was in no way cast down but clung to him confidingly, catching his breath with squeals of delight and winding up by burying both fists in the brown mane with a rapture of gurgling laughter.
So Gudrid found them when she came in, the color of haste in her fair face; and her smile was very lovely as she took her baby from his guard.
"Whether you are like your father or not, Alrek my kinsman, you have a good disposition," she said; then went on swiftly: "I hurried because I want to remind you of something. I beg of you, do not forget that Karlsefne has forbidden any weapon whatever to be traded to the hatchet-men, no matter what loose property they offer for it. Do not forget, or let your men forget."
Alrek's glance reassured her. "I will remember," he said quietly.
"Then go quickly! They have only just opened their packs." She gave him a little shove, but she might have saved herself the trouble for he was out of the door at a bound.
Coming out into the gathering was like coming upon some strange new-world fair. Everywhereover the white of the snow-covered earth, against the gray of the snow-filled sky, the Northmen's gay cloaks made rings of bright color around the dark fur-clad forms of the wild men. Everywhere the sounds of fair-time had vanquished the stillness of the forest,—the hails of eager barterers, the boasts of jubilant purchasers, even the familiar din of fighting dogs wherever a Norse hound and one of Skraelling breed were able to find a spot free from interfering boot-toes.
On the step before the dairy door, the yellow heads of the three pretty bondmaids showed above a hedge of bristling black locks; the love of trading, so long denied, getting the better of any fear they might have felt of their uncouth customers. As Alrek looked, Roswitha with one hand delivered a cheese ball into a copper-colored palm and with the other drew in a magnificent wolf-skin; while Melkorka, her saucy Irish face twinkling with mischief, ladled curds from her bowl into the gaping mouth of an enormous Skraelling, standing before her with half-shut eyes and an air of solemn content.
She ladled curds from her bowl into the gaping mouth.
"If only we could build cows as well as ships out of timber!" the Sword-Bearer wished as he watched them with a grin.
He was brought out of his reverie by the appearance of a shadow on the snow at his feet. Though he had not heard the faintest sound of an approach, he looked up to find a wild man as dark as the shadow and almost as tall standing at his side. Over the Skraelling's left shoulder and arm was hung a bearskin which took the Viking's breath to look at; his right arm he was stretching toward Alrek's sword, a glitter of indescribable craftiness in his beady eyes. It was so like the stories that the Irish monks told of the wiles of the Evil One that Alrek's recoil had in it even a touch of superstitious fear.
"No," he said severely. "No!" And without further parley, he turned and hastened in the direction in which Brand's red locks glowed between the gray of cap and cloak, like fire amid ashes.
"I want to know at once that you have remembered not to trade them any weapons," he demanded with an urgent hand on the Red One's arm.
Once Brand would have shaken off that handresentfully; now he looked around with affectionate impudence. "Which are you the more anxious to know,—that I have remembered or that I have not traded?" he parried.
The Sword-Bearer let his hand fall with a breath of relief. "Since you can make light of the matter, I know that no harm has been done; if you had been disobedient, you would have hurled the news at me like a spear. I trust you to keep on remembering it."
Brand made him a salute of mock deference. "I will heed your orders in this as in everything," he mouthed the formal phrase of submission.
"Now I hope you will do better than that," his chief returned; then hailed the Hare, scudding past, and bade him summon every member of the band to immediate council.
When at last they were all before him, and he had obtained from them individually an assurance that the order was still unbroken, he delivered the command over again with all the weight he could bring to bear.
They received the reminder as insult added to injury.
"I do not think I stand in need of telling when already for my poorest spear I have refused three wolf-skins!" the Bull cried, wagging his yellow head; while Ketil the Glib mocked openly:
"Behold the caution! Lose no time in punishing Erlend who has traded them a brooch with a pin as long as my finger."
Even small Olaf sniffed rebelliously. "If I had knownthatwas all you were going to say, I doubt if I would have come. I thought you were going to offer us your red cloak to trade with."
"My red cloak?" Alrek repeated.
Forty eyes fastened themselves wistfully on the garment, while at least ten voices answered: "Of course it is not to be expected—" "Yet you could buy the most costly furnishings—" "They would like it better than curds even—" "Njal got the finest gray fur only for a kerchief with one stripe of red." "Think if this were cut in strips!" "Another cloak would keep you equally warm—" "Karlsefne would give you a king's mantle for the asking——"
Shaking his head, Alrek folded the stained drapery to him with both arms. "You show toomuch generosity! I can tell you that you would not get this though it would buy all the fur in Vinland. My father gave it to me at the time of my first Viking voyage; while one thread holds to another, I shall wear it." Then he unfolded his arms with a gesture more encouraging. "But it may be that we shall not fare so ill, for I have hit upon another plan. I have a suit of feasting-clothes of red velvet——"
Not one of the twenty waited to hear more; after the Hare the band was off like the tail after a comet. The Sword-Bearer considered himself lucky that he reached the booth in time to secure one sleeve for his own ventures.
After that the trading was like trading in a dream. Even after the first recklessness had passed and they had cut the velvet into strips no wider than their thumbs, the same sizes of skins were given in exchange. Erlend, the first to run out of purchase money, was made custodian of the spoils; and the rapidity with which the pile grew behind him in what remained of the short afternoon was enough to heat cooler blood. By the falling of twilight, Alrek announced the whimsical determination totry if he could not capture the bearskin itself with what remained of his red sleeve and the foot of a red stocking which he had found.
Because of the failing light, quenched early by a gentle fall of snow, the trading had ceased before he started. Here and there, where light streamed out through open doors, the forest men stooped in groups, packing for departure all wares not previously bound around their heads or bestowed in their stomachs. From group to group he went without finding the tall Skraelling, until suddenly he caught a glimpse of him passing the last door in the line, the door of their own booth. It looked as though the great skin was still draping his shoulders, so Alrek started leisurely toward him and reached the wheat shed this side of the Champions' booth. Then he slipped on Olaf's slide and fell, striking his head against a great oak root.
That was the last thing he remembered,—and he did not remember that for some time. The next thing he was conscious of was sitting in his high-seat in the booth, in silence and alone. The flickering firelight that showed him the stretch of emptybenches revealed gradually to his bewildered eyes a dark huddled shape on the white surface of the table in front of him. What it was or how it got there, he knew no more than what he was doing there himself. He wondered dully if the Huntsman could have put a spell upon him, until—like a wind-breath through a fog—came the recollection that a sailor had once told him of having had a similar experience, and that it had been caused by striking his head in falling through a hatchway on the ship. Moving his head, the Sword-Bearer found it as sore as an unhealed wound, and that part of his problem was solved. But where had he been, and why was the booth empty at this time of day? It was a relief to have the door open upon Gard's hulking long-armed figure, powdered with glistening snow.
When the Ugly One had taken three steps beyond the threshold, he saw the chief in the high-seat and stopped with a loud exclamation.
Alrek grinned faintly. "Your surprise is no greater than mine. I should be thankful if you would tell me how I got here. No," as Gard made a gesture of unbelief, "I declare myself in earnest.I suppose I fell and struck my head somewhere. Do you know where I have been? And why the booth is empty?"
When he had come around the fire and looked curiously at the Sword-Bearer, Gard's doubts were laid. "The proof of this is that the left side of your face is scratched and dirty," he said. "It is likely that you fell on Olaf's slide. You were going in that direction, the last I saw of you. I forgot you after the screech."
"What screech?"
"The yell that started the Skraellings, of course."
"What Skraellings?"
"WhatSkraellings!" Gard echoed; but Alrek's memory had stirred.
"I remember! They were here trading. I came out of the women's house and saw them—" He got upon his feet. "Are they gone?"
Gard began to laugh. "Youareaddled! I should have thought the racket sufficient to wake Thorwald in his grave. It is certain that they are gone! At the first note of the yell they dropped their packs and plunged into the woods, howlinglike trolls. What frightened them this time, no one knows. Erlend and Brand followed, and also some of the other men of the band, but the creatures seemed to melt and vanish. The men are only just coming back. That is why no one is here yet to get the meal."
Coming down to the fire, Alrek kicked the logs about, partly to mend the burning, partly to vent his irritation. "Never have I heard of a fall so foolishly timed. I could give my head another knock—What is this? Fur?" He stretched his hand toward the table. "A bearskin? What a—the bearskin the Skraelling offered for my sword?" Memory came back like a rush of fire, lighting the dark corners of his mind, flaming from his eyes as he turned upon the slouching figure. "How did it come here?"
Gard began to speak with unwonted swiftness: "It is true, I forgot to tell you that I bought it myself. You must recollect that things were not so dear at the end of the trading. I gave only a piece of your tunic and—and my ring with the red stone. I would not have parted with that ring for anything less. He liked very much to get it,and put it on his finger as soon—" He broke off as Alrek's hands fell upon his shoulders, forcing him down on his knees where the fire could light his face. For the moment they were neither comrade and comrade, nor chief and follower, but master and thrall.
The Sword-Bearer's low voice seemed a hiss between his teeth. "Swear to me that you gave no weapon for it! Take oath on the cross of my sword hilt!"
Gard reached out even eagerly. "I take oath on the cross, so help me Frey and Njord and Odin!"
After a while Alrek's hands relaxed their grasp. It was some time before his eyes loosened their hold, but at last they also released the Ugly One and fell away, back to the fur. "It is good that you are able to swear to it," he said grimly.
Brushing from his knee the ashes into which he had been forced, the Ugly One grunted. "Do you think I am a fool like Brand? Even if I did not care for your orders, would I not be apt to heed Karlsefne's?"
"It is a good thing that you do," the chief said again.
Smiling, Gudrid drew out the head she had thrust through the booth door at Erlend's urgent invitation. "It is as splendid as can be in every way. I do not wonder that you want to give a feast to display it."
A little consciousness was in Erlend's laugh as he shut the door and walked beside her through the grove. "It is not altogether to display it," he protested. "In a few weeks the spring games will be held; it is the custom of every one to give a feast at that season. I tell you we are going to show some great feats. We exercise ourselves every afternoon. They are practising now in an open place which the chief found in the woods. That is where I am going."
Pausing, Gudrid drew higher on her hip her accustomed burden, a bundle wrapped in whiterabbit-skins from which looked forth a little rosy face. "Is Alrek there?" she asked. "Then I think I will try my luck in that direction, if so be they will allow a woman to come near?"
"I think they will not mind your coming if you go right away again," Erlend concluded after some consideration.
Apparently she felt equal to the risk, for she entered with him the broad trough-like path trodden through the snow of the grove. "I go only for a walk," she said. "We have been too much shut in the house, the child and I, since that frightful trading day."
It seemed to the Amiable One that she shivered as she spoke, so he observed politely: "It is a bad thing that you were made sick by it. Melkorka says that you even saw a ghost."
"Melkorka blunders much in her speaking and blundered twice as much in her hearing," Gudrid answered. "I said only that I got so full of fear that I expected to see ghosts. Sitting alone in the house with the child, it came into my head what might happen if the Skraellings should turn an evil side, with Karlsefne away and that good-naturedBiorn not expecting evil. And the more I thought, the stranger the noises outside seemed to me and the stranger shapes the shadows took, until once I was so sure that one was a Skraelling stealing in upon me that I bent over and covered the cradle with my body,—and just then came that cry!" She pressed her hand to her ear at the recollection.
Erlend smiled indulgently. "Now did you think it so terrible? It is likely that one of them looked into the cattle-shed and saw the bull—"
The glance her blue eyes sent over her shoulder silenced him even before her words. "It would be a strange wonder if you could tell me news about it! Was I not here at the time the bull frightened them? I heard how they screamed then, and it was as different from this screech as day from night. In this cry there were death-sounds and no life-sounds. My foster-mother, Halldis, was knowing in weird matters. I know of what I speak, though all men think otherwise. And I know enough to wish to forget the mishap. Let us not talk of it any more. I wish to enjoy this fine weather."
It was a day to be enjoyed. Beyond the network of brown branches the sky was dazzling blue, with here and there a fleecy cloud. Dazzling white, snow lay in the curves of the boughs and filled the hollows of the ground; though on the ridges where the bright sun touched, the brown earth showed through. Everywhere, the wind was moistly, sweetly fresh.
"I do not wonder that it makes you kick up your heels like young horses," Gudrid laughed, when she came at last to the level treeless space in whose middle six Champions leaped and wrestled, while ten more lounged at one side, applauding or hissing the wrestlers as their critical judgment decided.
At sight of Erlend, the ten waved their hands in careless greeting; at sight of the kirtled figure of Gudrid, they sat up in unmistakable disapproval; and a long lean wrestler with a mane of red hair stamped petulantly when he was obliged to retire from the field to the bordering trees where his tunic and cloak awaited him.
"Though no more than seven women are in Vinland, a man can not get away from themthough he go into the heart of a wood," he sputtered.
"Hush! She will hear you," muttered Gard, who stood beside him; whereupon the Red One's voice rose in exasperation:
"I do not care whether she hears me or not! Will you keep to what concerns you? I have told you before this that I am able to pay the price of my deeds."
From under the tunic he was about to pull down over his head, Gard looked at him irefully. "And I have told you," he retorted, "that one can not always tell what the price of his deed will be."
"I do not carewhatit is!" bellowed Brand.
Harald Grettirsson turned on them with a grin. "What ails you two that you have done nothing but quarrel since the trading day? Cool off a little," he jeered, and suddenly ran into them so that they were jostled off the high ground into a hollow and sank in snow up to their waists. Foreseeing vengeance, Grettirsson took promptly to his heels, and the desertion of the three completed the interruption begun by the appearance of Gudrid's blue hood.
Gudrid took her departure with tactful promptness. "Now you need not trouble yourself to hunt for fine words," she forestalled the somewhat embarrassed greeting of her young kinsman. "I am well versed in the Viking laws about keeping women out; we have no other intention than to go directly back, the Frowner and I."
Cordial as his relations with his kinswoman were, the chief could not ask her to alter her decision; but he reached out and took the bundle off her hip. "The Frowner is not a woman," he corrected. "I think he will like the noise better than the rattling of his string of shark's teeth. I will see to it that he comes to no harm."
The mother yielded him doubtfully. "But do you know for certain that you will?" she demurred. "If he should get his hand on the hatchet in your belt—"
"Why, he would be able to do more than I can," Alrek finished for her. "I have been unable to find my hatchet for weeks."
Gudrid consented to smile. "I took for granted it was there. Then I will certainly leave him, for I should like him to be outdoors some whilelonger. I will send a thrall—a man-thrall—to fetch him."
But it came about that small Snorri Thorfinnsson was returned to his mother by no such humble individual. With the shortening of the light and the lengthening of the shadows, Karlsefne the Lawman came through the wood on his way campward from a day's outing. Coming out in the open where a dozen Champions were fencing with a mighty clash and clatter, he would have apologized for the intrusion and kept on his way; but reaching the tree before which the red-cloaked chief sprawled on a great rug, drawling comment, he heard from the rabbit-skin bundle at the chiefs side a squeal of laughter which brought him to a standstill.
"What have we here?" he asked in surprise.
Rising to greet him, Alrek looked down at the bundle with a laugh. "It is likely that your son is going to make a Berserker, Karlsefne," he answered. "The more noise the swords make, the louder he laughs."
The smile dawning on the Lawman's lips faded as his glance passed from the rabbit-skin bundleto the rug on which it lay. After a little he said gravely: "This is an unusually fine bearskin which you have, my young kinsman. I want to ask if it is the one the Skraellings brought, on that last trading day of which so much has been told?"
It was so plain that the same misgiving was in his mind which had first risen to Alrek's, that the Sword-Bearer breathed a prayer of thankfulness that he had lost no time in making sure of Gard's good faith. He replied readily: "It is the same one, Karlsefne. One of my men had such luck in trading that he bought it when the price was lower than it had been."
"Nevertheless, I should like much to know what he paid for it," said the Lawman.
"Willingly," answered Alrek the Chief. "He paid a large piece of the red cloth which we had been trading with, and a ring with a red stone. The Skraelling liked the ring so well that he put it on as soon as he bought it."
The Lawman's gaze became less unswervingly direct; presently its sharpness was softened by a twinkle. "Now if all the Northmen of the new lands continue to show such merchant talent, Vinlandwill soon be as great a trading place as Iceland," he laughed.
Then, as if to remove any lingering doubt of his friendliness, he added that their taste in selecting a practising place was excellent; and that it appeared that they were doing good work in it; and that, if they would allow it, he should be glad to remain a while and look on. When permission had been graciously accorded, he sat down on the rug between the chief and the rabbit-skin bundle and showed himself the most inspiring audience the band had ever performed before.
Under the stimulus of his applause, Njal the Jumper achieved a mark a finger's length higher than any he had made before; while Brand the Wrestler felt such power swell in his great limbs that for a time he seriously considered the idea of challenging Karlsefne himself. Later, he was glad that he had not, for when they stopped to rest and came and stood around the bearskin, Karlsefne borrowed Alrek's dwarf-made sword and rose up, towering and sinewy and straight as a pine, and showed them some feats that he had learned in the East,—the real East where the sun is so hotthat all people are as brown as roasted fowls, and the rich eat snow for a luxury. Baring a knotted arm as lean as a spear-shaft, he did things that furnished them fireside gossip for the rest of the cold weather.
When at last he had set the Frowner on his shoulder, and he and the Champions had parted in a glow of good-fellowship, Erlend said warmly:
"Biorn Gudbrandsson is an open-handed chief, and Snorri of Iceland is shrewder than most men; but the one surpassing others in high-mindedness and knowing everything is Thorfinn Karlsefne. I think it an honor to our feast that he has consented to come to it."
It happened, however, that Thorfinn Karlsefne did not get back from his spring exploring trip in time for the games. Inspecting all the self-sown wheat-fields and natural vineyards in the vicinity, he had been gone a week; and the light of the momentous day had faded into twilight and the dusk in its turn had melted into moonlight, silvering the forest like a frost, before he came through it with his men.
Meeting a ray of light from the last booth in the line and catching from the same source a faint note of revelry, he spoke smilingly to his partner, Snorri of Iceland: "I recollect now that we have missed great happenings. It is likely that if the light were good enough we should find heads and limbs strewed like pebbles over the plain."
"What witches' stuff this moonlight is!" Snorri laughed in return. "As you spoke, it almostseemed to me as if I saw an arm down there." He nodded his head toward the ravine along whose brink they were walking; and old Grimkel, behind him, followed the motion with his one eye and grunted:
"I see what you mean,—yonder where the moon strikes. It has the look of an arm."
Still moving forward, Karlsefne also glanced down into the black pool of shadow. From the dark slope, something like a snag stood out so that the moonlight caught it and gave it a weird resemblance to a human hand with fingers wide-spread in the air. Looking down at it, he came slowly to a standstill. Presently, while the chat behind him ceased in surprise, he grasped a wiry bush on the brink and let himself over the edge until he could touch with his staff the dark mass from which the snag stood out. Using the staff like a pitchfork, he flung off the layers of sodden pine branches heaped there and bent to look again. Then he saw that the reason it looked like an arm was because an arm was what it was, lean and brown, outflung from a stark body lying face downward in the brush.
Those waiting above heard his voice rise awfully from the shadow: "It is a Skraelling who has been murdered! Fetch torches!"
Waiting for the lights to be brought, the men stood looking dumbly at one another and at the snag-like arm, in every mind the same thought. Once Karlsefne's deep tones interpreted their silence, tolling heavily through the darkness:
"I do not know who has done this deed, but I know that in slaying this one man he has taken the lives of more men than tongue can number. If ever the Skraellings come again it will be to make warfare, and to save our lives we shall be forced to take more of theirs; and so it will go on through ages yet unborn, until a white face—which I had striven to make a sign of friendliness—will become to the wild men a token of bloodshed." A moment his voice rang out in terrible wrath: "Behold how the heedlessness of one man can overthrow the wisdom of a hundred!"
Daring no answer, they awaited in silence the arrival of the torches. But when at last the lights had been brought and handed down, and theyhad descended after them, at least four spoke at once:
"It is the Skraelling who offered the bear's hide!"
"By Odin," cried a fifth, "I saw him walking in this direction shortly before the time of the scream! He must have fallen over the bank and lain all this while under the snow that was coming down."
"What has become of the hide, however?" pondered Hjalmar Thick-Skull, before memory recalled to him whose booth the great skin was even now gracing as its chiefest treasure.
"It must be that they bought it just before he was slain," Grimkel struck in hastily.
But the Lawman took the torch from him and held it to each brown hand in turn. "No ring with a red stone is on any of the fingers," he said.
Immediately after, Hjalmar, holding the other torch, uttered an exclamation: "Here is what slew him!" and they all crowded forward to look,—and looking, stood dumfounded.
The Thick-Skulled said wonderingly: "Now Ihave several times heard it said that men believe Brand the Red gave the Skraelling a weapon for the skin, but no man guessed that a weapon had been given in this way."
It was as though all the troubles of Vinland were gathered around that dark heap in the ravine, and all the pleasures were gathered around the Champions' hospitable fire. Built of juniper fagots whose sweetness blended with the fragrance of the pine branches carpeting the floor, it filled the air with the spicy aroma of Yule-tide; and Yule-tide cheer was on the long tables on either side the hearth, and Yule-tide mirth was on the faces above the board. Every leap of the flames revealed some new treasure of claw or hide or antler; and at each admiring tribute from their guests the Champions' hearts swelled with pride, so that they were obliged to relieve the pressure by echoing at the top of their lungs the song Rane was singing to chords from a home-made harp. The only flaw in their content was that Karlsefne wasnot there to see their glory. When an uproar among the dogs outside announced the arrival of a guest, they left everything to fix eager eyes on the opening door.
The form that strode in out of the moonlight was Karlsefne's, followed by Snorri of Iceland, but the breath they had thought to spend in cheers went out in gasps as the dancing firelight showed his face. Stopping just within the threshold, he stood gripping his silver-shod staff in both hands before him, like a bar in the way of his wrath.
From the high-seat, the young chief saluted him with troubled mien: "We bid you welcome, Karlsefne, and take it as an honor that you have come. I hope your journey has been according to your pleasure, and that nothing has happened which you dislike?" He made a sign that Erlend, in his feasting clothes of blue-and-silver, should act as master of ceremonies and conduct the distinguished guest to the seat prepared for him.
The Lawman did not appear to heed the invitation. "I give you thanks for your greeting," he said, "but I will not conceal it from you that something has happened. Before this feast goes anyfurther, I want to put some questions to your men."
From some instinctive foreboding, Alrek glanced hastily across at Gard. Finding the Ugly One's dark face as lowering as a storm cloud, while Brand's beside him was aflash with excitement, the trouble in the young chief's eyes deepened. Yet he answered steadily: "You are over-chief in Vinland, Karlsefne, and must have your way about everything. Yet will you not first take the seat of honor——"
"I will accept no hospitality here until this matter is cleared," the Lawman grimly cut him short; then turned upon the Ugly One. "I want to ask Gard Eldirsson what he paid the Skraelling for the skin yonder on the high-seat?"
As he had given it each time before, Gard muttered his answer, without looking up: "I gave him a piece of red cloth and a ring with a red stone in it. He liked so well to get the ring that he put it on his finger as soon as he got it."
Crack! the staff Karlsefne was gripping broke under the strain; it seemed that his voice also must break from his control. "It was not seen that hewore it to-day," he was beginning; when Brand arose, pushing back his goblet and bowl with a loud clatter.
"If what you mean is that you have met that Skraelling and seen a knife in his belt instead of a ring on his hand," he said, "I will spare you the trouble of asking further by declaring that I traded it to him myself. Gard lies when he says that he bought the skin. It happened that from behind a tree he saw me give the weapon; and because he expected that Alrek would slay me for daring it, he sought to save trouble by making up the ring-story before I got a good chance to tell what I had done. I gave him no thanks for it, as I do not lack the boldness to stand behind any deed I do. I held my tongue only because I could not speak without bringing him into trouble. Now I will hold it no longer, and you may do what you like when my chief is through with me." He flashed his leader his glance of affectionate insolence, and grinned at the look he got in return. But before Alrek could answer, Karlsefne spoke:
"You would have me believe that your chief does not know of this matter?"
The Red One tossed his long locks with a flourish which suggested that he was enjoying the excitement of the moment. "No more than the bench before you," he answered. "He himself had started out to make an offer for the skin, but he slipped on the ice and muddled his wits so that he did not even hear the yell or know how he got into the booth, until he found himself there with the fur before him——"
"Was it you who brought the fur into the booth?" Karlsefne interrupted him.
But Gard took the answer out of Brand's mouth: "No, it was I who did that. When the wild men began yelling and running, I saw Brand drop the skin and run after them; and I picked it up and brought it into the booth before I followed him. When I came back, Alrek was sitting there and asked me where he had been." He turned toward the high-seat as though he would address a word of apology to him who sat there, but the pause was shattered by an unpleasant laugh from Snorri of Iceland.
"I call Loke as witness," he ejaculated, "that though I have dealt with men in France and menin England and all that are nearer than those, I have never seen given such a running-over measure of lies!"
"They are like saplings drifted ashore that one picks up for their good shape and finds to be worm-eaten," Karlsefne responded; and the violence of the anger he was holding back shook his towering frame and vibrated through his deep voice. "Yet should it be kept in mind that these two lied in order to assist a comrade. Only Alrek Ingolfsson lied for himself."
In his place Alrek the Chief arose, his lips forming a question; but Karlsefne stayed it with uplifted hand.
"I will make it plain that I do not wish to tempt you to further falsehood. I tell you openly that I know you to be the man who slew the Skraelling——"
"Slew?" repeated Alrek Sword-Bearer.
And "Slew!" cried the chorus of Champions; then divided into scattered cries: "It was his death-yell—" "They took it as a warning—" "The next time they come, it will be in war-clothes."
Hearing this last, Brand hammered the table with his fist. "Now I know who killed him!" he cried joyfully. "It was Thorhall the Huntsman! More than anything else he wanted to break off trade with the Skraellings and stir the camp to discontent——"
"Now your tongue goes faster than your mind," the Iceland chief interrupted him. "That trading day the Huntsman spent with me, setting traps in the wood far north of here."
Brand shot his arrows desperately: "Then it was Ale the Greedy! Or Fat Faste!"
But from the quarter where the Greenland guests sat, rose resentful cries: "Faste was off all day fishing with me—" "I myself saw Ale in the group before the Lawman's door!" "You take too much upon yourself!" "Remember that the spoils were found in your booth!"
The Red One stood with empty quiver. And Gard left his place and went and laid clumsy hands upon the Lawman's cloak.
"I swear that it was not Alrek but I who brought the skin into the booth. I take oath that I am telling the truth this time," he said.
"Thistime!" the Lawman repeated, so that the blood was rasped into Gard's swarthy face.
"Nay, it was to help Brand that I lied before," he pleaded.
"And this time it is to help Alrek!" Karlsefne finished. "Learn, boy, once and for all, that you can not spend your wealth and have it also in your pouch. Learn now and forever that your word buys nothing when the pouch of your honor is empty." Casting him off as he would have spoken further, he turned upon the red-cloaked figure of the Sword-Bearer, standing rigidly erect before the high-seat. "Too long, Alrek Ingolfsson, have you hidden behind this shield; show now the boldness which should be in your blood. That you lied because you wished to keep my good opinion, I can guess. That you fell not upon the Skraelling treacherously nor yet in greed of his property, I do you the justice to believe. It may even be that he gave provocation to your mad temper by seizing your weapon. I expect that you will acknowledge yourself guilty and submit to me."
Their glances clashed like blades as Alrek turned his high-borne head.
"You can decide over my life, but I will never acknowledge that," he said. "May the gallows take my body if I knew aught of the happening until your own lips told of it. I say, moreover, that it is unjustly done to accuse me of it only because others have juggled with the truth and because it looks as though mine were the hand which had brought the spoils hither."
That, at least, did not lack boldness. Flinging the broken staff from him, Karlsefne made a stride forward; the veins of his forehead swelled out white against purple. "This case has not yet been fully tried," he said. "I have not told that those are my only reasons. Another proof is this, which my own hand took from the Skraelling's head into which it had bitten so deeply that not even his fall down the bank had dislodged it." From his belt, where his cloak had hidden it, he drew forth the stone hatchet, discolored with dark stains.
To Alrek of Norway it was like a trick of magic; his jaw fell and he recoiled against the high-seat. "My hatchet!" he breathed.
Then the sheeted lightning of Karlsefne's eyeswas loosed upon him. "Tempt me with no more defiance lest I forget that I am a Lawman and strike you dead where you stand! Recollect that I also am of Viking stock, and tempt me not! Come down from the seat in which you were never worthy to sit; put off the cloak whose soldierliness you have disgraced; unbuckle the sword you can not be trusted to wear."
It was as though the Viking blood in Ingolf's son were a tiger that had been wakened by a blow. Straightening with a terrible inarticulate cry, he leaped to the floor and over the fire, his sword gleaming in his hand before they knew he had drawn it.
But the Lawman's might-full figure neither gave back nor moved; the blaze of his eyes neither weakened nor swerved. Tiger-like, the boy's eyes wavered and fell aside; he halted, uncertain.
Karlsefne's voice was as the voice of thunder: "I am over-chief in Vinland."
The flesh defied, but the soldier-drilled spirit heard. Slowly, Alrek put up hands that shook from passion and unfastened the clasp on hisshoulder. With a soft sound the drapery fell and lay like a blood-pool around his feet. Slowly and yet more slowly, he changed his hold upon his weapon and extended it as it had never gone before—hilt forward.
Receiving it, the Lawman finished the sentence amid deathlike stillness: "Hereafter, wear no color of soldiers, nor carry any more weapons than the beasts whose uncontrol you show. You, Champions of Vinland, get you another chief." Signing to Snorri to open the door he left the booth, the Icelander following.
Spellbound, the revelers remained without sound or motion, until Brand flung himself at the feet of Ingolfs son, thrusting into the brown hand one of his own knives.
"You foretold that you should kill me some time," he whispered, and bared his breast for the blow.
Those who saw the eyes the Viking bent upon him, believed that he would do it; it was seen that his fingers closed upon the haft. Then suddenly they thrust it from him with such force that its owner was thrown backward.
"Keep away," he said hoarsely. "Keep away!" With hands flung out to keep them off, he walked past them; and the door opened upon him and the night swallowed him up.
Where an arm of the big Vinland bay met a narrow river so far inland that it was hard to tell when bay ended and river began, the band of Vinland Champions was at work. Before the invasion of their young voices, the stillness of the primeval forest had taken flight; and the age-old trees had fallen victim to the greed of their young hands even as the old-world cities were falling before the might of the young North. On the river bank, sweating in the June sun, some of them were toiling to bring a great log down to the stream which was to float it on to the building place. Along the edge of the clearing, others were busy lopping from the fallen monarchs their green crowns. And the song of axes, ringing from the depths of the cool shade, told of conquests still in progress. This last task, however, was so nearly completed that in the intervals of their work thechoppers talked of the untrimmed logs as though they were already in the form of a ship.
"What we stand in need of is red paint for that hull—" "If Gudrid will only make the sail—" "—so long as we get gilding for the dragon's head, I do not care—" "The dragon's head will be a weapon in itself!" "I expect the wild men will run at sight of it!" "There will not be many to equal this ship when it is done."
Lowering his ax to moisten his palms, Brand cast his bright impatient eyes around severely. "If ever it is done," he supplemented. "At this rate, it is the summer which will be finished first. If we had worked as we should have done, it would be completed now."
"Then why did you not work as you should have done?" laughed Ketil the Glib.
And Erlend, pausing to take a gauzy fanged fly off his neck, observed: "Certainly I think you ought to be the last one to make a fuss. Every time I have told you off to work on it, you have preferred to go hunting, or even help Karlsefne's men with the fence."
"What difference what I prefer?" the RedOne retorted. "You are the chief; it is your duty to see that work is done as it is necessary."
The difficulty of answering that, left Erlend rubbing his plump neck in silence; and in the pause Brand returned to work, swinging the ax over his shoulder with a forcefulness which brought it near to smashing the head of a man who had just appeared in the underbrush behind him.
"It is my advice that you see what you are doing," the man spoke in a harsh voice which they recognized.
It was but faintly that Brand was apologetic as he glanced around. "Why do you creep up like a cat if you are not willing to risk something?" he inquired, and aimed another stroke.
But for once Thorhall the Huntsman did not dismiss them in contempt. Breast-high in saplings he lingered, regarding them with curiosity; when he had swallowed the irritation attendant upon dodging, he spoke politely: "My excuse is that if the leaves had not muffled my steps, I should have missed hearing tidings of great interest. I ask of you to tell me what all this is about a ship?"
"How does that concern you?" muttered Gard the Ugly.
Erlend, however, lowered his ax readily. That there should be any one willing to listen to the ship-plan who had not already heard it as many times as he would endure, seemed too good for belief. Feigning that his ax edge needed attention, he drew out a sharpening-stone; and while he plied it, he talked happily.
The ship, he said, was to be so long and so wide, with a fore-deck to shelter the provisions, but nothing so womanish as a cabin. The mast was to be that pine-tree yonder, and the sail was to be woven by Gudrid, Karlsefne's wife—that is, they were going to ask her to do it for them—and he thought the colors would be red and yellow, and the name would probably be The-Fire-That-Runs-On-The-Waves. It sounded very well as he told it; gradually Brand's blade also became silent, and Ketil and Harald and half a dozen others crept nearer to listen with kindling eyes that now and again shot triumphant glances at the Huntsman.
It was something of a triumph to make him who was usually so sneering listen so respectfully.When the recital was finished, he was even flattering.
"Certainly you are foremost among youths in energy! Where is it your intention to voyage when The Fire is built?"
Gard, who alone had kept on working, gave his tree a resounding blow. "How does that concern you?" he demanded a second time. "You will not be invited to take the steering oar."
Now any one can see that it is bad manners to insult a man who is complimenting you. Eight glances fixed the Ugly One angrily, while Erlend spoke in mild reproof:
"What is the need of talking in that way?" he asked him; then, to the Huntsman: "If the ship is done before the summer is, we are going against the Skraellings. It comes like a piece of luck that there is enmity between us; otherwise I do not know whom we could fight."
"Since it is unadvisable to do what we want and fight Karlsefne," Brand added vindictively; and there was a murmur of acquiescence.
The Huntsman's eyes, trained to detect prey in the very darkness, went from one to another of theyoung faces. "Now that is a strange way to speak of the Lawman," he remarked.
The answers rose in his face like a covey of birds: "How else would you expect us to speak?" "—after the way he behaved toward Alrek Ingolfsson—" "I think he deserves worse words—" "To my backbone I hate him!"
Parting the sapling screen, the Huntsman came out and seated himself on a prostrate tree, as though he found the field worthy of his attention. "Yet it is a foolish way after all," he began, "for only see how Alrek's bane has been Erlend's good fortune——"
The Amiable One's handsome brown face flushed. "We have given no thanks on that score, nor shall give any," he answered hastily. "I have seen Alrek only once since the day that bad luck overtook him, and then I dared not speak to him; but the first chance I get, I shall offer the chiefship back."
The murmur which greeted that was almost a cheer; only Thorall made a sound of dissent.
"Now do you act after the manner of boys rather than of men," he said. "Pity Alrek Ingolfssonyou may if you will, but in so doing you should not undervalue the leader you have got in his——"
"Now what trap are you baiting?" grumbled Gard, at the same instant that Erlend interrupted.
"I beg of you to leave that and give us instead your advice how the Skraellings may be found. You, more than any other, know the secrets of the south country."
Some of the band drew breath rather quickly as their chief said that, and looked to see the Huntsman rise in offense; but again he surprised them. Re-crossing his legs and settling his broad back against a stump, he did nothing worse than to sit gazing away at the sunshine of the open. His voice was still amiable when at last he spoke:
"It would be useless to deny that many wonders may be told of the south country. I will begin by telling you that it contains bigger game than Skraellings and—" his hand strayed to the deerskin cord looping his neck and ending in the breast of his stained green tunic—"and more valuable things than furs." He paused to cough, and no one moved for fear of breaking the spell. Herecovered himself with a covert smile. "It may be that I will even do better than telling you. What should you say if I would show you the paths that lead to the treasure? I have some thought of going south myself this summer——"
Gard answered with an unexpectedness that made them jump: "I should say that we were rabbit-brained if we allowed you to lead us anywhere! Because Erlend is caught with your chaff, it is not proved that you can trap us all. I would not follow you a pace. To your face I tell you that I believe it was your hand that slew the Skraelling, though your body was further off than could be seen by a raven hovering in the sky!" He broke off and began making rune-signs with his fingers, as the small eyes turned toward him.
But it was not the Huntsman's anger which he had to reckon with, but the resentment of those who feared to lose a tidbit from their watering mouths.
"Hold your tongue!" "You know that is an old woman's story—" "For what purpose should you interfere?" "You are not all of us!" the mouths growled, while the elbows belonging tothem made themselves felt admonishingly in his ribs.
Erlend spoke with unprecedented severity. "You have no right to show enmity toward a man who is behaving well toward you. You may take your choice either to go off by yourself or else sit down and keep quiet like the rest of us."
Nine times out of ten, Gard would have subsided in sulky submission; but this was the tenth time. Moving toward the bush whereon his cap and bow and quiver hung as on a rack, he sent the Huntsman a glance of such hatred as springs from fear.
"I choose the best company," he said; and gathering up his things, he slung his ax over his shoulder and slouched away. Those at work in the clearing refrained from addressing him when they saw the expression of his swarthy face; and those toiling on the river bank agreed with polite alacrity when he deigned to growl in passing that the day was unbearably hot.
It was, moreover, easier to assent to that remark than to deny it. Far and near, blue water and green land were ablaze with sun. When the UglyOne had forded the river and plowed through the treeless meadows where Karlsefne's cattle stood knee-deep in the reed-fringed pools, his linen clothes were wet on his body; and he gave up a vague plan to spend his unexpected holiday in fishing.
"There will be fewer chances of the juice drying in my skull if I go to that wood place where the red berries grow," he decided, and struck across the grove toward the camp to leave his burden in the booth.
The camp was not so easily entered as of old, for now there rose around the twelve huts a fence of mighty logs with sharpened tops; and at each of the three gates there stood a man on guard. Yet neither was the watch strict enough to justify the precautions of Strong Domar who chanced to hold this post. With his joyous bellow, he promptly barred the passage with his spear until the newcomer had answered a catechism that began by asking his age and ended by demanding a list of the things he had eaten for breakfast. The Ugly One's patience had run as dry as the Strong One's power of invention, by the time he was permitted to make his exasperated entrance. Repulsing apack of affectionate hounds, he stamped across the clover-sprinkled grass and would have stamped into the booth if he had not glimpsed through the open door a figure that had come to seem, almost as much as Hallad's, to belong to another world,—the gaunt form of Alrek the Exile, rummaging in the chest which had been his treasure-box in the days of his prosperity and still remained reverently untouched. Evidently he had known that at this hour the booth would be empty, for there was no watchfulness in his ears; he neither heard nor saw when his comrade stopped on the threshold and stood gazing at him.