and wound along between the high fences that shut in the old farm-like manors. Ail the houses had their gable-ends faced to the front, like soldiers at drill, and little more than their tarred roofs showed among the trees. Most of the commons between the estates were enlivened by groups of gaily-ornamented booths. Many of them were traders' stalls; but in one, over the heads of the laughing crowd, Alwin caught a glimpse of an acrobat and a clumsy dancing bear; while in another, a minstrel sang plaintive love ballads to a throng that listened as breathlessly as leaves for a wind. The wild sweet harp-music floated out and went with them far across the plain.
The road swerved still farther to the right, entering a wood of spicy evergreens and silver-stemmed birches. In its green depths song-birds held high carnival, and an occasional rabbit went scudding from hillock to covert. From the south a road ran up and crossed theirs, on its way to the fiord.
As they reached this cross-road, a horseman passed down it at a gallop. He only glanced toward them; and all Alwin had time to see was that he was young and richly dressed. But Helga started up with a cry.
"Sigurd! Tyrker, it was Sigurd!"
Slowly drawing rein, the old man blinked at her in bewilderment. "Sigurd? Where? What Sigurd?"
"Our Sigurd—Leif's foster-son! Oh, ride after him! Shout!" She stretched her white throat in calling, but the wind was against her.
"That is now impossible that Jarl Harald's son it should be," Tyrker said soothingly. "On a Viking voyage he is absent. Besides, out of breath it puts me fast to ride. Some one else have you mistaken. Three years it has been since you have seen—"
"Then I will go myself!" She snatched the reins from Alwin, but Tyrker caught her arm.
"Certain it is that you would be injured. If you insist, the thrall shall go. He looks as though he would run well."
"But what message?" Alwin began.
Helga tried to stamp in her stirrups. "Will you stand there and talk? Go!"
They were fast runners in those days, by all accounts. It is said that there were men in Ireland and the North so swift-footed that no horse could overtake them. In ten minutes Alwin stood at the horseman's side, red, dripping, and furious.
The stranger was a gallant young cavalier, with floating yellow locks and a fine high-bred face. His velvet cloak was lined with ermine, his silk tunic seamed with gold; he had gold embroidery on his gloves, silver spurs to his heels, and a golden chain around his neck. Alwin glared up at him, and hated him for his splendor, and hated him for his long silken hair.
The rider looked down in surprise at the panting thrall with the shaven head.
"What is your errand with me?" he asked.
It was not easy to explain, but Alwin framed it curtly: "If you are Sigurd Haraldsson, a maiden named Helga is desirous that you should turn back."
"I am Sigurd Haraldsson," the youth assented, "but I know no maiden in Norway named Helga."
It occurred to Alwin that this Helga might belong to "the pack from Greenland," but he kept a surly silence.
"What is the rest of her name?"
"If there is more, I have not heard it."
"Where does she live?"
"The devil knows!"
"Are you her father's thrall?"
"It is my bad luck to be the captive of some Norse robber."
The straight brows of the young noble slanted into a frown. Alwin met it with a black scowl. Suddenly, while they faced each other, glowering, an arrow sped out of the thicket a little way down the road, and whizzed between them. A second shaft just grazed Alwin's head; a third carried away a tress of Sigurd's fair hair. Instantly after, a man crashed out of the underbrush and came running toward them, throwing down a bow and drawing a sword as he ran.
Forgetting that no weapon hung there now, Alwin's hand flew to his side. Young Haraldsson, catching only the gesture, stayed him peremptorily.
"Stand back—they were aimed at me! It is my quarrel." He threw himself from his saddle, and his blade flashed forth like a sunbeam.
Evidently there was no need of explanations between the two. The instant they met, that instant their swords crossed; and from the first clash, the blades darted back and forth and up and down like governed lightnings. Alwin threw a quieting arm around the neck of the startled horse, and settled himself to watch.
Before many minutes, he forgot that he had been on the point of quarrelling with Sigurd Haraldsson. Anything more deft or graceful than the swiftness and ease with which the young noble handled his weapon he had never imagined. Admiration crowded out every other feeling.
"I hope that he will win!" he muttered presently. "By St. George, I hope that he will win!" and his soothing pats on the horse's neck became frantic slaps in his excitement.
The archer was not a bad fighter, and just now he was a desperate fighter. Round and round went the two. A dozen times they shifted their ground; a dozen times they changed their modes of attack and defence. At last, Sigurd's weapon itself began to change from one hand to the other. Without abating a particle of his swiftness, in the hottest of the fray he made a feint with his left. Before the other could recover from parrying it, the weapon leaped back to his right, darted like a hissing snake at the opening, and pierced the archer's shoulder.
He fell, snarling, and lay with Sigurd's point pricking his throat and Sigurd's foot pressing his breast.
"I think you understand now that you will not stand over my scalp," young Haraldsson said sternly. "Now you have got what you deserved. You managed to get me banished, and you shot three arrows at me to kill me; and all because of what? Because in last fall's games I shot better than you! It was in my mind that if ever I caught you I would drive a knife through you."
He kicked him contemptuously as he took his foot away.
"Sneaking son of a wolf," he finished, "I despise myself that I cannot find it in my heart to do it, now that you are at my mercy; but I have not been wont to do such things, and you are not worth beginning on. Crawl on your miserable way."
While the archer staggered off, clutching his shoulder, Sigurd came back to his horse, wiping his sword composedly. "It was obliging of you to stay and hold High-flyer," he said, as he mounted. "If he had been frightened away, I should have been greatly hindered, for I have many miles before me."
That brought them suddenly back to their first topic; but now Alwin handled it with perfect courtesy.
"Let me urge you again to turn back with me. It is not easy for me to answer your questions, for this morning is the first time I have seen the maiden; but she is awaiting you at the cross-roads with the old man she calls Tyrker, and—"
"Tyrker!" cried Sigurd Haraldsson. "Leif's foster-father had that name. It is not possible that it is my little foster-sister from Greenland!"
"I have heard them mention Greenland, and also the name of Leif," Alwin assured him.
Sigurd smote his knee a resounding thwack. "Strangest of wonders is the time at which this news comes! Here have
