The Vinland Champions

their oars, they swung through the dusk in contented silence; and only once did their thoughts reach the point of speech. " He is knowing in all kinds of weird matters, your countryman the Huntsman," Alrek said, rem- iniscently. " Do you remember the time that he was lost in the unsettled places south of here, and, after looking for him far and wide, we found him lying flat upon a rock, mumbling at the sky? He said he was making stanzas to Thor, and that it was an answer when a whale came ashore the next day " If that is the cheer which Thor has to offer, may I never eat at his house! " Gard grunted. " So starved was I that I ate a piece the size of my head, and?excepting the time of my first storm at sea?it has never happened to me before to be so sick! If Thor gives the Huntsman no better help where he is now, it is likely to go hard with him. It is said that the south country is more full of Skraellings than a goat of fleas. He was a headstrong fool to go there with no more than three men and one small boat." Alrek lifted his shoulders indifferently. " If he never comes back, the sea will be no salter for my tears," he answered; and relapsed into silence which was not broken until their nearness to land obliged him to ask a question about the steering. If there was a moon, it had stayed sulking somewhere behind something, leaving the world in a dusk which was equally far from light and from darkness. Through the gloom they had been able to steal... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.