and won her own way. At parting old Eric
took her in his arms. "I am loth to let thee go, dear child," he said,
"and afraid lest I lose thee altogether. But thou art between two old
men who love thee, and Thore has the first claim. Promise me this,
that if he die before me thou wilt come back to Brattalithe and be a
daughter to me."

"Yes," Gudrid said, "I promise you that."

"Right," said old Eric. "Then I shall live to see thee again." With
that he kissed her and let her go.

XVI

Thorwald told Leif that he had been too faint-hearted in his
explorations of Wineland. "You were bolder than Biorn, I grant you,"
he said; "but you only nibbled at the rind after all. I promise you I
will dig down deeper into the meat."

"Dig," said Leif, "dig by all means. But look that you don't dig your
grave. I saw no men the length and breadth of the land; and yet it is
unreasonable to think that no men have been engendered to live in such
a fine and fruitful country. If our father were not so old and hard to
move, I tell you I should be for cutting adrift from Greenland and
settling out there. But then I would go in a larger way than you
intend. I would take a wife first of all----"

"So would Thorstan, our brother, if he could get her," said Thorwald.

"But he cannot get her," Leif said, and then Thorwald, "He won't move
from her until he does get her."

Leif said: "He will go if Thore takes her out with you. But never mind
all that. You will need a stock of cattle if you are for settling, and
a strong body of men. It is not the way of our people to live in tents
and eat only of the beasts that we chance to take. We are too fond of
the earth to care to live without what she can give us. And if by
incessant toil you win a sustenance out of this frozen land, consider
what you could do in Wineland, where there is no frost, and but a
sprinkling of snow, and where the soil is four feet deep, or double
that for all I know."

"You are talking of one thing, and I thinking of another," Thorwald
said. "Time enough to settle when I have discovered the country for
you. That's what I mean to do."

Leif helped his brother with a ship and good advice; and Thorwald
sailed west in the spring with a sufficient crew. Thore did not go;
for that winter there had been a great deal of sickness, and old
Thorbeorn took it badly, and died of it. Thore himself had the
sickness, and Gudrid nursed him through it; but he