ear them, good wife.'

"Now one day soon after that the thralls came running to the house
calling out:

"'The ox is dead! The ox is dead!'

"Leif asked them about it. They said that a bear had come out of the
woods and killed it, and that they had scared the beast away. They
pointed out where it had gone. Then Leif called his men and said:

"'A hunt! I had not hoped for such great sport here. Ah, we will have a
feast off that bear!'

"So they took their spears and went out into the woods. As soon as they
were gone, the thralls came running into the house and took down all the
swords and shields from the wall and ran out. In some way they met my
lord and his men in the woods and killed them. Then they came back and
took everything in the house and dragged us to the boat and sailed
here."

"O my brother!" said Ingolf, "where is that song about 'those two
foster-brothers, Ingolf and Leif, who made a new country in a wonderful
land, and whose sons and grandsons are mighty men in Iceland'? But come
home with me, Helga."

So they took the women and Leif's things and Leif's boat and sailed
home. The next day after they came to Ingolf's house, Helga said:

"We have made your family larger, brother Ingolf. Will you not take
Leif's two houses and live in them? He does not need them now. He would
like you to have them."

"It would be pleasant to live there," Ingolf said. "I thank you."

So the next day they loaded everything aboard the two ships and sailed
for Leif's house. There they stayed for a year. Ingolf still sent his
thralls out to look for the pillars. He was careful always to have hay,
so his cattle prospered. That spring he planted wheat, but it did not
grow well.

"This is sickly stuff," Ingolf said. "It takes too much time and work.
It is better to save the land for hay. Perhaps we can sometime go back
to Norway for flour."

At last one day the thralls came home and said:

"We have found the pillars."

Ingolf jumped to his feet. He cried out:

"You have kept me waiting three years, Thor. But as soon as my house and
temple are built, I will sacrifice to you three horses as a
thank-offering."

"It is a long way off, master," the thralls said, "and we have found
much better places in our walks about the island."

"Thor knows best," Ingolf answered. "I will settle where he leads me."

So that summer they loaded everything into the ships again and sailed
west along the coast until they came to the p