e world!" Eric cried
angrily. "Will they not even let me finish one feast?"

Then he laughed.

"But if I take my sport like a wolf, I must be hunted like one. So we
shall sleep to-night in the woods about Eyjolf's house, comrades,
instead of in these good beds. Well, we have done it before."

"And it is no bad place," cried some of the men.

"I always liked the stars better than a smoky house fire," said one.

"Can no bad fortune spoil your good nature?" laughed Eric. "But now we
are off. Let every man carry what he can."

So they quickly loaded themselves with clothes and gold and swords and
spears and kettles of food. Eric led his wife Thorhild and his two young
sons, Thorstein and Leif. All together they got into the boat and went
to Eyjolf's farm. For a week or more they stayed in his woods, sometimes
in a secret cave of his when they knew that Thorgest was about. And
sometimes Eyjolf sent and said:

"Thorgest is off. Come to my house for a feast."

All this time they were making ready for the voyage, repairing the ship
and filling it with stores. Word of what Eric meant to do got out, and
men laughed and said:

"Is that not like Eric? What will he not do?"

Some men liked the sound of it, and they came to Eric and said:

"We will go with you to this strange land."

So all were ready and they pushed off with Eric's family aboard and
those friends who had joined him. They took horses and cattle with them,
and all kinds of tools and food.

"I do not well know where this land is," Eric said. "Gunnbiorn said only
that he sailed east when he came home to Iceland. So I will steer
straight west. We shall surely find something. I do not know, either,
how long we must go."

So they sailed that strange ocean, never dreaming what might be ahead of
them. They found no islands to rest on. They met heavy fogs.

One day as Eric sat in the pilot's seat, he said:

"I think that I see one of Gunnbiorn's ships of ice. Shall we sail up to
her and see what kind of a craft she is?"

"Yes," shouted his men.

So they went on toward it.

"It sends out a cold breath," said one of the men.

They all wrapped their cloaks about them.

"It is a bigger boat than I ever saw before," said Eric. "The white
mast stands as high as a hill."

"It must be giants that sail in it, frost giants," said another of the
men.

But as they came nearer, Eric all at once laughed loudly and called out:

"By Thor, that Gunnbiorn was a f