and asked:

"What do you want?"

The stranger said something, but the Norsemen could not understand. It
was some new language. Then the chief pointed to one of the huts and
walked toward it. He and his men walked all around it and felt of the
timber and went into it and looked at all the things there--spades and
cloaks and drinking-horns. As they looked they talked together. They
went to all the other huts and looked at everything there. One of them
found a red cloak. He spread it out and showed it to the others. They
all stood about it and looked at it and felt of it and talked fast.

"They seem to like my cloak," Biarni said.

One of the strangers went down to their canoes and soon came back with
an armload of furs--fox-skins, otter-skins, beaver-skins. The chief took
some and held them out to Thorfinn and hugged the cloak to him.

[Illustration: "_The chief held them out to Thorfinn and hugged the
cloak to him_"]

"He wants to trade," Thorfinn said. "Will you do it, Biarni?"

"Yes," Biarni answered, and took the furs.

"If they want red stuff, I have a whole roll of red cloth that I will
trade," one of the other men said.

He went and got it. When the strangers saw it they quickly held out more
furs and seemed eager to trade. So Thorfinn cut the cloth into pieces
and sold every scrap. When the strangers got it they tied it about their
heads and seemed much pleased.

While this trading was going on and everybody was good-natured, a bull
of Thorfinn's ran out of the woods bellowing and came towards the crowd.
When the strangers heard it and saw it they threw down whatever was in
their hands and ran to their canoes and paddled off as fast as they
could.

The Norsemen laughed.

"We have lost our customers," Biarni said.

"Did they never see a bull before?" laughed one of the men.

Now after three weeks the Norsemen saw canoes in the bay again. This
time it was black with them, there were so many. The people in them were
all making a horrible shout.

"It is a war-cry," Thorfinn said, and he raised a red shield. "They are
surely twenty to our one, but we must fight. Stand in close line and
give them a taste of your swords."

Even as he spoke a great shower of stones fell upon them. Some of the
Norsemen were hit on the head and knocked down. Biarni got a broken arm.
Still the storm came fast. The strangers had landed and were running
toward the Norsemen. They threw their stones with sling-shots, and the