ayest. Come now, take thy spear, and let us be gone."

"Where shall we go to-day?" asked Alric.

"To the wolf's glen."

"To the wolf's glen? that is far."

"Is it too far for thee, lad?"

"Nay, twice the distance were not too far for me," returned the boy
proudly; "but the day advances, and there is danger without honour in
walking on the fells after dark."

"The more need for haste," said Glumm, opening the door and going out.

Alric followed, and for some time these two walked in silence, as the
path was very steep, and so narrow for a considerable distance, that
they could not walk abreast.

Snow lay pretty thickly on the mountains, particularly in sheltered
places, but in exposed parts it had been blown off, and the hunters
could advance easily. In about ten minutes after setting out they lost
sight of Glummstede. As they advanced higher and deeper into the
mountains, the fiord and the sea, with its innumerable skerries, was
lost to view, but it was not until they had toiled upwards and onwards
for nearly two hours that they reached those dark recesses of the fells
to which the bears and wolves were wont to retreat after committing
depredations on the farms in the valleys far below.

There was something in the rugged grandeur of the scenery here, in the
whiteness of the snow, the blackness of the rocks which peeped out from
its voluminous wreaths, the lightness of the atmosphere, and, above all,
the impressive silence, which possessed an indescribable charm for the
romantic mind of Alric, and which induced even the stern matter-of-fact
Glumm to tread with slower steps, and to look around him with a feeling
almost akin to awe. No living thing was to be seen, either among the
stupendous crags which still towered above, or in the depths which they
had left below; but there were several footprints of wolves, all of
which Glumm declared, after careful examination, to be old.

"See here, lad," he said, turning up one of these footprints with the
butt of his spear; "observe the hardish ball of snow just under the
print; that shows that the track is somewhat old. If it had been quite
fresh there would have been no such ball."

"Thou must think my memory of the shortest, Glumm, for I have been told
that every time I have been out with thee."

"True, but thou art so stupid," said Glumm, laying his spear lightly
across the boy's shoulders, "that I have thought fit to impress it on
thee by repetition, having