ould
regard the other as his true brother and love him and treat him as such,
and avenge his death if he survived him; in solemn testimony of which
each drew a knife and opened a vein in his arm, letting their blood
mingle and flow together. Hakon, however, in his heroic zeal, drove the
knife into his flesh rather recklessly, and when the blood had flowed
profusely for five minutes, he grew a trifle uneasy. Frithjof, after
having bathed his arm in a neighboring brook, had no difficulty in
stanching the blood, but the poor Skull-Splitter's wound, in spite of
cold water and bandages, kept pouring forth its warm current without
sign of abatement. Hakon grew paler and paler, and would have burst into
tears, if he had not been a "Son of the Vikings." It would have been a
relief to him, for the moment, not to have been a "Son of the Vikings."
For he was terribly frightened, and thought surely he was going to bleed
to death. The other Vikings, too, began to feel rather alarmed at such a
prospect; and when Erling the Lop-Sided (the pastor's son) proposed that
they should carry Hakon to the doctor, no one made any objection. But
the doctor unhappily lived so far away that Hakon might die before he
got there.

"Well, then," said Wolf-in-the Temple, "let us take him to old
Witch-Martha. She can stanch blood and do lots of other queer things."

"Yes, and that is much more Norse, too," suggested Thore the Hound;
"wise women learned physic and bandaged wounds in the olden time. Men
were never doctors."

"Yes, Witch-Martha is just the right style," said Erling the Lop-Sided
down in his boots; for he had naturally a shrill voice and gave himself
great pains to produce a manly bass.

"We must make a litter to carry the Skull-Splitter on," exclaimed Einar
Bowstring-Twanger (the sheriff's son); "he'll never get to Witch-Martha
alive if he is to walk."

This suggestion was favorably received, the boys set to work with a
will, and in a few minutes had put together a litter of green twigs and
branches. Hakon, who was feeling curiously light-headed and exhausted,
allowed himself to be placed upon it in a reclining position; and its
swinging motion, as his friends carried it along, nearly rocked him to
sleep. The fear of death was but vaguely present to his mind; but his
self-importance grew with every moment, as he saw his blood trickle
through the leaves and drop at the roadside. He appeared to himself
a brave Norse warrior who was bei