, and easily kept pace
with Thorolf. As he set out the silver-bound horn cups to drink
_skal_[1] with his friend in his own lodging, the croak and sputter of
German talk sounded in the street below.

"Behold a new Bergen," observed Nils whimsically. "Let us drink to the
founding of a new Iceland. Did you go to Greenland?"

"We touched at Kakortok with letters for the Bishop. The people are sick
and savage with fighting against the Skroelings."

"Now," said Nils, rubbing his long nose, "it is odd that you say that,
for I was just going to tell you some news. The King has given Paul
Knutson leave to raise a company to fight against the Skroelings in
Greenland--and parts beyond. He sails in a month."

"I wish I had known of it."

"I thought you would say that. This is between us two and the candle,
but Anders Amundson is going, and I am going, and you may go if you
will."

Thorolf's gray eyes flamed. "What is Knutson like?"

"Well, they may call him Chevalier, but he has the old Viking way with
him. I said that I had a friend who had long wished to lay his bones in
a strange land, and he answered, 'If your friend sails with me I would
prefer to have him bring his bones home again.' He kept a place for
you."

Three weeks later Thorolf, looking backward as the _Rotge_, (little auk
or sea-king) stood out to sea, saw the familiar outline of Snaehatten
against the sunrise and wondered when he should see it again. Like a
questing raven his mind returned to the summer spent at the saeter, and
recalled that dark saying of the Wind-wife,--

"In the land of Klooskap shall you be Klooskap's guest."

The galley[2] rode the waves with the bold freedom of her kind. Her keel
was carved out of a single great tree. Her seasoned oaken timbers,
overlapping, were riveted together by iron bolts, with the round heads
outside. Where a timber touched a rib, a strip was cut out on each side,
forming a block through which a hole was bored. Another hole was bored
in the rib to match and a rope twisted of the inner bark of the linden
was put through both holes and knotted. In surf or heavy sea, this
construction gave the craft a supple strength. Calking was done with
woolen cloth steeped in pitch. The mast, of a chosen trunk of fir, was
set upright in a log with ends shaped like a fishtail. The long oarlike
rudder was on the board or side of the ship to the right of the stern,
called the starboard or steerboard. The lading was done on the