n as he could get them to listen. "Does it in truth exist,
or is it a tale to amuse children with?"

They both assured him that it was quite true.

"I myself have talked with one of the sailors who saw it," Sigurd
explained. "He was Biorn's steersman. He saw it distinctly. He said that
it looked like a fine country, with many trees."

"If it was a real country and no witchcraft, it is strange that he
contented himself with looking at it. Why did he not land and explore?"

"Biorn Herjulfsson is a coward," Helga said contemptuously. "Every man
who can move his tongue says so."

Sigurd frowned at her. "You give judgment too glibly. I have heard many
say that he is a brave man. But he was not out on an exploring voyage;
he was sailing from Iceland to Greenland, to visit his father, and lost
his way. And he is a man not apt to be eager in new enterprises.
Besides, it may be that he thought the land was inhabited by dwarfs."

"There, you have admitted that I am right!" Helga cried triumphantly.
"He was afraid of the dwarfs; and a man who is afraid of anything is a
coward."

But Sigurd could fence with his tongue as well as with his sword. "What
then is a shield-maiden who is afraid of her kinswoman?" he parried. And
they fell to wrangling laughingly between themselves.

Unheeding them, Alwin gazed away at the mysterious blue west. His eyes
were big with great thoughts. If he had a ship and a crew,--if he could
sail away exploring! Suppose kingdoms could be founded there!
Suppose--his imaginings became as lofty as the drifting clouds, and as
vague; so vague that he finally lost interest in them, and turned his
attention to the approaching shore. They had come near enough now to see
that the scattered islands had connected themselves into a peaked coast,
a broken line of dazzling whiteness, except where dark chasms made blots
upon its sides.

But sighting Greenland and landing upon it were two very different
matters, he found. A little further, and they encountered the border of
drift-ice that, travelling down from the northeast in company with
numerous icebergs, closes the fiord-mouths in summer like a magic bar.

"I shall think it great luck if this breaks up so that we can get
through it in a month," Valbrand observed phlegmatically.

"A month?" Alwin gasped, overhearing him.

The old sailor looked at him in contempt. "Does a month seem long to
you? When Eric came here from Iceland, he was obliged to lie four mo