ful she was. A strange shyness
came over him, that weighted his feet and left him without a word to say
when they met.

But Helga greeted him cheerily. "Did you ever breathe finer air? I wish
Thorhild would run out of gold thread every day in the week. Are you in
a hurry?"

"No," Alwin began hesitatingly, "I--"

She did not wait for the end. "Then turn back with me a little way, and
I will tell you something worth hearing."

He turned obediently and walked beside her, trying to think how to put
what he had come to say.

"You remember hearing of Egil's father Olaf, who was so ill-tempered
that Egil dared not go home and confess that he had become a Christian?
Gunnlaug Starkadsson returned this morning from visiting his wife, and
she says that last night the old man's horse threw him so that his head
hit against a stone, and it caused his death."

She made an impressive pause; but Alwin stalked along in silence,
grinding his heels deep into the snow.

"Do you not see what that means?" she asked, impatiently. "Egil will now
come into his inheritance, and become one of the richest men in the
Settlement."

The trouble was that, in the first flash, Alwin had seen it all too
plainly. He had seen that now Egil would become just such a man as Leif
was wishing to bargain with. The thought burnt him like a hot iron, and
he opened his lips to pour out his frenzy; but he could not find the
words.

After a moment he said, sullenly: "I should be thankful if he would
leave Leif's service, so that I could sometimes speak to you without
having him watch me like a dog at a rabbit-hole."

Helga turned toward him with frank interest. "I wonder at that also. He
does not act so when I speak to Sigurd or Rolf. But then, he has behaved
very strangely to me ever since he talked with Skroppa in Iceland, two
seasons ago."

"He spoke to me of Skroppa the first time I saw him," Alwin said,
absently. Then a flicker of curiosity awoke in him. "I wish that you
would tell me what 'Skroppa' stands for. I do not know whether it is man
or beast or demon."

Even out there in the open, Helga glanced about for listeners before she
answered. "Skroppa is a fore-knowing woman, who lives among the
unsettled places north of here, in a cabin down in a hollow. Though Leif
will not admit it, it was she who took the curse off Eric's sword."

It seemed to Alwin that here at last was an opening. He said harshly: "I
wonder if she would be wise enough to