brown like
that of the Southerners. And I have decided to make believe that I am a
Frankish man. I know not a little of their tongue, which will help to
disguise my speech. But how I am to cover up my short hair, or account
for my appearance in Greenland--" He shrugged his shoulders, and dropped
his chin upon his fist.

Helga clasped her hands around her knee and stared at him thoughtfully.
"I have heard Sigurd tell of a strange wonder he saw in France,--I do
not know what you call it,--like a hood made of people's hair. A girl
who had lost her hair through sickness was wont to wear it; and Sigurd
did not even suspect that it was rootless, until one day she caught the
ends in her cloak, and pulled it off. If you could get one of those--"

"If!" Alwin murmured. But Helga did not hear him. Suddenly, in the dim
perspective of her mind, she had caught a glimpse of a plan. As she
darted at it, it eluded her; but she chased it to and fro, seeing it
more clearly at each turn. Finally she caught it. She leaped up and
opened her mouth to shout it forth, when an impulse of Editha's caution
touched her, and instead, she threw her arms around his neck and laughed
it into his ear.

He drew back and gazed at her with dawning appreciation. She nodded
excitedly.

"Is it not well fitted to succeed? You can escape to Norway as I
planned, and after that you can easily reach Normandy. All that you lack
is gold, and Leif and Gilli have covered me with that."

His face kindled as he mused on it. "It sounds possible. Sigurd's
friends would receive me well for his sake; and after I had got
everything for my disguise, I would have yet many good chances to return
to Nidaros and board the ship of Arnor Gunnarsson, who comes here each
summer on a trading voyage. Coming that way, who could suspect
me?--particularly when it is everyone's belief that I am dead."

"No one!" Helga cried joyously. "No one! It is perfect!"

In a sudden burst of gratitude, he caught her hands and kissed them.
"All is due to you, then. It is an unheard-of cleverness! You must be a
Valkyria! Only a great hero is worthy of a maid like you."

Laughing with pleasure, she hid her face on his breast. And it must be
that her plan possessed some of the advantages she claimed for it, for
it came to pass that, on the same day that Gilli and his daughter set
sail for Norway, a fair-skinned thrall with a shaven head disappeared
from Greenland so completely that even Kark's ke