bands,
as we did at our first landing; and I forbid that any man shall separate
himself from his party, for any reason whatsoever."

Then he proceeded to single out those who were to follow him; and to the
great joy of Robert of Normandy, he was included in that favored number.

Valbrand's men crashed away through bush and bramble; and the chief's
following threw themselves, like jubilant swimmers, into the sea of
undergrowth. Now, waist-high in thorny bushes, they tore their way
through by sheer force of strength. Now they stepped high over a network
of low-lying vines, ankle-bonds tougher than walrus hide. Again,
imitating the four-footed pioneer that had worn the faint approach to a
trail, they crawled on their hands and knees. Every nest they chanced
upon, and each berry bush, paid a heavy toll; but they gave the briers a
liberal return in the way of cloth and hair and flesh.

"I think it likely that I could retrace my steps by no other means than
the hair that I have left on the thorns," Eyvind the Icelander observed
ruefully, when at last they had paused to draw breath in one of the few
open spaces.

The Fearless One overheard him and laughed. "When I found that my locks
were liable to be pulled off my head entirely, I disposed of them in
this manner," he said. He was leaning forward from his seat on a fallen
oak to shew how his black curls were tucked snugly inside his collar,
when a shriek of pain from the thicket behind them brought every man to
his feet.

The chief ran his eye over the little group. "It is Lodin that is
missing," he said. "Probably he lingered at those last berry bushes."
Knife in hand, he plunged into the jungle.

While a rustling green curtain still hid the tragedy, the rescuers
learned the nature of their companion's peril; for suddenly, above the
cries for help and the crash of trampled brush, there rose the roar of
an infuriated bear.

Alwin's heart leaped in his breast, and his nostrils widened with such a
fierce joy as won him the undying respect of the sportsmen around him.
Pushing past his comrades, he tore his way through the tangle of twining
willowy arms and gained the side of the chief.

Leif pushed aside the last overhanging bough, and the conflict was
before them.

Locked in the embrace of as big a bear as it had ever been their luck to
see, stood Lodin the Berry-Eater. That the beast had come upon him from
the rear was evident, for the chisel-like claws of one huge p