d into the bed of its left branch.

As the water lowered it became obvious that the pool thus isolated was
absolutely swarming with salmon, for they could be seen darting hither
and thither in shoals, making for the deeper parts of the pool, and
jostling one another under stones. Gradually little islets began to
appear as the water continued to sink, and then the fish seemed to be
seized with a panic. They shot like silver arrows from bank to bank--up
the pool and down again, as if enjoying a piscatorial country dance, or,
in blind flight, rushed clear out upon the pebbly islets, in half dozens
at a time, where they leaped, slid, twirled, and bounded frantically, in
what bore some resemblance to a piscatorial reel. Then, slipping into
the water again, and recovering their fins and tails, they shot away to
encounter similar misfortune elsewhere, or to thrust their noses under
stones, and--entertaining the same delusive notions that are said to
characterise the ostrich--imagine that they were not seen!

By degrees the islets enlarged until they joined here and there, and,
finally, the state of things being inverted, the bed of the stream
became a series of little ponds, which were absolutely boiling with
fish--not unlike, as Krake remarked, to the boiling springs of Iceland,
only that those boiled with heat instead of with living fish.

And now commenced a scene such as, unquestionably, had not been
witnessed there since Vinland was created. The Norsemen were half mad
with excitement. The women ran up and down the banks clapping their
hands and shouting with delight, while Freydissa, unable to contain
herself, cast appearances to the dogs, leaped among the men, and joined
in the fray.

"The big pool first; this way, lads!" shouted Karlsefin, as he seized
the end of a long net and dragged it towards the pool in question.

Twenty willing hands assisted. The net encircled the pool and was
thrust in; men with poles forced one side of it down to the bottom, and
the two ends were hauled upon might and main. At the same moment, other
men went with hand nets to smaller pools, and, scooping up the fish,
sent them writhing and struggling through the air towards the bank,
where Gudrid, Thora, Astrid, Gunhild, Sigrid, and even timid Bertha,
sought in vain to restrain their struggles and prevent them from
wriggling back into the almost dry bed of the stream.

"Haul away with heart, men!" shouted Biarne, who was at one end