The head will stay them awhile,
maybe."

Now he went swiftly across the rolling woodlands, and again I slept
in his arms, but uneasily and with a haunting fear in my dreaming
that I should wake to see the wild eyes of the wolf glaring across
the snow on us again. So it happens that all I know of the rest of
that flight from Woden's pack has been told me by others, so that I
can say little thereof.

The howls of the pack as they stayed to fall on the carcass of
their fellow, after their wont, died away behind us, and before
they were heard again my friend had come across a half-frozen
brook, and for a furlong or more had crashed and waded through its
ice and water that our trail might be lost in it. Then he lit on
the path that a sounder of wild swine had made through the snow on
either side of it as they crossed it, and that he followed, in
hopes that the foe would leave us to chase the more accustomed
quarry. From that he leapt aside presently with a wondrous leap and
struck off away from it. He would leave nothing untried, though
indeed by this time he had reason to think that the pack had lost
us at the brook, for he heard no more of them.

So at last he came within sound of some far-off shouts of those who
were seeking me, and he guessed well what those shouts meant, and
turned in their direction. Had he not heard them I do not know what
place of refuge, save the trees, he would have found that night,
for he was then passing across the valley that winds down to our
home.

So it happened that when at last he saw the red light from the door
of our hall gleaming across the snow, for it had been left open
that perchance I might see it, he was close to the place, and he
came into the courtyard inside the stockading without meeting any
one, for he came from the side on which the village is not.

There I woke as the house dogs barked, and at first it was with a
cry of fear lest the wolves were on us again; but the fear passed
as I saw my father come quickly into the light of the doorway, and
heard his voice as he stilled the dogs and cried to ask if the boy
was found.

"Ay, Thane, he is here, and safe," my friend answered, and he set
me down in the midst of the court, while the dogs leapt and fawned
round me.

Then I ran to the arms that were held out for me, forgetting for
the moment the one who had brought me back to them, and left him
standing there.

Then the man who had saved me turned after one long loo