pped in their cloaks and put scarfs
around their heads.

"And it is still summer!" Thorhild said. "What will it be in winter?"

"We must find a place to build a house now before the winter comes on,"
said Eric. "We must not freeze here."

So they chose a little spot with hills about it to keep off the wind.
They made a house out of stones; for there were many in that place. They
lived there that winter. The sea for a long way out from shore froze so
that it looked like white land. The men went out upon it to hunt white
bear and seal. They ate the meat and wore the skins to keep them warm.
The hardest thing was to get fuel for the fire. No trees grew there. The
men found a little driftwood along the shore, but it was not enough. So
they burned the bones and the fat of the animals they killed.

"It is a sickening smell," Thorhild said. "I have not been out of this
mean house for weeks. I am tired of the darkness and the smoke and the
cattle. And all the time I hear great noises, as though some giant were
breaking this land into pieces."

"Ah, cheer up, good wife!" Eric laughed. "I smell better luck ahead."

Once Eric and his men climbed the cliffs and went back into the middle
of the land. When they came home they had this to tell:

"It is a country of ice, shining white. Nothing grows on it but a few
mosses. Far off it looks flat, but when you walk upon it, there are
great holes and cracks. We could see nothing beyond. There seems to be
only a fringe of land around the edge of an island of ice."

The winter nights were very long. Sometimes the sun showed for an hour,
sometimes for only a few minutes, sometimes it did not show at all for a
week. The men hunted by the bright shining of the moon or by the
northern lights.

As it grew warmer the ice in the sea began to crack and move and melt
and float away. Eric waited only until there was a clear passage in the
water. Then he launched his boat, and they sailed southward again. At
last they found a place that Eric liked.

"Here I will build my house," he said.

So they did and lived there that summer and pastured their cattle and
cut hay for the winter and fished and hunted.

The next spring Eric said:

"The land stretches far north. I am hungry to know what is there."

Then they all got into the boat again and sailed north.

"We can leave no one here," Eric had said. "We cannot tell what might
come between us. Perhaps giants or dragons or strange men might