, springing up, and, without a
moment's delay, taking down and girding on the armour which hung round
the walls.

"King Harald is on his way to the dale," said Alric; "we assemble at
Ulfstede."

"Shall I bear on the token?" asked the youngest of the men.

"Aye; but go thou with it up the Wolf's Den Valley. I myself will bear
it round by the Eagle Crag and the coast."

"That is a long way," said the man, taking his shield down from a peg in
the wall.

Alric replied not, for he had already darted away, and was again
speeding along the mountain side.

Night had begun to close in, for the season had not yet advanced to the
period of endless daylight. Far away in an offshoot vale, a bright
ruddy light gleamed through the surrounding darkness. Alric's eye was
fixed on it. His untiring foot sped towards it. The roar of a mighty
cataract grew louder on his ear every moment. He had to slacken his
pace a little, and pick his steps as he went on, for the path was rugged
and dangerous.

"I wonder if Old Hans of the Foss is at home?" was the thought that
passed through his mind as he approached the door.

Old Hans himself answered the thought by opening the door at that
moment. He was a short, thick-set, and very powerful man, of apparently
sixty years of age, but his eye was as bright and his step as light as
that of many a man of twenty.

"The war-token," he said, almost gaily, stepping back into the cottage
as Alric leaped in. "What is doing, son of Haldor?"

"King Harald will be upon us sooner than we wish. Ulfstede is the
meeting-place. Can thy son speed on the token in the next valley?"

The old warrior shook his head sadly, and pointed to a low bed, where a
young man lay with the wasted features and bright eyes that told of a
deadly disease in its advanced stage.

An exclamation of regret and sympathy escaped from Alric. "I cannot
go," he said; "my course lies to the left, by the Stor foss. Hast no
one to send?"

"I will go, father," said a smart girl of fifteen, who had been seated
behind her mother, near the couch of the sick man.

"Thou, bairn?"

"Yes, why not? It is only a league to Hawksdal, where young Eric will
gladly relieve me."

"True," said the old warrior, with a smile, as he began to don his
armour. "Go; I need not tell thee to make haste!"

Alric waited to hear no more, but darted away as the little maid tripped
off in another direction.

Thus hour by hour the night passed