coldly by, nor looked on him at
all.

"This, then, is that maid of thine of whom I have heard tell, Asmund? I
will say this: fairer was never born of woman."

Then men ate and Ospakar drank much ale, but all the while he stared at
Gudruda and listened for her voice. But as yet he said nothing of what
he came to seek, though all knew his errand. And his two sons, Gizur
and Mord, stared also at Gudruda, for they thought her most wonderfully
fair. But Gizur found Swanhild also fair.

And so the night wore on till it was time to sleep.

On this same day Eric rode up from his farm on Ran River and took his
road along the brow of Coldback till he came to Stonefell. Now all along
Coldback and Stonefell is a steep cliff facing to the south, that grows
ever higher till it comes to that point where Golden River falls over
it and, parting its waters below, runs east and west--the branch to the
east being called Ran River and that to the west Laxa--for these two
streams girdle round the rich plain of Middalhof, till at length they
reach the sea. But in the midst of Golden River, on the edge of the
cliff, a mass of rock juts up called Sheep-saddle, dividing the waters
of the fall, and over this the spray flies, and in winter the ice
gathers, but the river does not cover it. The great fall is thirty
fathoms deep, and shaped like a horseshoe, of which the points lie
towards Middalhof. Yet if he could but gain the Sheep-saddle rock that
divides the midst of the waters, a strong and hardy man might climb down
some fifteen fathoms of this depth and scarcely wet his feet.

Now here at the foot of Sheep-saddle rock the double arches of waters
meet, and fall in one torrent into the bottomless pool below. But, some
three fathoms from this point of the meeting waters, and beneath
it, just where the curve is deepest, a single crag, as large as a
drinking-table and no larger, juts through the foam, and, if a man could
reach it, he might leap from it some twelve fathoms, sheer into the
spray-hidden pit beneath, there to sink or swim as it might befall. This
crag is called Wolf's Fang.

Now Eric stood for a long while on the edge of the fall and looked,
measuring every thing with his eye. Then he went up above, where the
river swirls down to the precipice, and looked again, for it is from
this bank that the dividing island-rock Sheep-saddle must be reached.

"A man may hardly do this thing; yet I will try it," he said to himself
at la