utable smile.
"If I were not your sworn friend, I should enjoy wringing your neck," he
said. "I met Helga at the gate yonder. She was going over to Glum
Starkadsson's to get something for Thorhild, and also because she wished
a walk over the hard snow."

"Is it far from here? And in what direction?"

"For what purpose do you wish to know that?"

"I ask you in what direction it lies."

"The Troll take you!" Rolf gave it up with a laugh. "It lies to the
north of the fiord,--beyond a bridge that crosses a river that runs
through a valley. And it is not far. Have you not yet learned that in
Greenland people do not take long strolls in the winter-time?"

Alwin pulled a hood over his cap, strapped his cloak still tighter, drew
a pair of down-lined mittens from under his girdle and put them on over
his gloves, and, without another syllable, turned and made for the gate.

It was glorious weather, dry and clear, and so still that very little of
the cold penetrated his fur-lined garments. Snow covered everything,
fine and firm and dazzling. The smooth white expanse suggested a wish
that he had brought the skees he was learning to use; then the sight of
the line of boulders he would have had to steer around made him rejoice
that he had not. Far ahead of him rose the glittering wall of inland
ice,--that mysterious frozen sea that covers all of Greenland except its
very border, and never advances and never recedes. What made it stop
there, he wondered? And what lay beyond it? And could those tales be
true that the old women told, of terrible magical beings living on its
silent frozen peaks?

The sight of a dark speck moving over the white plain far ahead of him
banished every other thought. It might be that it was Helga. He crunched
on eagerly. Then he dipped into the valley and lost sight of the speck,
found it on the bridge, dipped again, and again it was lost to view.

It was not until the fence of Glum Starkadsson's farm was plainly in
sight, that he caught another glimpse of it. But this time it was coming
toward him, from the gateway.

Certainly that long crimson cloak and full crimson hood belonged to
Helga. In a moment, she waved her hand at him. Soon he could see her
face under the white fur border. Her scarlet lips were curving in a
smile. The snow-glare brought out the dazzling fairness of her pearly
skin, and her eyes were like two radiant blue stars. It seemed to Alwin
that he had never known before how beauti