echo or an answering whoop from
the opposite shore. Rolf stretched himself along the branch, just in
time to see the men below scatter in wildest confusion and plunge
headlong into the thicket.

"In the Troll's name!" he ejaculated. "When dwarfs run like that, giants
must be coming!"

Alwin had clambered to his feet, and stood with his head thrust up
through the leafy roof.

"It is more out of the same nest!" he gasped. "They are coming from the
other bank, swarms of them ....There! Some of them have landed..."

Rolf laughed his peculiar soft laugh of quiet enjoyment. "By Thor, was
there ever such a game!" he exclaimed. "I can see them now; they are
after the first lot like wolves after sheep--No, Kark was the sheep!
These are the hunters after the wolves. Hear them howl!"

"The last ones have climbed out of the water," Alwin bent to report. "Do
they also follow?"

"As dogs follow deer. Saw I never such sport! When we can no longer hear
them, it will be time for us to run a race of our own."

Alwin made no answer, and they waited in silence. Gradually distance
drew soft folds over the sharp cries and muffled them, as women throw
their cloaks over the sharp swords of brawlers in the hall. Once again
the drone and the chirping became audible about them, and the smile of
the sunshine became visible in the air. It occurred to Alwin that the
peacefulness of nature was like the gentleness of the Wrestler; and
there floated through his head the saying of a wrinkled old nurse of his
childhood, "The English can die without flinching; the French can die
with laughs on their lips; but only the Northmen can smile as they
kill." When the last smothered shout was unmistakably dead, Rolf swung
himself down from the bough; hung there for an instant, stretching
himself comfortably and shaking the cramps out of his limbs, then let
himself down to the ground; and Alwin followed.

The soft sod lay trampled and gashed by the grinding heels; and the
lengthening shadows pointed dark fingers at the middle of the nook,
where a shapeless thing of white and red was lying.

Rolf bent over it curiously.

"It must be that these people love killing for its own sake, to go to so
much trouble over it," he commented. "Evidently it is not the excitement
of fighting which they enjoy, but the pleasure of torturing. I will not
be sure but what they are trolls after all."

"It was a devils' deed," Alwin said hoarsely. He looked down at the
gha