come away with thy life."

"I will run the risk of that," he says.

After that he sees her back to the other women, but he went home.
Gudbrand sat in his high seat, and there were few men in the hall.

Hrapp went in before him, and bore his axe high.

"Why is thine axe bloody?" asks Gudbrand.

"I made it so by doing a piece of work on thy overseer Asvard's back,"
says Hrapp.

"That can be no good work," says Gudbrand; "thou must have slain him."

"So it is, be sure," says Hrapp.

"What did ye fall out about?" asks Gudbrand.

"Oh!" says Hrapp, "what you would think small cause enough. He wanted to
hew off my leg."

"What hast thou done first?" asked Gudbrand.

"What he had no right to meddle with," says Hrapp.

"Still thou wilt tell me what it was."

"Well!" said Hrapp, "if thou must know, I lay by thy daughter's side,
and he thought that bad."

"Up men!" cried Gudbrand, "and take him. He shall be slain out of hand."

"Very little good wilt thou let me reap of my son-in-lawship," says
Hrapp, "but thou hast not so many men at thy back as to do that
speedily."

Up they rose, but he sprang out of doors. They run after him, but he got
away to the wood, and they could not lay hold of him.

Then Gudbrand gathers people, and lets the wood be searched; but they
find him not, for the wood was great and thick.

Hrapp fares through the wood till he came to a clearing; there he found
a house, and saw a man outside cleaving wood.

He asked that man for his name, and he said his name was Tofi.

Tofi asked him for his name in turn, and Hrapp told him his true name.

Hrapp asked why the householder had set up his abode so far from other
men?

"For that here," he says, "I think I am less likely to have brawls with
other men."

"It is strange how we beat about the bush in out talk," says Hrapp, "but
I will first tell thee who I am. I have been with Gudbrand of the Dale,
but I ran away thence because I slew his overseer; but now I know that
we are both of us bad men; for thou wouldst not have come hither away
from other men unless thou wert some man's outlaw. And now I give thee
two choices, either that I will tell where thou art,[37] or that we two
have between us, share and share alike, all that is here."

"This is even as thou sayest," said the householder; "I seized and
carried off this woman who is here with me, and many men have sought for
me."

Then he led Hrapp in with him; there was a small house th