k at that
meeting, and I think that he was going his way in silence, content
with that he had done, but my father saw it and called to him:

"Friend, stay, for I have not thanked you, and I hold that there is
reward due to you for what you have brought back to me."

"It was a chance meeting, Thane, and I am glad to have been of use.
No need to speak of reward, for it is indeed enough to have seen
the boy home safely."

"Why, then," said my father, "I cannot have a stranger pass my hall
at this time in the evening, when it is too late to reach the town
in safety. Here you must at least lodge for the night, or Eastdean
will be shamed. Your voice tells me that you are a stranger--but
maybe you have your men waiting for you at hand? There will be room
for them also."

For there was that in the tones of the voice of this man which told
my father that here he had no common wanderer.

"I am alone," my friend said. "But your men seek the little one
even yet in the forest. Will you not call them in?"

My father looked at the man for a moment, and smiled.

"Ay, I forgot in my joy. They are well-nigh as anxious as I have
been."

Then he took down the great horn that hung by the door, and wound
the homing call that brings all within its hearing back to the
hall, and its hoarse echoes went across the silent woods until it
was answered by the other horns that passed on the message until
the last sounds came but faintly to us. I heard men cheering also,
for they knew by the token that all was well. My father had me in
his arms all this time, standing in the door.

"There would have been sorrow enough had he been lost indeed," my
father said. "He is the last of the old line, and the fathers of
those men whom you hear have followed his fathers since the days of
Ella. Come in, and they will thank you also. Where did you find
him?"

Then as he turned and went into the hall the light flashed red on
my jerkin suddenly, and he cried, "Here is blood on his
clothing!--Is he hurt?"

"No," I said stoutly; "maybe it is the blood of the stoat I slew,
or else it has come off the shepherd's sleeves. He hewed off the
wolf's head and hung it on the tree."

Then my father understood what my peril had been--even that which
he and all the village had feared for me, and his face paled, and
he held out his hand to the man, drawing in his breath sharply.

"Woden!" he cried, "what is this, friend? Are you hurt, yourself?
For the wolf must