"Whether you think so or not, I know that Gudrid would not keep milk in a fish-pail," the Bull's voice rose above the racket.

There was not a little racket to surmount, for it was rising time at the new band's new booth. In the high-seat that had been built for him midway the length of the hall, the red-cloaked chief occupied the interval before breakfast with rune-carving; but that was the only employment which was being carried on in silence. Whistling boys were lacing their high boots along the benches right and left of the high-seat; grumbling boys were just turning out of the bunks behind those benches; jeering boys were throwing bedclothes at the sluggards, and disputing boys were clattering bowls and trenchers on the tables which stood on either side the fire. One of these table-boys was the short and chesty Bull, sniffing hostilely at the milk he was pouring; and the head of the division was Brand, the long and loose-jointed.

Over a platter of cold venison, he frowned on his scullions. "Gudrid has nothing to do with this house," he snubbed the faultfinder; then, in peremptory aside, "Olaf, keep that door shut! Do you think it is warm outside?"

"Do you think that any one who eats your cooking needs to be told that Gudrid did not do it?" retorted the Bull, refusing to be snubbed.

A sigh came out of Erlend's handsome mouth as he looked up from hunting a lost button among the pine branches of the floor. "Ah, Gudrid! After that last meal she invited me to take in their booth, eating here has been like living on seaweed!"

Brand's frown took on an edge of scorn. "Fussers! Go and live in Gudrid's house! It may be that she would allow you to crawl into the cradle with the baby. Yesterday the grumbling was because I put my head out of the door to look at a dog-fight and the bread got a little burned. If I were as womanish as the rest of you, I would braid my hair and put on skirts!"

Still bending over his rune-carving, the young chief spoke with a drawl: "Here is something worth a hearing! Is it in truth your opinion that there is the most manfulness in you?"

Surprise took the head-cook a little aback; then defiance took him a long way forward, flourishing his red mane. "Yes, I think so. You also found fault with the bread, for all your Viking training. I think I am the most hardy man here."

When Alrek's knife had cut another rune upon his stick, he straightened deliberately. "Yesterday," he explained, "Karlsefne gave the chiefs the advice to pick out each week five men who should have it for their sole service to keep the camp in fire-wood——"

A prolonged groan interrupted him; of all the burdens of housekeeping, fuel-getting weighed the most heavily.

"——and he bade me send the hardiest man in our booth. I intended Domar to go, but now I see that Brand Erlingsson is the man to do it."

"Hail to the chief!" yelled Strong Domar. And Brand's flame of defiance sank in ashes of sulkiness; and from the others came shouts of laughter.

"He will wish he was back at kitchen work!" "Tree-chopping is the least interesting—" "And the weather is such that wood lasts the shortest time—" "Still Karlsefne is lacking payment—" "Never will we get to cutting timber for the ship!"

The Hare made a pettish flourish with the knife he was using to trim away the rags from his garments. "Who wants to prepare for anything so far in the future? Why will you, Olaf, open that door? What I should be glad of is a chance to exercise myself for the spring games. Since we began this way of living, I have not had one race worth talking about."

"I should be thankful if we could get a chance to go north where the big game is," Erlend said with a disapproving glance at the empty walls. "All the booty we have to show is the Skraelling hatchet, and Alrek has the habit of carrying that in his belt. Many hunting journeys will be required to make this booth equal to the others in outfittings. Let your eyes run over it and then think of Karlsefne's!"

Thinking, they were silent for a little, gazing around at the great room which even in the fire-glow showed so baldly white with newness. Karlsefne's walls were decorated with bears' heads and eagles' claws and antler-racks of shining weapons; and Karlsefne's benches were covered with rich furs, and his high-seat had velvet cushions stuffed with eider-down.

"Alrek, when is it your intention to take the time to get furnishings?" Erlend besought.

The chief shook his brown head steadily. "Not until we get out of the debt which we got into to build this booth," he answered, and closed the opening discussion by putting aside his rune-stick and rising. "Now it seems to me that you are all looking too far into the future. I should be content if I could get something to eat. Who has gone after the fish? And what is the reason that he is not back again?"

As head-cook, Brand answered him, though sulkily: "Gard has gone after the fish, and it is high time that he was back again."

"That is what I have been trying to do, look for him," little Olaf the Fair spoke up for the first time, in aggrieved tones. And secure at last from interference, he flung the door open to the nipping January wind. "No, I see nothing of him—but I do hear the snow crunch!"

"It is certainly time," Brand blustered.

Nevertheless he bent his lank length over the fire with recovered good-humor; and greater alacrity came into the movements of those who were not yet dressed, while those who were, turned toward the door, gibes at each tongue's end.

The nature of their greeting changed, however, when Gard the Ugly had stamped into the room and they saw the size of the catch swinging at his side. Waking, their sleeping appetites cried out in alarm:

"Only three!" "Go into the hands of the Troll—" "—gone long enough to get thirty!" "What in the Fiend's name has come to the fishing?"

Tossing his fish to the clamoring cooks, Gard was a long time pulling off his fur-lined gloves before he answered: "Nothing has come to the fishing."

"What has come to you then?" Brand demanded.

After a while Gard said gruffly: "I forgot to take any more."

"Forgot!" echoed the chorus; and Erlend laid his plump hands on the Ugly One's shoulders and shook him good-naturedly.

"Are you asleep?" he inquired.

Gard pushed off his brown cloak and with it his questioner. "Since I can feel your grasp, I am not asleep. I think I have seen Hallad's ghost."

"What!" cried the chorus; and Domar, mistaking it for a joke, burst into his uproarious laugh. He stopped abruptly when he found that he was alone, and Gard spoke without further interruption:

"It happened that the first set of lines I stopped at had been robbed, so I was obliged to go across the river, which is what makes me rather late. Over there I had pulled up three fish when I heard a noise on the bank and looked around. Some evergreen trees hang down their branches there, and they are white with snow; he had on a white cloak that mixed him with them, at first. But suddenly I saw him looking out at me, as near as that bowl. His eyes were very wide open, and his face was white as milk. It may be that he would have spoken to me, but I did not wait to see."

"And therein you showed sense," Domar breathed in sympathy. But again he was on the unpopular side, for Ketil began to hoot:

"If you had waited, it is most likely you would have found out that you are a simpleton. Why should Hallad be dressed in white like a slave? He wore green when he went on his death-journey. Is it likely that Ran keeps new cloaks for drowned people?"

"Certainly, I think you are asleep after all!" Erlend laughed; which was the signal for a flight of chaff until Brand at his fish-fork endangered the peace by scoffing:

"I think you are lying."

To have said that to some of the band would have been to bring on a fight to the death, and many caught breath apprehensively before they remembered that this was one of the points about which Gard's thrall-blood gave him feelings different from theirs. He answered without resentment:

"I am not apt to lie when nothing is to be gained by it. I call Thor as witness that I have spoken the truth!" His oath he directed toward the chief, who had returned to his high-seat and from there listened intently to what passed.

But in the very act of nodding, Alrek Sword-Bearer broke off to ponder; and in the midst of pondering, he began to grin. "If you want to know my belief," he said, "it is that you saw the Weathercock's thrall, Tunni."

Instantly the chorus seconded him. "That is certainly the truth of the matter!" "Their hair is of the same color—" "—the branches hid its shortness—" "and explains the slaves' cloak——"

"And explains why his look was fear-full," Alrek added, "if, as I think, it was he who robbed the lines to save himself the trouble of going farther. He would think his hide in danger of a flogging——"

"Which it will get!" roared Gard; whereupon the chorus redoubled its delighted jeering.

This one time, however, the Ugly One's patience had a limit. Gradually his swarthy face turned mottled red; slowly a gleam came into the dull eyes above the high cheek-bones. Suddenly his voice rumbled through theirs: "If any of you tell this so that outsiders make derision, you will feel the edge of my knife."

They knew then that they had gone as far as was safe. When each one of them had spoken one gibe more to show that he dared to, there was a lull, of which Erlend the Amiable took advantage to make a tactful suggestion.

"I shall think those fish are ghosts if I do not get some of them between my teeth before long," he observed. And lo! ghosts and threats were, of a sudden, things of the past.

"Get to your places," commanded the head-cook, sweeping them aside that he might place before his chief the first portion of the crisp and rosy dish, savory with garlic and sweet with its own freshness.

There was an eager scrambling of feet, a joyful clattering of brass-hilted knives, a flurry of half-spoken requests; and after that all noise gave way to a pleasant munching sound, enforced now and then by a contented sigh or a long-drawn "Ah—h!" of satisfaction.

A mumble of applause greeted the Bull when, having licked the last morsel from his fingers and pushed back his bowl, he looked around to say, stretching: "I should like to see the man who could make me go back to the old way of living!"