Skallagrim bound up Eric’s wound as well as he could, and they went on to the cave.  But when Eric’s folk, watching above, saw the fight they ran down and met him.  Now the hurt was bad and Eric bled much; still, within ten days it healed up for the time.

But a little while after Eric’s wound was skinned over, the snows set in on Mosfell, and the days grew short and the nights long.  Once Gizur’s men to the number of fifty came half way up the mountain to take it; but, when they saw how strong the place was, they feared, and went back, and after that returned no more, though they always watched the fell.

It was very dark and lonesome there upon the fell.  For a while Eric kept in good heart, but as the days went by he grew troubled.  For since he was wounded this had come upon him, that he feared the dark, and the death of Atli at his hand and Atli’s words weighed more and more upon his mind.  They had no candles on the fell, yet, rather than stay in the blackness of the cave, Eric would wrap sheepskins about him and sit by the edge of that gulf down which the head of the Baresark had foretold his fall, and look out at the wide plains and fells and ice-mountains, gleaming in the silver shine of the Northern lights or in the white beams of the stars.

It chanced that Eric had bidden the men who stayed with him to build a stone hut upon the flat space of rock before the cave, and to roof it with turves.  He had done this that work might keep them in heart, also that they might have a place to store such goods as they had gathered.  Now there was one stone lying near that no two men of their number could move, except Skallagrim and one other.  One day, while it was light, Eric watched these two rolling the stone along to where it must stand, and it was slow work.  Presently they stayed to rest.  Then Eric came and putting his hands beneath the stone, lifted, and while men wondered, he rolled the mass alone, to where it should be set as the corner stone of the hut.

“Ye are all children,” he said, and laughed merrily.

“Ay, when we set our strength against thine, lord,” answered Skallagrim; “but look:  the blood runs from thy neck—­the spear-wound has broken out afresh.”

“So it is, surely,” said Eric.  Then he washed the wound and bound it up, thinking little of the matter.

But that night, according to his custom, Eric sat on the edge of the gulf and looked at the winter lights as they played over Hecla’s snows.  He was sad and heavy at heart, for he thought of Gudruda and wondered much if they should live to wed.  Remembering Atli’s words, he had little faith in his good luck.  Now as Eric sat and thought, the bandage on his neck slipped, so that the hurt bled, and the frost got hold of the wound and froze it, and froze his long hair to it also, in such fashion that when he went to the cave where all men slept, he could not loose his hair from the sore, but lay down with it