Then he proceeded to single out those who were to follow him; and to the great joy of Robert of Normandy, he was included in that favored number.

Valbrand’s men crashed away through bush and bramble; and the chief’s following threw themselves, like jubilant swimmers, into the sea of undergrowth.  Now, waist-high in thorny bushes, they tore their way through by sheer force of strength.  Now they stepped high over a network of low-lying vines, ankle-bonds tougher than walrus hide.  Again, imitating the four-footed pioneer that had worn the faint approach to a trail, they crawled on their hands and knees.  Every nest they chanced upon, and each berry bush, paid a heavy toll; but they gave the briers a liberal return in the way of cloth and hair and flesh.

“I think it likely that I could retrace my steps by no other means than the hair that I have left on the thorns,” Eyvind the Icelander observed ruefully, when at last they had paused to draw breath in one of the few open spaces.

The Fearless One overheard him and laughed.  “When I found that my locks were liable to be pulled off my head entirely, I disposed of them in this manner,” he said.  He was leaning forward from his seat on a fallen oak to shew how his black curls were tucked snugly inside his collar, when a shriek of pain from the thicket behind them brought every man to his feet.

The chief ran his eye over the little group.  “It is Lodin that is missing,” he said.  “Probably he lingered at those last berry bushes.”  Knife in hand, he plunged into the jungle.

While a rustling green curtain still hid the tragedy, the rescuers learned the nature of their companion’s peril; for suddenly, above the cries for help and the crash of trampled brush, there rose the roar of an infuriated bear.

Alwin’s heart leaped in his breast, and his nostrils widened with such a fierce joy as won him the undying respect of the sportsmen around him.  Pushing past his comrades, he tore his way through the tangle of twining willowy arms and gained the side of the chief.

Leif pushed aside the last overhanging bough, and the conflict was before them.

Locked in the embrace of as big a bear as it had ever been their luck to see, stood Lodin the Berry-Eater.  That the beast had come upon him from the rear was evident, for the chisel-like claws of one huge paw had torn mantle and tunic and flesh into ribbons; but in some way the Viking must have managed to turn and grapple with his foe, for now his distorted face was close to the dripping jaws.  Two bloody mangled spots upon either arm showed where the brute’s teeth had been; but if the bear’s paws were gripping the man’s shoulders, still the man’s hands were locked about the bear’s ears.  That the pair had been down once, leaves and dirt in hair and fur were witness; and now they went down again, ploughing up the earth, screaming and panting, growling and roaring; one of the brute’s hind legs drawing up and striking down in a motion of terrible meaning.