“I say, where did you meet Helga?” roared Alwin.

Rolf released him, and stood looking at him with an inscrutable smile.  “If I were not your sworn friend, I should enjoy wringing your neck,” he said.  “I met Helga at the gate yonder.  She was going over to Glum Starkadsson’s to get something for Thorhild, and also because she wished a walk over the hard snow.”

“Is it far from here?  And in what direction?”

“For what purpose do you wish to know that?”

“I ask you in what direction it lies.”

“The Troll take you!” Rolf gave it up with a laugh.  “It lies to the north of the fiord,—­beyond a bridge that crosses a river that runs through a valley.  And it is not far.  Have you not yet learned that in Greenland people do not take long strolls in the winter-time?”

Alwin pulled a hood over his cap, strapped his cloak still tighter, drew a pair of down-lined mittens from under his girdle and put them on over his gloves, and, without another syllable, turned and made for the gate.

It was glorious weather, dry and clear, and so still that very little of the cold penetrated his fur-lined garments.  Snow covered everything, fine and firm and dazzling.  The smooth white expanse suggested a wish that he had brought the skees he was learning to use; then the sight of the line of boulders he would have had to steer around made him rejoice that he had not.  Far ahead of him rose the glittering wall of inland ice,—­that mysterious frozen sea that covers all of Greenland except its very border, and never advances and never recedes.  What made it stop there, he wondered?  And what lay beyond it?  And could those tales be true that the old women told, of terrible magical beings living on its silent frozen peaks?

The sight of a dark speck moving over the white plain far ahead of him banished every other thought.  It might be that it was Helga.  He crunched on eagerly.  Then he dipped into the valley and lost sight of the speck, found it on the bridge, dipped again, and again it was lost to view.

It was not until the fence of Glum Starkadsson’s farm was plainly in sight, that he caught another glimpse of it.  But this time it was coming toward him, from the gateway.

Certainly that long crimson cloak and full crimson hood belonged to Helga.  In a moment, she waved her hand at him.  Soon he could see her face under the white fur border.  Her scarlet lips were curving in a smile.  The snow-glare brought out the dazzling fairness of her pearly skin, and her eyes were like two radiant blue stars.  It seemed to Alwin that he had never known before how beautiful she was.  A strange shyness came over him, that weighted his feet and left him without a word to say when they met.

But Helga greeted him cheerily.  “Did you ever breathe finer air?  I wish Thorhild would run out of gold thread every day in the week.  Are you in a hurry?”

“No,” Alwin began hesitatingly, “I—­”