"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 be slain ere his head can be hefted, as we say."

"No hurt to any but the wolf," the man said, smiling a little. "We
did but meet with one who called the pack on us. So I even hung his
head on a tree, that the pack when it came might stay to leap at
it. They were all we had to fear, and maybe that saved us."

"I marvel that you are not even now in the tree, yourself--with the
boy."