CHAPTER II: SIGURD ERIKSON.


On the next morning, as the red sun rose above the mist capped hills
of Rathsdale, Olaf was at work among his master's swine, cleaning
out the styes and filling them with new straw. As he worked he
asked himself who the tall man could be who had spoken with him last
night upon the beach, and he began to regret that he had told so
much, believing now that the stranger might be an enemy--perhaps
even a spy of the wicked Queen Gunnhild, who had so often sought to
add to her own security by clearing her path of all who had power
to dispute her rights. Gunnhild was a very wily woman, and it might
well be that she had secretly discovered the abiding place of the
young son of King Triggvi, and that she had sent this man into
Esthonia to entrap him.

"Never again shall I be so free in telling my story to a stranger,"
said Olaf to himself. "Thorgils was wise to counsel me to keep
secret my kinship with Triggvi Olafson. When I am a man, and can
fight my own battles, then it will be time enough to lay claim to
my father's realm; and it may be that if I remain in thraldom till
that time no one will guess who I am. As a thrall, then, I must
work, even though that work be no better than the cleaning of my
master's stables and pig styes--Get back, you greedy grunter!"

This last command was addressed to a great bristly boar that brushed
past the boy and made its way to the bed of new straw. Olaf caught
the animal by its hind leg and struggled with it for a moment,
until the boar was thrown heavily on its side, squealing and kicking
furiously. Then three of the other pigs rushed forward, and one