your good wife's wearing. What say you?"

"It is a bargain!" said Reas, eagerly grasping the ring that Sigurd
took from his belt pouch; "and you may take the lad at once."

Olaf drew back to the far corner of the pig sty. There was a frown
on his brow, and his blue eyes flashed in quick anger.

"I will not go!" he said firmly, and he made a rapid movement to
leap over the barrier; but he forgot the wound in his arm, and the
pain of it made him so awkward that Reas caught him by his wrists
and held him there until Sigurd, springing from his horse, came and
put an iron chain round the lad's neck. Then the two men forcibly
drew him to the gate of the pig sty. So, when Reas had opened the
gate, Sigurd, who was a very powerful man, caught Olaf in his arms
and carried him to the horse's side, and, holding the end of the
chain, mounted. Olaf struggled a little to free himself, but finding
the chain secure about his neck, resolved to await a better chance
of escape. Then Sigurd gave Reas the two silver marks in payment
of his purchase, and urged his horse to a quick walk, dragging Olaf
behind him.

Very soon Reas and his straggling farmstead were hidden from sight
behind a clump of tall pine trees. Then Sigurd halted at the side
of a little stream.

"You have done well," he said to Olaf, "in thus coming away with
seeming unwillingness. But do not suppose that I value you so
lightly as did your late master, who thinks, foolish man, that you
are no better than many another bond slave whom he might buy in