So we sat down upon the grass, the pleasant sun shining upon us, and I told her all I thought best of our people and of our way of living. She made no comment for a little time and then said, thoughtfully: “I think it is better than ours.” As I sat there looking at her it came to me that there was none like her in my own clan, none so stately and brave, as she had shown herself, and, assuredly, none so good to look upon. There were yellow-haired women there, but none with such deeply yellow masses of it; there were women of excellent form, but none so finely straight and slender, yet full-bosomed and rounded of leg and arm. I could not keep my eyes from her. I wanted her. We sat there talking long. She had come into the forest seeking the berries which grew in the thickets and so had found me. I told her of my name, Scar, and she in turn told me that her name was Freya, that she was the daughter of the leader, Horsen, and that the encampment was to continue for five days, when the march southward would be taken up again. And more we said. It was wonderful, my great good fortune, but we became friends as those the Something which I do not understand may sometimes make us. She promised that she would not betray my nearness and that she would come to the little glade again at the same time on the morrow. And the story of what followed in the next three days it seems to me must have been a very old one, for I had seen what was somewhat like it among the lovers of my own clan. We, Freya and I, came to know our hearts and what was within us very well. We knew that if we were apart it would not be as good as if we were together always. She was faithfully daring. On the fourth evening she came to me in her jacket and short skirt of wolf skin, with her necklace and armlets of bright beads, and carrying her cloak of fur and her bow and quiver of arrows. She could use the bow, she said. We fled together into the forest, and it was when we were perhaps a league from the camp that our first misfortune came. We saw at not a great distance from us one of the clan returning from the hunt, and he discovered us as well. He seemed to pay little attention, though, perhaps thinking me one of his own band, but we knew that when Freya was missed it would be known that her companion was a stranger, and that there would be swift and fierce pursuit. It could not be known yet where we were going, and the trackers must move slowly. All night we hurried at our utmost speed without the risk of exhaustion and then hid in the depths of a great swamp. We were safe enough for a time, and a full day, we judged, ahead of the certain pursuit. Old Horsen was not one likely to lose a daughter tamely. Yet there came no alarm and, travelling at our best all night and in the day as well, we reached my village in the afternoon. I had been more than doubtful of the manner of my reception when I told of all which had happened, for I had done what might