He hurried on, yet slowly, by reason of the tangled paths and dense underwood of the forest, listening to the angry tumult behind and wondering how long before the hue and cry began once more. It was not long. Scarcely had he forced his way a half-mile when he could hear the pack following. Onward they came at a rush with hideous tumult, and Sigurd knew that the foremost would be upon him in a moment. He strode on, casting a glance back at every step, and gripping fast his trusty axe. Presently, just as he reached a small clearing among the trees, the brushwood behind him crackled, and a pair of eyes gleamed close at hand. Then Sigurd turned, and putting his back against a broad tree, waited. On they came, half sated, doubly savage with the taste of blood on their jaws. Desperately once more fought Sigurd, swinging his axe right and left and dealing death at every blow, till he stood surrounded by a half-circle of dead or dying wolves. Sigurd fought till he could scarce stand or wield his axe. Many a cruel wound weakened him, his eyes grew dim, his hand unsteady, his blows uncertain. He could do no more. The axe fell from his grasp, and he reeled back. As he did so there rose, loud above the wind and above the howling of the wolves, a cry which caused Sigurd to start once more to his feet, and the wild beasts to pause midway in their mortal onslaught. It was the deep-mouthed voice of a dog, and next moment a huge mastiff dashed from out of the thicket and fastened on the throat of the foremost wolf. It was Sigurd's own watch-dog Thor, whom some dear hand had loosed from his chain and sent forth into the forest to guard and maybe save his master. At the sight of the great champion, and at sound of his bark, the cowardly wolves one by one slunk sullenly back into the woods, and Sigurd felt that he was saved. A joyous meeting was that between gallant master and gallant hound. "Thor, my brave dog," cried Sigurd, "is it to thee, then, I owe my life--my brother's life? Yet not to thee so much as to the fair lady who sent thee, a messenger of love and life to me. Thanks, Thor, thanks lady, thank most to God. Now shall I reach Niflheim even yet." Thor wagged his great tail and barked joyfully in answer. All that night Sigurd lay secure, watched over by the sleepless Thor, whose honest bark was the sweetest music that ever lulled a hero to repose. For two days Sigurd trudged safely onward through that dense forest, with Thor, the dog, beside him. The way was hard and painful, and the hero's limbs, now his only support, crashed wearily through the thickets. But, faint and weary though he was, his bold heart and the thought of his brother carried him through. Four days had come and gone since he quitted the Tower of the North-West Wind, and in three more Ulf would either be saved or slain. Sigurd, as he thought of it, strode sternly forward and shut his ears to all the backward voices.