Then Face-of-god bade his men abide hidden under the bushes and stole forward quietly up the further bank of the hollow, his target on his arm and his spear poised. When he was behind the last bush on the top of the bent he was within half a spear-cast of the water and the man; so he looked on him and saw that he was quite naked except for a clout about his middle. Face-of-god saw at once that he was not one of the Dusky Men; he was a black-haired man, but white-skinned, and of fair stature, though not so tall as the Burgdale folk. He was busied in tickling trouts, and just as Face-of-god came out from the bush into the westering sunlight, he threw up a fish on to the bank, and looked up therewithal, and beheld the weaponed man glittering, and uttered a cry, but fled not when he saw the spear poised for casting. Then Face-of-god spake to him and said: ‘Come hither, Woodsman! we will not harm thee, but we desire speech of thee: and it will not avail thee to flee, since I have bowmen of the best in the hollow yonder.’ The man put forth his hands towards him as if praying him to forbear casting, and looked at him hard, and then came dripping from out the water, and seemed not greatly afeard; for he stooped down and picked up the trouts he had taken, and came towards Face-of-god stringing the last-caught one through the gills on to the withy whereon were the others: and Face-of-god saw that he was a goodly man of some thirty winters. Then Face-of-god looked on him with friendly eyes and said: ‘Art thou a foemen? or wilt thou be helpful to us?’ He answered in the speech of the kindreds with the hoarse voice of a much weather-beaten man: ‘Thou seest, lord, that I am naked and unarmed.’ ‘Yet may’st thou bewray us,’ said Face-of-god. ‘What man art thou?’ Said the man: ‘I am the runaway thrall of evil men; I have fled from Rose-dale and the Dusky Men. Hast thou the heart to hurt me?’ ‘We are the foemen of the Dusky Men,’ said Face-of-God; ‘wilt thou help us against them?’ The man knit his brows and said: ‘Yea, if ye will give me your word not to suffer me to fall into their hands alive. But whence art thou, to be so bold?’ Said Face-of-god: ‘We are of Burgdale; and I will swear to thee on the edge of the sword that thou shalt not fall alive into the hands of the Dusky Men.’ ‘Of Burgdale have I heard,’ said the man; ‘and in sooth thou seemest not such a man as would bewray a hapless man. But now had I best bring you to some lurking-place where ye shall not be easily found of these devils, who now oft-times scour the woods hereabout.’ Said Face-of-god: ‘Come first and see my fellows; and then if thou thinkest we have need to hide, it is well.’ So the man went side by side with him towards their lair, and as they went Gold-mane noted marks of stripes on his back and sides, and said: ‘Sorely hast thou been mishandled, poor man!’