it high, and driving the point hard into the ground, dropped on
one knee behind it. As he stooped a third arrow sang close above
his head and sped into the gloaming. Leaning to one side he fired
again, and an instant later a fourth shaft rang on his shield.
Then came a brief pause in the hostilities, and, looking round the
edge of his fort, Estein could see his foe standing motionless
close under a tree. He soon tired of waiting, however, and
presently an arrow, aimed evidently at what he could see of
Estein's legs, passed within six inches of one knee and buried
itself in the snow beside him.

"He shoots too well," muttered Estein. "If this goes on I must try
a desperate ruse. I shall have one other shot."

He rose almost to his full height, fired his arrow, and quickly
stooped again. His enemy was evidently on the watch for such an
opening, for the two bowstrings twanged together, and while
Estein's shaft struck something with a soft thud, the other hit
the Viking hard on the headpiece.

Throwing up his arms, he reeled and fell flat upon his back. Yet,
as he lay for all the world like a man struck dead, a smile stole
over his face, and he quietly and gently drew his sword.

"Can my shaft have gone home?" he wondered. Apparently not, for
his foeman left the shelter of the wood, and he could see him walk
slowly across the open. He was clad in a loose and almost
grotesquely ill-fitting garment, seemingly of sheep-skin, and held
an arrow on his bow ready to shoot on a sign of movement. When he
had come within ten or fifteen yards, he suddenly dropped his bow,