Jomar had returned early in the day, and they found him already wrapped up in his bear-skin fast asleep before the fire.
"Gave he my warning to Ketill?" Estein asked Atli.
"Assuredly," replied the old man; "I have never known him fail me, little though he may have liked the errand."
"And what said Ketill? Had they been attacked? What news brought
Jomar back?"
"Let us wake the knave, and ask him," said Helgi; and suiting the action to the word, he drove one foot sufficiently hard into the sleeper's side to rouse him with a start.
"What said friend Ketill?" Helgi went on, careless of the man's ugly look; "sent he back any message?"
Jomar answered with a dark scowl, regarding him steadily for a minute as if to make sure who he was, and then he snapped back shortly,—
"He said he had lost a dog that answered to the name of Helgi, and would be well pleased if the beast had died of the mange in the wood," and without another word he rolled over and closed his eyes again.
"'Dog!'" cried Helgi. "Hound, I will beat one dog as it deserves!"
In another instant the Jemtlander would have suffered for his temerity, had not Atli seized the angry Norseman's arm, exclaiming,—