"We did but meet with one who called the pack on us.

So I even hung his head on a tree, that the pack when it came might stay to leap at it.

They were all we had to fear, and maybe that saved us." "I marvel that you are not even now in the tree, yourself--with the boy." "Nay, but the frost is cruel, and he would have been sorely feared with the leaping and howls of the beasts.

There were always trees at hand as we fled, if needs were to take to them.

It was in my mind that it were best to try to get him home, or near it." Then said my father, gripping the hand that met his: "There is more that I would say, but I cannot set thoughts into words well.