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stared at Galta. “Would you like to throw fire at others, while you flew over them?”
    “Why would I want to do that?” Galta asked.
    “I wish I could tell you,” Daniel said. He stood up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Let’s begin.”
    The log rollers were placed under the hull and ropes tied to it; then, with hours of effort, the doorway was cleared of the piled snow. It was evident that the boats had once been launched in the same way, into the river; but now the water was a sheet of solid ice at the foot of the launching way.
    But, as the sun rose, the black hull was moving slowly down toward the ice river. As it moved, drawn by Daniel and Banar, Galta and Ammi seized rollers and ran with them, ahead of the moving bulk. On the ice, it moved more rapidly; but there was an ominous creaking as the weight pressed the ice.
    Ahead, the open water glimmered, and beyond it, the sea. Now, the ice underfoot crackled; a terrifying sound came, like a gun shot, and a great crack opened ahead.
    “Wait!” Daniel cried out. The hull stopped; walking carefully, the four gathered at the boat’s prow.
    “Ammi, climb in; the rest of us will shove hard,” Daniel said. “If it goes as far as the water, and floats, turn it toward that ice edge, there, where we can climb in too. All right, now!”
    As the girl clambered into the boat, the others put their shoulders to the hull, and thrust. The black hull slid forward, gathering speed; the ice creaked explosively under it. With a great splash the boat met the water, and went on out into the flood.
    But Ammi had gotten an oar over and was thrusting at it; the boat swung around and moved slowly toward the ice again. The men ran, grasping at the thwarts as the ice buckled under them; and then they were all in, tumbling on the deck and laughing.
    The sail was thawed, now; the fire had done that the night before. They spread it out, Banar and Galta marveling at the material. It was a simple sort of sail, a triangular affair such as Daniel had seen on Arab dhows; they got it up without too much trouble.
    The oars, however, would be more useful just now. Galta and Daniel took one each, while Ammi roped a third aft, to act as a rudder. Banar grasped a line of the sail and braced himself against a thwart as the boat rolled in the deepening swells. The sea was visible now where the ice-choked river poured out; the white teeth of the ocean glittered in the low sun.
    I’m an idiot, Daniel thought; taking this thing out into that, a boat I’ve never handled. And a boat that’s lain in an icebox for nobody knows how long. But, as the sea wind came, he felt a crazy joy, and hauled harder on the long oar. The boat moved swiftly now, riding up over the combers and out.
    “It will leak!” Banar shouted from where he stood braced.
    “Let it!” Daniel bellowed over the increasing sound of the wind. “Bring the sail round! The wind will help now!”
    The boat heeled and Daniel hauled his oar in; Galta followed suit. There was a growing flash of white foam under the prow as the wind took the triangle sail, and a vast snarling and groaning as lines stretched taut.
    The jagged white line of cliffs lay uncomfortably close along the boat’s course, but Daniel did not know what the entrance to Alvanir’s bay might look like, and he did not wish to miss it.
    There was a heavy, long swell, but the black-hulled boat took the waves like a floating sea bird; the wind was exactly right, too. Daniel grinned exultantly, gripping the steering oar beside Ammi; the girl’s hair flew wildly in the wind, like a banner, as she laughed back at him.
     
    It had taken them nearly a full day to walk the distance, but the sun was still high when the boat sailed through the gap in the cliffs and into the smoother water of the bay. Ahead, through the mists, the higher roofs of the town showed. And just ahead, anchored, Gannat’s smaller boat rocked; one of his sons peered, wide-eyed with amazement,