The offence moved his anger; then he asked his father for a horse, a dog, and such armour as could be got, and cursed his youth, which was suffering the right season for valour to slip sluggishly away.
He got what he asked, and explored the aforesaid wood very narrowly.

He saw the footsteps of a man printed deep on the snow; for the rime was blemished by the steps, and betrayed the robber's progress.

Thus guided, he went over a hill, and came on a very great river.

This effaced the human tracks he had seen before, and he determined that he must cross.
But the mere mass of water, whose waves ran down in a headlong torrent, seemed to forbid all crossing; for it was full of hidden reefs, and the whole length of its channel was turbid with a kind of whirl of foam.
Yet all fear of danger was banished from Ole's mind by his impatience to make haste.

So valour conquered fear, and rashness scorned peril; thinking nothing hard to do if it were only to his mind, he crossed the hissing eddies on horseback.