ith his bold sea-rovers. This was in the year 1000.

For ten years they came riding southward in their rude-planked ships of
the dragon prow, those Norse adventurers; and Thorwald, Leif's brother,
is first of the pathfinders in America to lose his life in battle with
the "Skraelings" or Indians. Thornstein, another brother, sails south in
1005 with Gudrid, his wife; but a roaring nor'easter tears the piping {2}
sails to tatters, and Thornstein dies as his frail craft scuds before the
blast. Back comes Gudrid the very next year, with a new husband and a
new ship and two hundred colonists to found a kingdom in the "Land of the
Vine." At one place they come to rocky islands, where birds flock in
such myriads it is impossible to land without trampling nests. Were
these the rocky islands famous for birds in the St. Lawrence? On another
coast are fields of maize and forests entangled with grapevines. Was
this part of modern New England? On Vinland--wherever it was--Gudrid,
the Norse woman, disembarks her colonists. All goes well for three
years. Fish and fowl are in plenty. Cattle roam knee-deep in pasturage.
Indians trade furs for scarlet cloth and the Norsemen dole out their
barter in strips narrow as a little finger; but all beasts that roam the
wilds are free game to Indian hunters. The cattle begin to disappear,
the Indians to lurk armed along the paths to the water springs. The
woods are full of danger. Any bush may conceal painted foe. Men as well
as cattle lie dead with telltale arrow sticking from a wound. The
Norsemen begin to hate these shadowy, lonely, mournful forests. They
long for wild winds and trackless seas and open world. Fur-clad, what do
they care for the cold? Greenland with its rolling drifts is safer
hunting than this forest world. What glory, doomed prisoners between the
woods and the sea within the shadow of the great forests and a great
fear? The smell of wildwood things, of flower banks, of fern mold, came
dank and unwholesome to these men. Their {3} nostrils were for the whiff
of the sea; and every sunset tipped the waves with fire where they longed
to sail. And the shadow of the fear fell on Gudrid. Ordering the
vessels loaded with timber good for masts and with wealth of furs, she
gathered up her people and led them from the "Land of the Vine" back to
Greenland.

[Illustration: VIKING SHIP RECENTLY DISCOVERED.]

Where was Vinland? Was it Canada? The answer is unknown.