"No! There's something I don't like one bit about it! I liked the Massachusetts Cape Cod beach at home; but that was different. I'd hate to have to live very long anywhere near here! Romantic isn't the right word, Valdemar. It's a lonely, wild, and forsaken spot, with nothing at all 'romantic' about it in my eyes. To me it feels like the 'jumping off place,' all right. And I've heard, too, Valdemar, that when a great storm is blowing, and the waves are rolling mountain high, that there are just terrible shipwrecks up here at this dangerous point! Down at the Skagen Hotel, the figureheads and name-boards, that they have collected from ships of all nations, tell the tale, Valdemar." "That's true. There was the wreck of the _Daphne_, with the lives of eight of the brave life-saving crew lost. Sometimes there are twenty shipwrecks a year. But, Karl, this is the sea that made Vikings! Over these same seas, where our smoky steamers now pass, once danced _Long Ship_, _Serpent_ and _Dragon_, with their gilded dragon-beaks gleaming in the sunlight! Can't you see them, Karl? I can! Uncle Thor has often told me the wonderful Viking tales. And I've read about their marvellous courage and daring. The Eddas and Sagas of the Vikings are rich in lore of those fiery-hearted warriors, who sailed over the stormy seas in their fleets of light ash-wood ships, conquering far and wide, and meeting death light-heartedly! They say some great Viking chief is buried near here. Their cairns and barrows by thousands cover Denmark to-day." "Oh, I've read about them at home," answered Karl, who loved courage and bravery as much as did any healthy American boy, but who loved also to tease. "They were just a race of bold sea-robbers, and pirates, always 'hatching their felonious little plans,' always ready to burn and kill; and, according to history, some of the deaths they dealt out to their enemies were truly 'Vikingish.'" "And yet, Karl, the ancient Sagas and chronicles tell that it was our brave Vikings who first of all discovered your North America, and founded a colony they called Vineland, near where your great Harvard College is to-day. The Sagas say that, five hundred years before Columbus lived, Viking Biarne sailed to America with his ship _Eyrar_, and that, later, Lief, a son of Eric the Red, went over to America, too." "Yes, I know. I've read Longfellow's poem, 'The Skeleton in Armor,' and I've seen the 'Old Mill' at Newport, which was long believed to be a Viking relic," said Karl. "But we know differently now. Nothing has been really proved." The sun was sinking in the west as the two tired, but happy boys reached the outskirts of the straggling little village of Skagen, and trudged down the sandy road which led in and out among the fishermen's huts, with their tarred or heavily thatched roofs, and color-washed walls--some of them even built from wreckage.