“As to you? Well, I said ye were a warlock, and it’s proved true. Another eight leagues, and we’ll land to cut across Cape Churchill. No use rounding that shore when we can save time and food by legging it. As for you, we’re square. I’ve paid ye tit for tat.” “Granted,” said Crawford. “You’ve not seen my ship or men?” “Nay. Will ye come with us?” Crawford smoked out his scanty allotment of tobacco. “Agreed,” he said, wondering whether he would find Frontin at the Danish river. If Frontin had read that scrap of blood-stained paper, had brought the _Northstar_ to the place--then what? If there were no south sea passage, what lay in the future? Was the horizon empty? Crawford put his hand inside his shirt and pulled forth the Star of Dreams, still safe on its thong. The other men blinked at the green jewel in the firelight. “Agreed,” repeated Crawford. “I’m with you, Cap’n Deakin. We’ll see what haps at the Danish river.” “Ay,” growled Deakin, and rose. “All hands! Let’s get off while the wind holds.” CHAPTER IV PREDICTIONS AND EVENTS ARE SOMETIMES RECONCILED In the twilight of another summer’s night, with the barely sunken sun again rising, Moses Deakin and Crawford and three men of Boston town, once enemies but now strangely friends and allies against disaster, came upon the river which white men called the Danish, striking it two miles above the magnificent harbour. The five men, crossing overland from the other side of Cape Churchill, had met not a soul on their trail through the woods, and for this there was good reason. In ancient days the tribes had found a great ship floating here, full of dead white men and wonderful things, and they gathered around by scores to thaw out frozen boxes and barrels; but certain of the kegs held powder. So ship and dead men and redskins went thundering up in ruin, and now the Indians called this the River of Strangers, and shunned the bay in legendary fear and horror. There in the landlocked harbour under Point Eskimo, stout Jens Munck had watched his Danish colonists die, had gone four days without food, knew himself dying of scurvy, and so sat down to pen the last line in his log-book. And what a trumpet call of the spirit he wrote there! “Herewith, good night to all the world; and my soul to God.” Yet he lived, and lived to work one ship back to Norway, two staggering men helping him. The Danish river had known heroes in those days, ay, and was to know heroes often enough in days to come!