t the time, showed a remarkably white face in the blue sky,
and, doubling his fist, hit himself four blows on the bridge of his
nose, or rather on the spot where the bridge of that feature should have
been, but where, as it happened, there was only a hollow in the
frying-pan, with a little blob below it.

"Ha, four months. Very good. It will be a good riddance; for, to say
truth, I'm tired of you and your noisy relations."

Leif said this more as a soliloquy than a remark, for he had no
intention of hurting the feelings of the poor savage, who, he was aware,
could not understand him. Turning again to him, he said--"You know the
kitchen, Flatface?" Flatface said nothing, but rolled his eyes, nodded
violently, and rubbed that region which is chiefly concerned with food.

"Go," said Leif, "tell Anders to give you food--food--food!"

At each mention of the word Flatface retreated a step and nodded. When
Leif stopped he turned about, and with an exclamation of delight,
trundled off to the kitchen like a good-natured polar bear.

For full half an hour after that Leif walked up and down the wharf with
his eyes cast down; evidently he was brooding over something. Presently
Anders came towards him.

Anders was a burly middle-aged Norseman, with a happy-looking
countenance; he was also cook, steward, valet, and general factotum to
Leif.

"Well, Anders, hast had a visit from Flatface?" asked Leif.

"Ay--he is in the kitchen now."

"Hast fed him?"

"Ay, gorged him," replied Anders, with a grin.

"Good," said Leif, laughing; "he goes off to-morrow, it seems, for four
months, which I'm right glad to hear, for we have had him and his
kindred long enough beside us for this time. I am sorry on account of
the Christian teachers, however, because they were making some progress
with the language, and this will throw them back."

Leif here referred to men who had recently been sent to Greenland by
King Olaf Tryggvisson of Norway, with the design of planting
Christianity there, and some of whom appeared to be very anxious to
acquire the language of the natives. Leif himself had kept somewhat
aloof from these teachers of the new faith. He had indeed suffered
himself to be baptized, when on a visit to Norway, in order to please
the King; but he was a very reserved man, and no one knew exactly what
opinions he held in regard to religion. Of course he had been
originally trained in the Odin-worship of his forefathers, but