"You boys have all heard of the daring rovers who set out centuries
ago in their ships to explore unknown oceans?"

The boys nodded.

"You mean the Vikings?" asked Frank.

"Yes," replied the captain. "Well, some time ago a member of one of
our great scientific bodies, while traveling in Sweden, discovered in
a remote village an odd legend concerning some sailors who claimed to
have seen an old Viking ship frozen in the ice near the Great Barrier.
They were poor and superstitious whalemen and did not dare to disturb
it, but they brought home the story."

"And you think the ship is still there," broke in Harry.

"If they really saw such a thing there is every reason to suppose that
it is," rejoined the lieutenant. "In the ice anything might be
preserved almost indefinitely. Providing the yarn of the whalemen is
true, we now come to the most interesting part of the story. The
scientist, who has a large acquaintance among librarians and
custodians of old manuscripts in European libraries, happened to
mention one night to a friend what he had heard in the little
Norwegian fishing village. His friend instantly surprised him by
declaring that he had an idea what the ship was.

"To make a long story short, he told him that years before, while
examining some manuscripts in Stockholm, he had read an account of a
Viking ship that in company with another had sailed for what must have