CHAPTER VII 



FOOTING IT ACROSS THE CAPE 



The Pilgrims might have been envied their dis- 

 covery of Cape Cod if they had come in the 

 spring of the year. As it was, though they 

 hailed it with joy, it being land anyway, yet they 

 must have found it inexpressibly lonesome and 

 spooky. To the newcomer it is apt to be a 

 ghostly sort of place at any time of year, unless 

 mayhap he be from some similar strand, for its 

 rolling sand hills are swept by winds that wail, 

 and beaten by a sea that grumbles when it does 

 not cry aloud. At the time of year when Stand- 

 ish and his men patrolled its beaches, it is no 

 wonder they saw savages behind every liliputian 

 pitch pine and heard them shouting in the wind 

 and sea. So far as the records go the Icelanders 

 came first of all and Thorfinn Karlsefne, who set 

 sail about looo a. d., called the place "Furdur- 

 standir," or wonderstrands, perhaps because of 

 the immense stretches of sea beach along the out- 

 side, but quite as likely on account of the mirage 



