It happened one day that Leif had not gone out with the exploring party, but was by the tents expecting it to come home. When the men returned late in the evening he saw at once that a man was missing, and a man, too, of whom he was very fond. His name was Dirk, and he came from the south—that is, from beyond the Baltic Sea, from some distant part of Germany which no Icelander had seen. Eric Red had found him in his younger days in Bremen and shipped him for a voyage. Dirk had made himself useful, and desired to remain in Iceland. When it became necessary for Eric to leave home, Dirk went with him to Greenland. So it was that Leif had known him since he was a boy, and that there was much love between them. Dirk was as ugly a man as there could well be in the world, short, bandy and mis-shapen, with a small flat face, high forehead, little eyes, no nose to speak of; but yet he was active and clever with his hands and feet. The men told Leif that they had not missed him before the call had gone about to assemble for the return. They had looked all ways for him—but no Dirk. They had called—no answer. There was nothing for it, since it was growing dark, but to go home.

Leif was troubled. "You are good men all," he said, "and yet I will tell you that I would rather have missed any two of you than Dirk. I have known him all my life, and grown up, as you may say, between his knees. It shall go hard with me but I find him before another sunset." With that they took their meal, and turned in for the night, all but Leif. He had Dirk in his mind and no way of thinking of sleep. Instead, he wandered up the shore of the lake in the moonlight, and presently was aware of a whooping sound among the trees, as it might be of a coursing owl. As he listened, it seemed to waver from place to place, now high, now low; and then in the pause he heard something like a chuckling noise; and then last of all a great guffaw. "There is Dirk, as I live," he said to himself, and plunged into the woodland to find him. He had not far to go. Some bowshot within the forest, in a glade, he saw Dirk plainly under the moon, dancing and waving his arms, curtseying to his own shadow.

"Ho, Dirk!" he cried out sharply, and Dirk stopped short and looked about him. Leif watched him.

Dirk stared into the dark, then shook his head. "I made sure somebody called Dirk," he said, and then—"But I don't care," and fell to his dancing and whooping again.

Leif stepped into the moonlight, and Dirk saw him, but without ceasing to caper. "Dancing," he said, and went on.

Leif went to him and clapped him on the shoulder. "Are you drunk, then?"

Dirk nodded. "I am very drunk. That is just what I am."

"Come you with me," said Leif, "and you shall be no more drunk." Then it was that Dirk said, "Let us sit down. I'll tell you where I've been." So they sat down together in the moonlight.

Then Dirk told him that he had outwalked the others and passed out of the forest belt and reached a ridge of low hills. When he came to them he found that they were a tangle of wild vines. "And I know what vines are very well," he stopped to say, "for in my country there is no lack of them." Now these vines, he said, were loaded with grapes, some still ripe, but mostly over-ripe and fallen; and in a hollow of the rocks he had come to a pool of water wherein the grapes had fallen and fermented. "There," said he, "was my wine-vat, and there was I. The rest, master, you know."

"Can you take me to that place to-morrow?" Leif asked him. Dirk said that he could.

"Well," Leif said, "here is our work then. We will collect what we can of your grapes, and load our ship with timber. That will fill up the winter for us; and in the spring we will go home."

And that was the way of it. The timber which they got was fine wood, and fit for building. They stored what grapes they could, and having a good-sized meal-tub on board, they made wine in it. They had samples of self-sown grain, too, and the skins of animals which they had trapped or shot with bows. When the spring came, they loaded their ship and sailed out of the lake into the open sea; but they left on shore the huts which they had made, meaning to return. At parting Leif said: "That country deserves a good name, and shall have one. I call it Wineland the Good."