The little striped creature advanced a few steps, whisked his tail, retreated, then advanced again. The statuesque attitude of the child was remarkable. “Like a bronze statue,” Florence told herself.
The fingers that held the nut did not tremble. One would have said that the child did not so much as wink an eye.
For a space of ten minutes that bit of a play continued. The thing was remarkable in a child so young.
“Not a day over seven,” Florence told herself, as she studied the child’s every feature and the last touch of her unusual attire.
At last patience won. The chipmunk sprang forward to grasp the nut, then went flying away.
Did Florence utter an unconscious, but quite audible sigh? It would seem so. For suddenly, after one startled upward glance, the child, too, disappeared.
All uninvited, a startling conviction pressed itself upon Florence’s senses. The child was a gypsy.
There could be no questioning this. Her face might have been that of an Indian; her attire, never. Florence had seen too much of these strange people to make any mistake.
“Not alone that,” she told herself, as she once more took up the trail. “Her people have but recently come from Europe. There is not a trace of America in her costume.
“Perhaps—” She paused to ponder. “We are near the Canadian border. Perhaps they have entered without permission and are here in hiding.”
This thought was disturbing. The tribe of gypsies with which Petite Jeanne had traveled so long had many enemies. She had come to know this well enough when the terrible Panna had kidnapped Jeanne and all but brought her to her death. Panna was dead, but her numerous tribesmen were ready enough to inherit and pass on her dark secrets and black hatreds.
“If Petite Jeanne knew there were gypsies in this forest she would be greatly disturbed,” Florence said to herself with a sigh.
“After all, what’s the good of telling her?” was her conclusion of the matter. “Gypsies are ever on the move. We will see nothing more of them.” In this she was wrong.
She did not tell Jeanne. Together they reveled in a feast of blueberry muffins, wild honey and caramel buns.
After Jeanne had gone through her wild dance once more, they trudged back to camp through the sweet-smelling forest while the sunset turned the woodland trail to a path of gleaming gold.
That evening Florence received a shock. The night before they had, through no purpose of their own, been thrown for an hour or two into the company of the young recluse who lived in a windowless cabin on a shadowy island. Since this person very evidently wished to be alone, Florence had not expected to see her again. Imagine her surprise, therefore, when, on stepping to the cabin door for a good-night salute to the stars, she found the lady standing there, motionless and somber as any nocturnal shadow, on their own little dock.
“I—I beg your pardon,” the mysterious one spoke. “So this is where you live? How very nice!
“But I didn’t come to make a call. I came for a favor,” she hastened to assure the astonished Florence.
“You were very kind to us last night.” Florence tried to conceal her astonishment. “We will do what we can.”
“It is but a little thing. I wish to visit an island across the bay. It is not far. Half an hour’s row. I do not wish to go alone. Will you be so kind as to accompany me?”
“What a strange request!” Florence thought. “One would suppose that she feared something. And there is nothing to fear. The island channels are safe and the bay is calm.”
“I’d be delighted to go,” she said simply.
This did not express the exact truth. There was that about the simple request that frightened her. What made it worse, she had seen, as in a flash of thought, the two pistols hanging over the strange one’s bed.
“Very well,” said the mystery lady. “Get your coat. We will go at once.”
Since Florence knew that Petite Jeanne was not afraid to be alone as long as her bear was with her, she hurried to the cabin, told Jeanne of her intentions, drew on a warm sweater, and accompanied the strange visitor to her boat.
Without a word, the lady of the island pushed her slight craft off, then taking up her oars, headed toward the far side of the bay.
“What island?” Florence asked herself.
There were four islands; three small, one large. The nearest small one was not inhabited. She and Jeanne had gone there once to enjoy their evening meal. There was a camping place in a narrow clearing at the center. The remainder of the island was heavily forested with birch and cedar.
On another small island was a single summer cottage, a rather large and pretentious affair with a dock and boathouse.
The large one, stretching away for miles in either direction, was dotted with summer homes.
The course of their boat soon suggested to her that they were to visit the small island that held the summer cottage. Yet, even as she reached this conclusion, she was given reasons for doubting it. Their course altered slightly. They were now headed for the end where the growth of cedar and birch reached to the water’s edge and where there was no sign of life. The cottage was many hundred feet from this spot.
“When one visits a place by water at night, one goes to the dock,” she told herself. “Where can we be going now?”
A rocky shoal extended for some little distance out from the point of the island. The light craft skirted this, then turned abruptly toward shore. A moment later it came to rest on a narrow, sandy beach.
“If you will please remain here for a very few moments,” said the lady of the island, “I shall be very grateful to you. Probably nothing will happen. Still, one never can tell. Should you catch a sound of commotion, or perhaps a scream, row away as speedily as possible and notify Deputy Sheriff Osterman at Rainy Creek at once. If I fail to return within the next half hour, do the same.”
“Why—er—”
Florence’s answer died on her lips. The mysterious one was gone.
“Who is she? Why are we here? What does she wish to know?” These and a hundred other haunting questions sped through the girl’s mind as she stood there alone in the dark, waiting, alert, expectant, on tiptoe, listening to the tantalizing lap-lap of water on the sandy shore.
A moment passed into eternity, another, and yet another. From somewhere far out over the dim-lit waters there came the haunting, long drawn hoot of a freighter’s foghorn.
Something stirred in the bush. She jumped; then chided herself for her needless fear.
“Some chipmunk, or a prowling porcupine,” she told herself.
A full quarter of an hour had passed. Her nerves were all but at the breaking point, when of a sudden, without a sound, the lady of the island stood beside her.
“O. K.,” she said in a low tone. “Let’s go.”
They were some distance from the island when at last the lady spoke again.
“That,” she said in a very matter-of-fact tone, “is Gamblers’ Island. And I am a lady cop from Chicago.”
“A—a lady cop!” Florence stared at her as if she had never seen her before.
“A lady policeman,” the other replied quietly. “In other words, a detective. Women now take part in nearly every field of endeavor. Why not in this? They should. Men have found that there are certain branches of the detective service that naturally belong to women. We are answering the challenge.
“But listen!” She held up a hand for silence.
To their waiting ears came the sound of a haunting refrain. The sound came, not from the island they had just left, but from the other, the supposedly uninhabited one.
“They say—” into the lady’s voice there crept a whimsical note, “that this island was once owned by a miser. He disappeared years ago. His cabin burned long since. Perhaps he has returned from another world to thrum a harp, or it may be only a banjo. We must have a look!”
She turned the prow of her boat that way and rowed with strength and purpose in the direction from which the sound came.
As they neared the tiny island, the sound of banjo and singing grew louder. From time to time the music was punctuated by shouts and clapping of hands.
“Someone playing gypsy under the gypsy moon,” said the lady of the island, glancing at the golden orb that hung like a giant Chinese lantern in the sky.
Florence made no reply. She recalled the dark-skinned child she had surprised on the trail, but kept her thoughts to herself.
“There’s a tiny beach half way round to the left,” she suggested. “We were here not long ago.”
The boat swerved. Once more they moved on in silence.
To Florence there was something startling about this night’s happenings.
“Gamblers’ Island; a lady cop,” she whispered. “And now this.”
Once more their boat grounded silently. This time, instead of finding herself left behind, the girl felt a pull at her arm and saw a hand in the moonlight beckon her on.
From the spot where they had landed, a half trail, strewn with brush and overhung with bushes, led to the little clearing at the center of the island.
Florence and Jeanne had found this trail difficult in broad daylight. Yet her guide, with a sense of direction quite uncanny, led the way through the dark without a single audible swish of brush or crack of twig until, with breath coming quick and fast, Florence parted the branches of a low growing fir tree and found herself looking upon a scene of wild, bewitching beauty.
Round a glowing campfire were grouped a dozen people.
“Gypsies,” she told herself. “All French gypsies!” Her heart sank. Here was bad news indeed.
Or was it bad? “Perhaps,” she said to herself, “they are Jeanne’s friends.”
Whether the scene boded good or ill, it enthralled her. Two beautiful gypsies, garbed in scant attire, but waving colorful shawls about them as they whirled, were dancing before the fire. Two banjos and a mandolin kept time to the wild beating of their nimble feet.
Old men, women, and children hovered in the shadows. Florence had no difficulty in locating the child of the trail who had played with the chipmunk. She was now fast asleep in her mother’s arms.
Florence’s reaction to all this was definite, immediate. She disliked the immodest young dancers and the musicians. The children and the older ones appealed to her.
“They have hard faces, those dancers,” she told herself. “They would stop at nothing.”
Of a sudden a mad notion seized her. These were water gypsies who had deserted the caravan for a speed boat. They had seen Jeanne, had recognized her, and it had been their speed boat that had overturned the rowboat.
“But that,” she told herself instantly, “is impossible. Such a speed boat costs two or three thousand dollars. How can a band of gypsies hope to own one?”
Nevertheless, when her strange companion, after once more pulling at her arm, had led her back to the beach, she found the notion in full possession of her mind.
Florence offered to row back to the mainland but as if by mistake she rowed the long way round the island. This gave her a view of the entire shore.
“No speed boat, nor any other motor craft on those shores,” she assured herself after a quarter of an hour of anxious scanning. “Wonder how they travel, anyway.”
Thereupon she headed for the distant shore which was, for the time being, their home.
Once again her mind was troubled. Should she tell Petite Jeanne of this, her latest discovery, or should she remain silent?
Next day Florence made a new friend. Petite Jeanne wished to spend the morning, which was damp and a trifle chilly, among the cushions before the fire. Florence went for a ramble in the forest.
She took a path she had not followed before. These strange trails fascinated her. Some of them, she had been told, led on and on and on into vast, trackless slashings where one might be lost for days, and perhaps never return.
She had no notion of getting herself lost. By watching every fork in the trail, and noting the direction she had taken, she made sure of finding her way back.
She had been following this trail for half an hour when of a sudden a voice shattered the silence of the forest.
“Now, Turkey, do be careful!” It was a girl’s light pitched voice. “We’ve got to get them. You know we have.”
“But what if they ain’t here?” grumbled a boy’s voice.
“What can they be after?” Florence asked herself. “And who can they be, way back here in the forest where no one lives?”
She hesitated for a moment. Then, deciding to investigate, she pushed on.
She was not long in discovering that she had been mistaken on one count. She was not in the heart of the forest. The trees thinned. She found herself on the edge of a bay where bullrushes were thick. She had crossed a point of land and had come to water again.
Near the beach, in shallow water, a boy of twelve and a girl of sixteen were struggling with a minnow net.
The net was long and hard to handle. Weeds in the water hampered their progress. They had not seen Florence. The girl labored with the determined look of one who must not pause until her task is completed.
The boy was a plain towhead. There are a thousand such on the shores of the Upper Peninsula. The girl caught Florence’s attention. She was plump, well formed, muscular. Her body was as brown as an Indian’s. She possessed a wealth of golden red hair. A single garment covered her, a bathing suit which had once been green, but was now nearly white.
“Natives,” thought Florence. “But what are they after?”
Just then the girl looked up. She took Florence in from head to toe at a glance.
“Hello.” Her tone was frank, friendly.
“Hello,” Florence came back. “What’s your name?”
“Tillie—Tillie McFadden.” The girl flashed her charming Irish smile.
“Tillie!” exclaimed Florence. “Sun-Tan Tillie!”
The smile faded for a second, then returned. “Oh! You mean I’m brown. I’ve always been that way.”
“I know girls who’d give their best dresses for your color. They buy it in boxes, and put it on with a brush, in Chicago.”
The girl laughed. Then she looked at the net and frowned. “Now we lost ’em! Turkey, we’ve got to get ’em. There’s ten autos on the way.”
“What are you catching?” asked Florence.
“Minnies.”
“Oh, minnows? Not many here, are there?”
“No. That’s the trouble. Been trying for more than an hour. Pop, he runs a tourist camp. Turkey and I catch the bait. It’s tough sometimes.”
“Over across the point,” Florence replied quickly, “there are millions. I saw them half an hour ago. Water’s black with them.”
“Morton’s Bay.” Tillie’s face lighted. “Turkey, we got to go there. It’s quite a row, but that’s the only place.”
“Why don’t you bring the net across the point?” Florence asked. “Let your brother take the boat around. I’ll slip on my bathing suit and help you.”
“Would you?” Tillie smiled gratefully.
“I’d love to. Must be a lot of fun. All those minnows tickling your toes.”
“Might be fun for some,” said Tillie doubtfully.
“Turkey,” she commanded, “you bring the boat around.”
“Why do you call him Turkey?” Florence asked when they were in the forest.
“Turkey Trot. That’s his nickname. Boys called him that because they said he ran like a turkey. He don’t mind. Up here everybody’s got a nickname.”
They said no more, but marched straight on over the woodland trail. Tillie was strong and fast. There was no questioning that. She was in a hurry, too. She led the way, and the city girl experienced difficulty in holding the pace.
She had dropped a little behind. Tillie was around a curve and out of sight, when of a sudden she heard a piercing scream. The next moment she beheld Tillie nimbly climbing a tree.
The cause was not far to seek. Despite her efforts at self control, she burst out laughing. Down the path came a big brown bear. The bear wore a leather collar set with mother-of-pearl.
When she could stop laughing she screamed to Tillie: “You don’t have to be afraid of him. He’s our pet bear, Tico.”
But what was this? Tico, if Tico it be, marched straight at her. He showed all his teeth in an ugly snarl. Florence promptly followed Tillie up the tree. From this point of vantage she was able to make a more careful study of the bear and to discover that he was not Tico after all. He was not as large as Tico. His collar, though somewhat like Tico’s, was utterly different in design.
“The final laugh is on me,” she said, almost gayly.
“No,” replied Tillie. “It’s on me. There’s a tourist party of ten autos coming to our camp. They’ll be there in two hours. They’ve got to have bait. You can’t catch minnies in a tree.”
This, Florence admitted, was true. However, the bear did not keep them prisoners long. For, after all, he was someone’s tame bear and had eaten his breakfast. After sniffing at Tillie’s net and enjoying its fishy smell, he ambled off, leaving them to continue their journey, which they did at redoubled speed.
As they hurried down the trail, one thought occupied Florence’s mind. “That bear,” she told herself, “belongs to those gypsies. And he’s nearer our camp right now than the gypsies have been.” She was thinking once more of Petite Jeanne.
Arrived at the cabin, Florence hurried into her bathing suit. All the time she was changing she was thinking: “I only hope those minnows are still there. Tillie promises to become an interesting friend. I do not wish to lose her by a false move now.”
She need not have feared. The minnows were there still, flashing in the sunlight.
As Florence appeared with two large buckets, Tillie cried out in great delight. “We’ll get enough for two days! Put the buckets on the beach. And please hurry!”
Florence followed her instructions, then seizing one end of the net, plunged after Tillie into the water.
“Like to fish?” Tillie asked, as she executed a deft curve with the net.
“Yes. Do you?”
“I love it!” Tillie’s tone was full of meaning. “But there’s so little time. There are boats to bail out, camping places to clean up, lines to mend, minnies to catch, and a lot more things. We’re never through. Honest, I haven’t had this suit off, except at night, for days.”
Florence envied her. She adored the very tasks this girl had come to hate.
“There now!” exclaimed Tillie. “We’ve got ’em. Just swing your end in; then up with it.”
The brown mesh of the net was all ashimmer with tiny, flapping fishes.
“Seems a shame,” said Florence, as she helped scoop the minnows into one of the waiting buckets. “So many tiny lives snuffed out just for fun.”
“They wouldn’t ever get much bigger,” said Tillie philosophically. “Pop says they’re just naturally little fellows like some of the rest of us.”
She set the bucket down. “We’ll leave this one right here. We’ll take the other one down a piece. We’ll get one more haul. That’ll be enough. Then Turkey’ll be here.”
Once more they dragged the net over the sandy shallows, circled, closed in, then lifted a multitude of little fishes from the water.
The last wriggling minnow had gone flapping into the bucket, when suddenly Tillie straightened up with first a puzzled, then an angry look on her face.
Seizing a heavy driftwood pole that lay upon the beach, she dashed away over the sand.
To her horror, Florence saw that the strange bear, who had undoubtedly followed them, had just thrust his head into their other bucket of minnows.
“Bears like fish,” she thought. “Tillie will be killed!
“Tillie! Tillie!” she screamed. “Don’t! Don’t!”
She may as well have shouted at the wind. Tillie’s stout arms brought the club down twice on the bear’s head. Thwack! Thwack!
With a loud grunt, the bear turned about and vanished into the brush.
At the same instant Petite Jeanne appeared at the door. She had heard Florence scream.
“What happened?” she asked.
“A—a—something tried to steal our minnows,” Florence stammered. “I—I think it was a dog. Tillie, here, hit him.
“Oh! Tillie, meet my buddy, Petite Jeanne. She’s from France; an actress.”
“An actress!” Tillie stared at Jeanne as she might have looked at an angel. “I’ve heard of them,” she said simply.
“I thought,” Florence said in a low tone to Tillie, “that you were afraid of that bear.”
“Afraid—” Tillie scratched her head. “Yes, I am. But when I get good and mad, as Pop says, I’m not afraid of nobody nor nothin’.”
At that moment there came a loud whoop from the water. It was Turkey Trot.
“Got any?” he shouted.
“Plenty,” Tillie shrilled back.
The boat swung in. Tillie, with a bucket in each hand, waded out to it. The precious cargo was stowed safely aboard; then seizing the oars, with a good-bye and thank you, Tillie rowed rapidly away.
“She’s a dear!” exclaimed Florence. “We’re going to like her a lot.
“Think of living in a bathing suit, not as a pose, but as a mere matter of business!” she said to herself some time later. “What a life that must be!
“Jeanne won’t know about that bear,” she resolved a moment later. “She must not know about those gypsies. It would disturb her. And she must rest; must not be disturbed in any way. Believe me, this being a ‘mother’ to a budding actress is no snap. But it’s lots of fun, all the same!”
That evening Florence, reposing on an affair of white birch and pillows that was half chair and half couch, lived for a time in both the past and the future.
Once more beneath the moon she battled her way toward the mystery cabin on the island. Again she stood looking at its strange interior and its puzzling tenant.
With a vividness that was all but real, she saw the gleam of black waters as they neared Gamblers’ Island.
“Gamblers’ Island,” she mused. “A lady cop. What is one to make of all that?
“And the gypsies? How did they come to that island? Can it be that they truly have a speed boat? Did they run us down? Or was it the young people at the millionaire’s cabin, and Green Eyes?
“Perhaps neither. It may be that the lady cop is right; that someone meant to run her down instead. But who could it be?”
A thought came to her. That day she had seen a speed boat leave Gamblers’ Island. Might there not be reason enough for the gamblers wishing to run down the mystery lady?
“A lady cop. What could be more natural? Gamblers fear detectives.
“But are there gamblers on that island?” Once more she was up against a stone wall. She knew nothing of those who lived on the island. She wished that the lady cop were more communicative.
“Perhaps she will tell me much in time.”
Only one thing stood out clearly. In so far as was possible, Petite Jeanne must be protected from all these uncertainties and strange doings. She must have peace and rest. Great opportunity lay just before her. She must be prepared for it.
As if reading her thoughts, Jeanne suddenly sprang to her feet.
“I wish,” she exclaimed, “that I might practice my part back there in the forest in the moonlight. It would help to make it real.”
“Well, why not?” Florence rose.
“Why not, indeed?” Jeanne danced across the floor.
“Come, Tico!” she called, as she danced out of her bathrobe and into a gaudy gypsy costume. “To-night there is work to be done.”
Florence knew that it required real courage for Jeanne to take this step. She was afraid of dark places at night.
“And what is more spooky than a woodland trail at night?” she asked herself.
Her admiration for the little French girl grew. “She has real grit,” she told herself. “She means to succeed; she will do anything that will aid in making success possible.
“And she will succeed! She must!”
By the gleam of a small flashlight, they made their way, now between tall cedars that stood like sentinels beside their path, and now beneath broad fir trees that in the night seemed dark Indian wigwams.
They crossed a narrow clearing where the vacant windows of an abandoned homesteader shanty stared at them. They entered the forest again, to find it darker than before. The moon had gone under a black cloud.
“Boo!” shuddered Jeanne. “How quite terrible it all is!”
Tico rubbed against her. He appeared to understand.
When at last they came to the little grass-grown spot where Jeanne was accustomed to do her bit of acting, the moon was out again, the grass glowed soft and green, and the whole setting seemed quite jolly as Tico playfully chased a rabbit into a clump of balsams.
“It is charming,” said Jeanne, clapping her hands. “Now I shall dance as I have never danced before.”
And she did.
Florence, who had witnessed the whole drama as it was played on the stage, dropped to a tuft of green that lay in the shadowy path, and allowed herself to enter fully into the scene as it would be enacted on that memorable night when the little French girl should make her first appearance before an American audience.
“It is night on a battlefield of France,” she whispered to herself. “The wounded and dead have been carried away. Only broken rifles and two shattered cannon are to be seen. Petite Jeanne is alone with it all.
“Jeanne is a blonde-haired gypsy. Until this moment she has cherished a great hope. Now she has learned that the hope is groundless. More than that, she believes that her gypsy lover has perished in this day’s battle.
“The depth of her sorrow is immeasurable. One fact alone brings her comfort. She has still her pet bear and her art, the art of dancing.
“On this lonely battlefield, with the golden moon beaming down upon her, she begins to do the rhythmic dance of the gypsy.”
Even as she came to this part of the drama’s story, Jeanne and the bear began to dance.
“It is exquisite!” she whispered softly. “The moonlight has got into her very blood. If only, on that great night, she can feel the thing as she does to-night!”
She did not say more. She did not even think any more. She watched with parted lips as the slender girl, appearing to turn into an elf, went gliding across the green.
The dance was all but at an end when suddenly, without warning, the big girl was given a shock that set her blood running cold.
A twig snapped directly behind her. It was followed by an audible gasp.
At such a time, in such a place, carried away as she had been by the dramatic picture spread out before her, nothing could have startled her more.
Yet she must act. She was Jeanne’s defender. Strangers were here in the night. Who? Gypsies? Gamblers? Indians?
She sprang to her feet and whirled about to stare down the trail.
“No one,” she whispered.
The dance was at an end. Jeanne threw herself upon the ground, exhausted but apparently quite unafraid.
“She did not hear. I must not frighten her. She may never know.” Florence walked slowly toward her companion.
“Come,” she said quietly. “It is damp here; not a safe place to rest. We must go.”
Jeanne rose wearily to follow her.
Strangely enough, as they made their way back over the trail they came upon no sign that anyone had been there besides themselves.
Stranger still, Florence and Jeanne were to hear of that gasp weeks later, and in a place far, far away. Of such weird miracles are some lives made.
Next day it rained. And how it did rain! The lake was a gray mass of spattered suds. The trees wept.
Petite Jeanne was quite content. She had started to read a long French novel. There was a box of bonbons by her side, and plenty of wood for the fire.
“It does not matter.” She shrugged her shoulders. “To-morrow the sun will shine again.” At that she lost herself in her book.
Florence enjoyed reading. Sometimes. But never in the north woods. Each day, every day, the woods and water called to her. She endured inaction until lunch time had come and gone. Then she drew on her red raincoat and announced her intention of going fishing.
“In the rain!” Jeanne arched her brows, then shuddered. “Such a cold rain.”
“It’s the best time, especially for bass. Rain spatters the water. They can’t see you, so they take your bait.”
She drew a pair of men’s hip boots up over her shoes and knickers, donned a black waterproof hat, and, so attired, sallied forth to fish.
“The sprinkle box is a good place,” she told herself.
John Kingfisher, an Indian, had told her of the sprinkle box. The sprinkle box belonged to a past age for that country; the age of logging. To keep trails smooth, that huge loads of logs might glide easily to the water’s edge, trails in those days had been sprinkled from a large tank, or box, on a sled. The water from the box froze on the trail. This made the sleds move easily.
When an anchorage for a very large raft had been needed one spring, a sprinkle box had been filled with rocks and had been sunk in the bay.
Since water preserves wood, the box remains to-day, at the bottom of the bay, as it was twenty years ago.
“You find it by lining a big poplar tree on shore with a boathouse on the next point,” the Indian had told her. On a quiet day she had found it. She had seen, too, that some big black bass were lurking there.
They would not bite; seemed, indeed, to turn up their noses at her offering. “You wait. I’ll get you yet!” She had shaken a fist at them.
So now, with the rain beating a tattoo on her raincoat, she rowed away and at last dropped her line close to the submerged sprinkle box.
Fish are strange creatures. You may make a date with them, but you never can be sure of finding them at home at the appointed hour. A rainy day is a good day for fishing. Sometimes. The fish of the ancient sprinkle box very evidently were not at home on this rainy day. Florence fished for two solid hours. Never a bite. She tried all the tricks she knew. Never a nibble.
She was rolling in her line preparatory to returning home, when, on the little dock on Mystery Island that led to the lady cop’s abode, she spied a solitary figure. This figure was garbed from head to toe in rubber hat and slicker. Like some dark scarecrow, it put out a hand and beckoned.
“The lady cop!” Florence caught her breath. “What adventure now?”
She welcomed this promised innovation for a rainy day. A few strong pulls at the oars and she was beside the dock.
“Come up,” said the lady cop, giving her a hand. “Come in. I must talk.”
“Talk!” The girl’s heart leaped. “Talk. The lady cop is about to talk. What will she tell?” She followed gladly enough.
When the bar was down at the door and they had found seats before the fire, she glanced about the room. Everything was just as it had been on that other occasion. The furnishings were meager; a sort of bed-couch, a rustic table, some chairs, a fireplace. No stove. And on the walls, still those two objects, the automatic pistols. But these did not seem so strange now.
“I live here,” the young lady began, “because this place fits my purpose. I must not be known to many. I have told you a little. No other living soul in this community knows as much about me.”
“And even I do not know your name,” Florence suggested quietly.
“A name. That means little in the world of crime and police. The criminal takes a new name when it suits his purpose. So does a detective. For the moment I am Miss Weightman.” She smiled. “I am not at liberty for the present to tell you whether or not that is my true name. And it really does not matter.”
For a time after that she stared moodily at the fire. Florence respected her very evident desire for silence.
When at last the lady cop spoke, it was in a tone deep and full of meaning. “There are days,” she began, “when silence is welcome, when it is a joy to be alone. Sunshine, shadowy paths, gleaming waters, golden sunsets. You know what I mean.
“But on a dreary day of rain and fog, of leaden skies, dripping trees and dull gray waters, one needs a friend.”
Florence nodded.
“If you were to be a detective, a lady detective,” Miss Weightman asked quite abruptly, “what sort would you wish to be, the sort that stays about courts, prisons and parks, looking after women and children, or one who goes out and tracks down really dangerous wrongdoers?”
“I’d want to go after the bad ones.” Florence squared her shoulders.
“Of course you would,” her hostess approved. “I’m after a dangerous one now, a man who is known from Maine to Florida, from Chicago to San Francisco. And he’s up here right now.”
The last declaration burst upon the girl with the force of a bombshell.
“In—in a quiet place like this!” She could not believe her ears.
“It’s a way crooks have of doing,” the other explained. “When they have committed a particularly dangerous crime, or are in possession of stolen goods difficult to dispose of, when the police are after them, they hide out in some quiet place where you’d least expect to find them.
“Besides,” she added, “this location is particularly advantageous. The Canadian border is not far away. In a speed boat, it is but a matter of an hour or two, and you are over the line. He has a speed boat. He has some young men with him. Perhaps they are his sons. Who knows?
“But this—” she checked herself. “This is starting at the wrong end of my story. It can do no harm for you to know the facts from the beginning. I need not pledge you to secrecy. Through my work I have learned to judge character fairly accurately.”
“Thanks!” said Florence, charmed by this compliment from so strange a hostess.
“Life,” said the lady cop, as the toe of her shoe traced odd patterns in the ashes before the fire, “at times seems very strange. We are born with certain impulses. They are with us when we enter the world. They are in us, a part of our very being. There is in these very impulses the power to make or break us.
“One of these impulses sometimes takes the form of a vague longing. We do not always understand it. We want something. But what do we want? This we cannot tell.
“As this longing takes form, many times it discloses itself as a desire for change. We feel an impulse that drives us on. We wish to go, go, go. For most of us, extensive travel is impossible. We have our homes, our friends, our duties. We do not wander as the Indians and the Eskimos do. Spring, with its showers and budding trees, beckons to us in vain. So, too, does the bright, golden autumn.
“But, after all, what is at the back of all this longing but a desire to take a chance? The savage, roving from place to place, wagers his very life upon his ability to procure food in the strange land in which he wanders.
“So we, too, at times, feel a desire to make wagers with life. But we are city-dwellers, living in homes. No matter. We must take a chance.
“No more wholesome impulse can be found in a human soul than this. Without this impulse implanted in a human heart, the New World would never have been known. Man would still be dressing in skins, living in caves, and retiring to his rest by the light of a tallow dip.
“The desire to take a chance is in every heart. No one knows this better than does the professional gambler. He seizes upon this impulse, invites it to act, and reaps a rich harvest.”
She paused to throw fresh fuel upon the fire. There was dry birch bark in it. It flamed up at once. As the light illumined her intense face and caused her eyes to glow, she said with startling suddenness:
“Somewhere there are three priceless rubies. I must find them!”
Florence sat up quite suddenly and stared at her.
“Three—three rubies!” she exclaimed. Not the words, but the manner in which they had been spoken, had startled her.
“Three large rubies set in a manner so unique as to make the whole affair well nigh priceless,” the lady cop went on quietly.
“You see,” she said, leaning toward Florence, “the thing is Oriental in its design and workmanship. In fact it came from Japan. They are clever, those little Japs. This bit of jewelry is very old. Perhaps it once graced an Empress’s olive brow, or was worn by a priest of some long lost religion.
“Yes,” she mused, “it is priceless; and these gamblers have it.”