The following day the weather was threatening. Dark clouds came rolling down from the north. The biting chill they brought told that they had journeyed far, from the very shores of Hudson Bay.
Petite Jeanne took one look at the out-of-doors; then she threw fresh wood upon the fire, curled up in her favorite chair, and lost herself in a French romance.
Not so, Florence. For her all days were alike. Come sunshine, come rain, come heat, come cold, calm, or storm, it was all the same to her. The world outside ever beckoned, and she must go.
This day she chose to wander alone over unfamiliar trails. As she plunged into the depths of the forest, she felt the cold and gloom press in upon her. It did not rain; yet the trees shed tears. From all about her came the sound of their slow drip-drip-drip. A cold mist, sweeping in from the lake, enveloped all. Now and again, as she passed through a grove of cottonwoods, a flurry of golden leaves came fluttering down.
“Autumn is here,” she told herself. “We must be going back soon. But how I long to stay!
“I love you, love you, love you,” she sang. And the song was meant for lake and beach, forest and stream, alike.
Her trail was long that day. She wandered so far that she began to be a little frightened.
“Can I find my way back?” she asked herself.
Well enough she knew that before her lay endless miles of slashings and young timber which were known only to the wild deer and the porcupine; that it was quite possible for one to become lost here for days and perhaps die of exposure and starvation.
She was thinking of turning back, when to her great surprise she heard voices.
“In such a place!” she whispered to herself.
At the same moment she noted that the forest ahead of her had grown thin, that she could see patches of sky beyond.
Once more she had crossed a broad point and had come to a strange shore.
But what shore? And who were these people?
Again she paused. As before, she caught the sound of voices, this time much more distinct.
“But what a strange language!” she thought to herself.
She concluded that she must be entering some Finnish settlement.
“Safe enough,” she reassured herself.
For all that, she moved forward cautiously. Safety first. She was far from her own cabin.
She had just reached a point where, by parting the bushes, she thought she might be able to catch a glimpse of the strangers, when, with the suddenness of an eagle’s cry, a scream rent the air. And after that, another and yet another. They were a woman’s screams.
“What is this?” she asked herself, as her cheeks blanched and the blood seemed to stand still in her veins. “Is this a murder?”
The question spurred her to action. She was young and strong as a man. If someone needed aid, it was her duty to step out and do her bit.
With little thought of further concealment, she moved rapidly through the thin screen of brush.
Imagine her surprise when, upon emerging, she saw a man and a woman, gypsies, both splashing through the lake water to their waists.
Mystification replaced surprise and fear but for a moment. It was replaced by sorrow; for, suddenly stooping beside a great rock, the gypsy man put out his hand and lifted a small form from the water.
“The child!” she exclaimed in a low voice, tense with emotion. “Their child! She has been playing on the rocks. A wave caused by some passing ship carried her away. Perhaps they did not notice in time. She may be dead.”
Without having seen Florence, the gypsies waded ashore. There, with a look of infinite sadness, the man placed the dripping child on the ground.
The woman joined him. And there they stood, the two of them, in the bowed attitudes of those who mourn for the dead.
It came to the girl then that these gypsies, who had spent all their lives in caravans on land, knew little or nothing of the water, which they had apparently adopted as their temporary home.
No sooner had she thought this than she sprang into action. Without so much as a “May I?” or “If you please,” she leaped forward, pushed the astonished parents aside, seized the child and held her, head down, in the air. Water poured from the child’s nose and mouth. Next, Florence placed her across the trunk of a fallen tree and rocked her back and forth. At last she laid her on the ground and began to work her arms in an attempt to restore respiration.
All this time the gypsies stood looking upon her as if she might be a goddess or a demon, sent to restore or devour their child.
Suddenly the child sneezed.
On hearing this, the gypsy woman once more sent forth a piercing scream, then threw herself upon Florence’s neck.
Shaking herself free, Florence resumed her work.
A moment later the child began to cry.
A few husky wails from the child, and Florence’s work was complete.
After removing the child’s damp clothing, Florence joined the man in making a fire. She taught the woman, who had partially regained her composure, how to chafe the child’s hands and feet; then she prepared to leave them.
“I wish Jeanne were here,” she told herself. “I would like to know who they are, where they came from, and why they are here. So would Jeanne. But Jeanne is far away. If I bring her here they will be gone. I cannot take them to her. Have to trust to good fortune to bring us together again.”
Did she trust in vain?
If she had seen the look on that woman’s face as she once more vanished into the forest, she would have known certainly that in this world there was one person who would, if fate required it, go to the gallows or the electric chair for her.
Thus does fate play with the children of men. She casts before them golden opportunities. If they prove themselves steadfast, true and fearless, in her own good time, in some far future it may be, in ways of which they do not dream, she sends her reward.
Florence had not lost herself in the forest. Though she had not the slightest notion what shore she stood on at the time she brought the gypsy child back to life, she experienced little difficulty in finding her way back to her cabin.
Two hours had not elapsed when once more she sat before her own fire, drinking strong coffee and relating her adventure to Jeanne.
“But the poor gypsy child!” Jeanne exclaimed as she finished. “Out in such weather. And after such an adventure!”
“Their camp must have been very near,” replied Florence. “And you know well enough that the gypsies can arrange a cozy camp out of less than nothing at all.”
“Oh yes, yes, surely that is so!” exclaimed the little French girl.
“But how unkind fate is.” Her tone changed. She became sad. “Here I am pining my heart away for one look at some gypsy friends. And all I see is three tiny twigs they have touched, their patteran, while you, who care so little, meet them at every turn.”
“When the storm is over,” Florence sought to console her, “we will row over to that island where we saw their camp. Perhaps they are still there.”
“They will not be.” Jeanne refused to be comforted. “Always they are on the move. When one meets them, the proper thing to say is, ‘Where do you come from to-day? Where do you go to-morrow?’
“How strange these gypsies are!” Jeanne mused after a moment of silence. “Always they are on islands and on points of land where there are no roads. They travel by water. Water gypsies. How quite novel that is! And yet, in southern France there are some such people. There are villages where all the fisher-folk are gypsies. Brave and daring seamen they are, too.
“Ah, yes, very brave. You must not think that gypsies are cowards. Gypsies fought in the great war, fought and died. Ah, yes! So you see this beautiful story of the stage, this play in which I am to have so wonderful a part, this tale of gypsies in war, is not without its parallel in life.”
At that she lapsed into silence. She was thinking again of that night, which each sunset found a day nearer, when on an American stage, before many hundreds of people, she should dance the gypsy tarantella on a miniature battlefield beneath the light of an imaginary moon.
At such times as this, Florence loved to watch the changes that passed over Jeanne’s face. As she imagined herself in the wings, awaiting her cue, a look of uncertainty, almost of fear, was written there. As, still in her imagination, she stepped out to face her audience, a wistful expression banished fear. After that, as she entered into the compelling rhythm of the dance, came complete transformation. Her face, warmed as if by the mellow light of the morning sun, became the face of a Madonna.
“I only hope,” Florence thought to herself, “that the play proves a great success. It means so much to her. And she is so kind-hearted, so unspoiled. She has lost so much; has so much to win.”
“Listen to the rain!” cried Jeanne. “Who would believe it could come down so hard?”
“Three days’ rain. That’s what the old timers say it will be. We have so little time to spend here. And there is so much that might be done.” Florence sighed.
“Do you know,” she spoke again, after watching the glow of the fire and listening to the steady patter-patter on the roof, “living in a place like this affects me strangely.”
She stretched herself full length in the great cedar chair. “I feel as if I had always lived here, never been out of the woods; as if I were very poor, ignorant and strong. I find it hard to believe that I have warm, soft, bright garments of fine spun cotton and silk. It is as if my garments had always been of brown homespun, my boots of coarsest leather, my hat of rain-proof stuff; as if I tramped days and days over miles of trail that would weary city-dwellers, but can only bring fresh joy to the one of browned features and brawny limbs.
“And why not?” she cried with some passion, sitting up quite abruptly. “Why not a cabin like this, and peace? In winter the trap line, a long, long tramp in high boots through drifted snow. A weasel pelt here, a mink there, and by this pond muskrat skins.
“And out over the lake’s four foot ice, far across the frozen inland sea to Goose Island. There a fish shanty, a hole in the ice, twenty fathoms of line and a rich catch of lake trout and sturgeon. Why not always at night the crackling fire, the bacon and corn bread eaten with a relish because one is truly hungry?
“Why not? No worry about room rent, a run in a silk stocking or a frayed Sunday dress. Why not always boots of cowhide and coats of canvas that do not wear out?”
“Oh! but after all you are a girl,” smiled Petite Jeanne.
“In this day,” said Florence with great emphasis, “that does not matter. All that matters is that I am as strong as a man; that if I choose I can follow a man’s trap line or fish in a man’s shanty over the frozen lake.”
“That is not all.” The French girl’s tone was quiet, full of assurance. “Women are born with a desire for beauty, softness and color. We live for that which we see and touch; your eye catches the glorious red, the orange, the blue of a gown, and it enchants you. Is it not so?”
“Yes, but here at the edge of the lake we have the sunset. What could be more gorgeous?
“Ah! But that you cannot touch.
“Did you never note?” Jeanne’s tone grew serious. “Did you never come to realize how much we live for the sense of touch? A scarf of silken gold is held out before you. You say, ‘Let me see it.’ But you hold out a hand. Why? You wish to touch it. You have missed a friend for a long time. She returns. Your hands, your lips, meet. Why? Because you are not happy until you have touched the one you love.
“No, no, Miss Florence! This is very wonderful, very peaceful. It is so very grand. But after all, it is only for now.
“To-morrow, next day, sometime very soon you are going to hear the call of the city, to feel its pull at your heart. All the bright lights, the colors, the shouts, the throngs will call to you. And you will go. For there, after all, is life. Life—beautiful, rushing, throbbing life. That, my dear friend, is a city. It is found nowhere else.”
Leaping from her chair, the little French girl went whirling across the floor in her fantastic dance. She danced herself quite out of the cabin and out into the rain, leaving Florence to meditate upon her strange words, to conclude that Jeanne was more than half right, then to spring suddenly to her feet, crying:
“Come back here, Petite Jeanne! Come back right now. You will die of pneumonia.”
“Ever hear of a sprite dying of pneumonia?” Jeanne’s eyes were as full of laughter as her golden locks were of water, as she came dancing back.
“You’re not a sprite,” said Florence. “Even if you were one, who had taken human form, I’d have to keep you human until that play had its run.”
“Oh! the blessed play!” said the French girl contritely, at the same time snatching at her drenched garments. “How one does hate being in training for anything.”
Ten minutes later, wrapped in a white, woolly blanket, she sat toasting before a fire. At this moment everything, past and future, was forgotten in the glorious now.
The three days’ rain became a reality. A steady downpour, that set the forest mourning in earnest and turned the lake into a blanket of gray, settled down over all.
Petite Jeanne did not care. She had been sent north to rest. There was still a pile of unread romances in the corner cupboard. The shed at the back of the cabin was piled high with dry wood. The fire burned ever brightly. What more could she wish?
When she tired of reading she called to Tico, who lay sleeping by the fire hours on end, and together they went through some difficult step of the gypsy dance.
To Florence, save for one condition, this prolonged downpour would have seemed nothing short of a catastrophe. She was shut away from her beloved out-of-doors, but this only gave her more time to spend with that fascinating person, the lady cop.
The lady cop had become all but a pal to Florence and Tillie. Every evening, after the day’s work was done and darkness had blanketed the water, Tillie came stealing over to the mystery cabin.
And she never lacked a welcome. She gave the lady cop many a needed bit of information. With her aid, the lady cop had so far progressed in her investigation that she whispered to them on the second day of the rain that soon she would be ready to wire for reënforcements. When these arrived she would spring the trap.
“And then?” Florence breathed.
“Then the three rubies will be in my hands. And someone will go to jail.
“But let’s not talk too much,” she added. “The best laid plans fail often enough.”
The hour of the day that Florence and Tillie loved best was the one which preceded the lady cop’s shooing them out for the night. At that hour, after brewing herself a cup of coffee and drinking it steaming hot, she spun weird tales of her adventures as a lady detective.
An only child of a police captain, at the age of eighteen she had seen her father brought home dead, shot in the back while assisting in a raid on a notorious gambling house. Over her father’s dead body she had vowed that she would take his place.
When the time came, when she was of age, her mother, having no boys to give to the great service of protecting humanity, had smilingly, tearfully, given that which she had, a girl. And to the city she had already proved herself a priceless gift.
Working her way secretly into places where no man could ever have entered, she had brought to light places of vice and crime which for long years had remained hidden in the dark.
Time and again she had succeeded in attaching herself to some wild young set, and in so doing had not alone shown them their folly, but had also brought those who preyed upon them to justice.
“It’s not always easy to place money on the board,” she said one night, “on the gaming board, with a hand that does not tremble, when you realize that there are those watching who would gladly kill you, did they but know who you were.
“Twice I was discovered and locked up. One of these times I let myself out of the window to the street two floors below on a rope made of my own skirt. The other time a squad wagon came in time to release me.
“Listen to this!” Her eyes burned brightly. “Never believe the stories you read in cheap magazines. These stories tell you that crooks are really good sports, generous, chivalrous and all that. They are not—not one in a thousand. They are hard as flint; cruel, heartless, ready for any savage deed that will give them liberty and the wild life they crave.”
After this outburst on that second rainy night, she lapsed into silence.
In time she sprang to her feet and drew on her raincoat. “I am going out for a row alone in the dark,” she said. “Stay here and keep the fire burning. It’s not late. I’ll be back in an hour.”
She left the cabin. Tillie and Florence sat by the fire.
“Ever hear how this cabin came here?” Tillie asked.
“No,” Florence replied quickly.
“It’s sort of interesting. I’ll tell you.”
“Oh! Please do!”
“This,” Tillie began, “was once the cabin of a ship.”
“It looks the part,” replied Florence. “But where are the portholes?”
“Someone has covered them.” Tillie stepped to the wall, fumbled for a short time with a fastening, then swung back a section of the paneling which was, in reality, a small door, revealing a circle of brass framing a glass.
“But why a ship’s cabin on land?” Florence’s face took on a puzzled frown.
“It was all on account of old Captain Abner Jones. His ship was wrecked on the shoals near Goose Island. She was the ‘Mary C,’ just a freighter, but a good strong one.
“Captain Abner Jones had her for his first command. She was his last, too. He lived in this cabin and sailed the Great Lakes for thirty-five years.
“Then, when she struck one stormy night, through no fault of his, he refused to leave her. All through the storm he stuck there, though she was half torn to pieces. When the storm was over, his men went out to get him.
“Still he wouldn’t come. ‘No, men. Much obliged all the same,’ he told them. ‘You’ve been a good crew. You’ll find other berths. But mine’s here. I’ll never leave this cabin.’
“The men went aside. I’ve heard my father tell it lots of times. They talked it over. They loved their old skipper. They knew the next storm would do for the ship, and him, too, if he stayed. So they made a plan.
“‘All right, Cap,’ the first mate said, when they had come back to him, ‘you have your way. And we’ll have ours, too. Give us a day, mebby two, and we’ll put this cabin in a safe place.’
“‘Meanin’ what?’ the captain asked.
“‘That we’ll set the cabin ashore, and you in her.’
“I guess the captain saw they were too strong for him, so he let them have their way.
“They took a lot more than two days. You see what a neat job they did. Why, there’s even a hold to the place! They built it of ship’s timbers.”
“A hold!” Florence stared at her.
By way of answer, Tillie began rolling up the canvas that covered the floor. When she had done this, she pried up a plank, then another. Next she sent the gleam of a flashlight into the dark depths below.
“Sure enough, a real hold!” exclaimed Florence.
“And there’s a trunk!” Tillie, too, was surprised. “How long do you suppose it’s been there?”
“Not long. See! The copper is not tarnished. It’s her trunk.” She spoke of the lady cop.
“It must be. But such a queer trunk!”
It was indeed an unusual bit of baggage. Made of some very hard tropical wood, it was bound by broad bands of copper. Strangest of all were its straps. They were four inches wide and fully three quarters of an inch thick.
“What monster has a hide like that?” Tillie asked in amazement.
“A walrus or an elephant.”
“It’s empty.”
“Quite naturally. One does not leave one’s things in a trunk in a cellar like this.”
“But it’s wide open.”
“That’s a bit strange.”
“It’s all strange. A woman with a trunk like that!”
For a moment they stood there, staring down into that dark chasm.
“Tell you what!” exclaimed Tillie at last. “I’ve got an idea!”
Tillie was given to having ideas. Some of them were quite wild, for Tillie was more than half wild herself.
“Let’s steal her trunk!” she cried, clapping her hands.
“That,” said Florence in some disgust, “seems a dumb idea.”
“Not so dumb as you think. Listen. Day before yesterday I brought the lady cop a small bag of balsam tips; you know, the green end of twigs that smell so swell.”
“Yes?”
“She took one sniff of them, then threw up her hands and said, ‘I’d like a trunk full, a whole trunk full to take home to my friends, for making pillows.’
“We’ll steal her trunk and hide it in the woods. We’ll fill it with balsam tips. Turkey Trot and I will bring it back. She’ll drop dead when she sees it. She’ll never know it’s been gone until she sees the balsam tips. Come on. Give me a hand. She’ll be back pretty soon. We’ll just hide it in the brush until we go home. Then we’ll carry it over to your point.”
Florence, though not fully convinced of the wisdom of such high-handed proceedings, was quite carried away by Tillie’s bubbling enthusiasm. In less time than it takes to tell it, the trunk was up from the dark hole and away to the brush, the planks down again, the canvas spread smoothly in place.
They were not a moment too soon. Shaking the rain from her coat, the lady cop came breezing in.
“It’s glorious!” she enthused. “Even in the night and the rain. I hate to leave it all. But I fear I must. Very soon.”
This last remark sent a chill running up Florence’s spine. But she said never a word.
“Look at this cabin!” The lady cop’s voice was filled with consternation as she spoke. Florence and Tillie could only stand and stare. The lady cop’s room was a wreck. She had gone out before dawn; had been gone an hour, had picked up Florence and Tillie on her way back, and now this!
Florence had never seen such a roomful of confusion. Table upside down, chairs overturned, clothing scattered everywhere, broken glass from the transom overhead, the canvas torn up, a gaping hole where the imitation ship’s hold was; such was the scene upon which she gazed in the utmost astonishment.
“You know,” said Tillie in a tone that was both serious and solemn, “we girls didn’t do that.”
“Of course not, child!” The lady cop laughed in spite of herself. “For all that, I know who did it. And soon enough they shall have their pay.
“I know, too, what it was they wanted. And they—” The lady cop advanced to the center of the room to cast one glance to the void below, “and they got it!”
“Wha—what was it they wanted?” Florence managed to stammer. She knew the answer, but wanted it from the lady cop’s lips.
“My trunk.”
“Your trunk! Why should they want that? It was—” She checked herself in time.
The lady cop gave her a sharp look, but proceeded to answer her question as well as she might.
“The truth is, I don’t know why they wanted that trunk,” she began. “They have wanted it for a long time. Now that they have it, I hope they are satisfied. I can get a tin one down at the store for a few dollars. And it, I hope, will contain no secrets.”
“Secrets!” Florence wished to tell her own secret, that the mysterious trunk was safely locked up in a hunting cabin back in the woods where she and Tillie had carried it through the rain and the dark. She did not quite dare.
“That trunk,” said the lady cop, up-ending a chair and dropping into it, “has been the most spooky thing you ever saw.
“My cousin bought it for me at a police auction sale.”
“A police auction sale!” Tillie stared at her hard.
“Once a year the police department sells all the lost, stolen and unclaimed articles that have come into its keeping. You’d be surprised at the variety of articles sold there; electric drills, oriental rugs, watches, knives, burglars’ tools, suitcases full of silks—everything.
“This trunk was in the sale. It was filled with a lot of worthless clothing. But my cousin bought it for me. It was such an unusual affair. Teakwood, heavy copper, walrus hide. You wouldn’t understand unless you saw it.”
Florence and Tillie exchanged significant glances.
“This cousin of mine is a queer chap,” the lady cop went on. “He’s always trying to break up superstitions. Belongs to a Thirteen Club formed in his academy days. Thirteen fellows lived in a building numbered 1313. Table always set for thirteen, whether they were all there or not. Such things as that.
“Now every year on the thirteenth day of a month, Friday if possible, they have a banquet. Six of the thirteen are dead. Four met violent deaths. Yet they keep it up. Thirteen places set. Seven seats filled. Six vacant.
“Makes you shudder to think of it. But he loves it.
“He bought this trunk because a crook had owned it. That’s supposed to bring bad luck.
“He hadn’t got half way home with it before someone dragged it off the truck. He crowned the fellow with half a brick and retrieved the trunk.
“He took it home. That night he woke up to see it disappearing out of the window. When he fired a shot through the window the trunk paused in its journey and he took it back.
“Then, because I am a policewoman, he presented it to me. And here—here it is not. They got it at last!”
Once more the two girls exchanged glances. They said never a word.
“Queerest part of it all is,” the lady cop concluded, “the thing was chuck empty!
“But come on!” she exclaimed, springing up. “Let’s get this place straightened out. Then we’ll fry some bacon.”
“Shall we tell her?” Tillie asked in a low tone as she and Florence walked down the little dock half an hour later.
“I don’t know. Not just yet.” Florence’s face took on a puzzled look. “If that trunk has such wandering ways, perhaps it’s safer where it is. Does anyone go to that hunting shack?”
“Not this time of year.”
“And no one besides us knows where the trunk is, and we won’t tell.”
“Cross my heart!”
“See you this afternoon,” Tillie added. “We’re going fishing.”
“Are we?”
“You know it! Got to work this forenoon. Can go after dinner. And boy! Will there be fishing!
“You know,” she added with all the wisdom of an old timer, “after a three days’ storm is the very best time to fish. When it is sunny and still, the fish lay round and get lazy; too lazy to eat. A storm stirs ’em up. Watch ’em bite this P. M. So long!” She went skipping away.
Youth is the time of life when perils, sorrows and battles are soon forgotten; when joy persists, and the anticipation of some fresh thrill is ever uppermost in the mind. As they started on the proposed fishing trip rather late that afternoon, Tillie, to all appearances, had forgotten her battle with the children of a rich city gambler. The splendid black bass they had captured, the memory of the thrill of the chase, was still with her.
“Do you know,” she said to Florence, “I think the other two bass are larger, much larger? Perhaps one is a five pounder.
“We are going to have a grand time!” she enthused. “There are two big muskies lurking in those weeds. I saw them once. They may strike to-day.”
“You don’t think those hateful people will come back?” Florence wrinkled her brow.
“Guess we gave ’em enough!” Tillie clipped her words short.
“You said they’d ruin you.”
“Mebby they can’t.” Tillie’s strong arms worked fast at the oars.
They arrived at the fishing hole. Once more the conditions were ideal. Dark, slaty clouds lay spread across the sky. A slight breeze roughened the surface of the water. Such water as it was! Gray, shadowy water that suggested fish of immense proportions and infinite fighting power.
The whispering rushes, the gurgling water, the bobbing dragon fly, were all there.
“As if we had been gone but an hour,” Florence said, as she dropped the anchor.
“Yes,” replied Tillie, “this old bay changes very little. I climbed up on Gull Rock to steal a gull’s eggs when I was three. And there it stands still. And still the gulls lay their eggs there. Only difference is, I have learned how foolish it is to steal their eggs.”
She baited her hook with a large minnow, drew out her line until thirty feet of it hung loosely coiled in her left hand; then with a deft toss landed the minnow thirty feet from the boat.
“There,” she sighed, “right over there.”
Florence was obliged to satisfy herself with a shorter cast.
“Do you know,” said Tillie, and the sound of her voice glided along like the air of some old song, “this has been my fishing hole ever since I was old enough to paddle the first little tub of a boat I ever owned? But it’s never lost its mystery, this hole hasn’t.
“There have been times when I thought I knew all about it. I’ve skated over it in winter when the ice was like glass. I could see every stone, every stick and log at the bottom. I peered in between every little forest of pikeweed and said, ‘Nope, there’s nothing there.’
“There have been times in summer when the surface of the water was smooth as a looking-glass. Then I peeked around in every little corner down there in the depths of it, and I said, ‘Ah, ha! At last I have you! I know all about you. You’re only a hole full of water with a sandy bottom and a shelving bank. You’re full of weeds and other common things.’
“Just about then the sun goes under a cloud. A little breeze ripples the water. I can’t see a thing. I wait. The rain comes pattering down. I put a shiny minnow or a dark old crawdad on my hook and throw it far out over the edge of the old fishing hole. Pretty soon the line starts stealing away. My reel goes round and round, silent as a whisper. Then of a sudden I jerk. I begin reeling in. A beautiful thing all green and gold leaps from the water. But I have him still.
“‘Ah!’ I cry. ‘A black bass. Where did he come from? The old fishing hole, to be sure.’ And right away that old pool with its mysterious blue-green top of rippled, spattered water is as full of mystery as it ever was.”
“Isn’t it wonderful to have such a fishing hole!” Florence enthused.
“Don’t all boys and girls have fishing holes?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“In the cities, of course not. It’s too bad.”
For a time after that they were silent. It was Florence who broke the Sabbath-like stillness of the old fishing hole.
“People,” she mused, “are very much like fishing holes. You have a friend. You are with him a great deal. He tells you all he can about himself. He turns the light of truth upon himself and allows you to gaze into the very depths of his soul. At last you say, ‘There is no mystery left in his being. I know it all.’ Then of a sudden, in time of joyous tempest, splendid success or dark storm of disappointment and sorrow, in a moment demanding heroic courage, he shows you in an instant that there are possibilities in his being of which you never dreamed.
“Cities are like that, too,” she went on. “Take the great city I call home. It’s a very plain city where millions toil for their daily bread. I’ve been all over it. I often say to myself, ‘There is no further mystery in this city.’ I have no more than said it than I come upon a Chinatown, a theatre, a court room, some dark place at night where such persons meet as I have never known. Then that old city seems to look up and laugh as it exclaims, ‘No mystery!’”
“It must be wonderful to explore such a city!” Tillie’s words were filled with longing.
“Perhaps,” replied Florence, “we can do it together some time.”
A large perch took Florence’s minnow. She reeled him in and threw him in the live-net.
“Probably all I’ll get,” she commented, “but they are fine fried brown in butter.”
“None better.”
Tillie lost her minnow. A second and a third disappeared into that dark expanse.
“Somebody’s stealing my bait.” She selected a very large minnow and hooked it on with meticulous care. Then out into the deep he went to join his comrades.
The manner in which he did this was startling in the extreme. Hardly had he hit the water than Tillie’s reel flew round and round, quite beyond control. With a quick glance toward the sky, she assured herself that some thieving bird had not seized her bait, then she pressed a thumb on her reel as she seized the handle to end its wild flight. Fortunately her line was long and strong. She had the fish under control in another moment.
But to play him, to land him—that was the problem.
“What is he?” Florence asked in an awed whisper.
“Who knows?”
Tillie reeled him in for twenty yards, then let him take the line slowly out.
“Tire him out,” she explained.
This she repeated three times. Then as a look of fixed determination settled on her face she said quite calmly:
“The landing net.”
Florence was ready. Settling her feet firmly, Tillie began to reel in. The manner in which she reeled in that mysterious monster was a thing to marvel at. And he came, foot by foot, yard by yard, fathom by fathom, until a great gaping mouth appeared close to the surface.
“A pike!” Tillie’s voice betrayed her disappointment. “But he’s a darb. We must have him. Get ready. When I give him line, get the net ahead of him.”
Florence obeyed with trembling fingers. She was a second too late. Tillie did not give the powerful fish line. He took it. Grazing the rim of the landing net, he shot away, taking fathoms of line with him.
The process of wearing him out was repeated. Once again he was brought to the side of the boat. This time Tillie gave him very little line. Unfortunately it was not enough. As his head shot toward the landing net, the hook that protruded through his jaw caught on the rim of the net. There was a thundering of water, a whirlpool of white spray, and he was gone.
“Dumb!” exclaimed Tillie, throwing down her rod.
“Lost him!” Florence dropped the net. “But then,” she added, “a pike’s no good except to look at.”
“That’s right,” agreed Tillie. “And we came out here for a big black bass. We’ll have him too!” She baited her hook anew.
An hour passed, and another. The sun hung for a time above the cedars, then slowly sank from sight. The water turned golden, then red, then steel blue. Still they fished on.
The number of fine perch, nine, ten, twelve inches long, which Florence dropped into the live-net, grew and grew. Tillie flung hers overboard in great contempt, as soon as they were hooked, and grumbled because they took her bait.
“Do you know,” said Florence teasingly, “I believe I have five pounds of fish? You have tried all afternoon for a five pounder, and got nothing. In life one should humbly accept that which comes, and hope for bigger things.”
“I wonder.” Tillie studied her face with tired eyes. “I wonder if that’s so, or do you win best if you insist on having only the big things?”
“I suppose,” Florence replied, “that one does that which one’s nature demands. I can’t throw a good perch away. You can’t keep one. It’s a queer old world.”
“It is!” Tillie punctuated her remark with a vigorous overhand throw that landed her minnow far out into the darkening water.
“Watch!” she exclaimed a moment later. “See that line go out! It’s a bass!”
There is nothing sweeter than the swift run of a bass before he turns his minnow and swallows it.
Zing! Tillie snapped the line. “Hooked!” she exclaimed, planting her feet far apart.
The ripples had subsided. The water was like polished steel at the surface. Yet one could see far into those mysterious depths.
“See!” she exclaimed tensely. “I’ve got him! The big one! And how meekly he comes in!”
What she said seemed true. She was reeling in rapidly. At the same time a monster of the lake, such a bass as Florence had never dreamed of, came racing toward the boat.
Three yards, five, he shot forward. Florence stared. The expression on Tillie’s face was a strange thing to see. Hope, joy, triumph vied there with fear, distrust, despair. It was her great chance. She had staked all in the one cast. Was she to win or lose?