During all this time the afterglow of the sun had lighted the water. In an instant, without warning, it faded and near darkness came. Not so soon, however, but that the girls were able to witness a strange sight. With a sudden stop and whirl, the big bass changed course and shot away. But Tillie’s reel? It did not spin. She still reeled in. A steady tug held her line taut. Ten seconds later a beautiful green-tinted bass, weighing perhaps a pound, broke the water and landed with scarcely a struggle in the boat.
What had happened? This little one and the giant companion had fought for the deadly minnow. He had won.
For fully half a minute, while the end of twilight became night, Tillie stood staring at her catch. He had flapped himself loose from the line and lay there in the boat snapping about.
Suddenly she seized him and threw him far into the rushes. Then she dropped into a seat to hide her face in her hands.
Tillie was of the emotional type. Some people are. What of it? Theirs is the privilege to weep or to shout for joy. Tillie wept.
But what was this? Of a sudden their boat gave a lurch that sent Florence sprawling over the stern seat.
What had happened? Her eyes told her in an instant. Her heart went to her throat. A speed boat, with power shut off, had glided upon them unobserved. The now invisible occupants had seized their anchor line, then started their powerful motor. They were now headed for the outermost point of land and the open sea.
“They’ve got us!” Tillie exclaimed. “They’ve got us!”
“Who?” Florence screamed. “In the name of all that’s good, who?”
Tillie did not reply. She was making her way forward.
“They are carrying us away!” Florence cried. Her tone was that of despair.
“We must cut the tiller,” was Tillie’s answer.
“Then they’ll run us down, as they did Jeanne and me.”
“No matter! We must cut the tiller!”
“But how? We have no knife.”
Tillie thought a moment. Then once more she crept forward toward the bobbing prow. Once there, she gripped the boat’s gunwale, reached far forward, then set her teeth in the strong rope.
The tiller was an extra thick one, and quite new. Nature had provided Tillie with a most excellent set of teeth. She used them now with a skill born of despair. Both she and Florence were strong swimmers. Though their boat were wrecked, they might still reach land.
“If only we do not get out of the channel,” she thought as she renewed her attack on the stubborn strands of rope.
As they left Hoyt’s Bay behind, the water grew rougher. Shooting forward, the slight rowboat plowed through waves instead of riding over them. Tillie was drenched to the skin. There were times when her very form was lost in spray. Yet she stuck to her post.
Night had come. There was no moon. The sky was black. The sea was black. The night was cold. Florence shuddered. Then, feeling the water creeping over her feet, she began to bail.
Tillie’s task was half done. How stout the rope was. The pull on it was tremendous, yet with half the strands cut, the boat rode on.
“How—how many more strands?” she asked herself as she spat out a mouthful of bristly fibre.
“Soon it will be too late,” she told herself. No longer could she distinguish land from water, but years of experience told her that they were fast leaving land behind, that they would, in a very brief space of time, be in the open waters of Lake Huron.
“And then—” she breathed. She dare not think.
The rope was at last three-fourths eaten away. The strain on the remaining strands was telling. They were beginning to stretch when suddenly a final cowardly and brutal act capped the atrocities of the heartless invisible ones. Had they been watching? Did they know the girl’s purpose? Had they judged their position? Who knows? Enough that of a sudden their boat gave a swerve to the right. It executed a curve that no light rowboat could endure. Next instant the girls found themselves pitched head foremost into the icy waters, while their empty boat sped on.
Florence struck out with hands and feet. She gave herself half a minute to regain composure. Then she looked for Tillie. Tillie was swimming with one hand while she shook a belligerent fist at the fast disappearing speed boat.
“Well!” she exclaimed when she had completed this ceremony to her satisfaction. “We are free!”
“Free as a gull. Where’s land?”
“I don’t know.”
“How long can you swim?”
“A long time. How long can you?”
“A long time. But in this water?”
“I don’t know. Boo! It’s cold. Let’s swim.”
“Where to?”
“I don’t know.”
At that moment, as if in answer to an unuttered prayer, a strange thing happened. A golden light shone across the water. A golden disk appeared on the horizon.
“The moon! Thank—thank God!” Tillie’s tone was reverent.
“The moon, yes,” said Florence. “It usually rises.”
“But can’t you see? It’s not rising behind water, but trees. That’s Goose Island over there. It’s three miles from the mainland.”
“What’s Goose Island?”
“It’s where we go fishing through the ice in winter.”
“Anybody live there?”
“No.”
“Any cabins?”
“No.”
“Then—”
Florence stopped herself. She was about to say that outside a cabin, with no fire, drenched to the skin, they would be chilled to death, when a voice seemed to whisper, “One thing at a time. Only one.”
“We’ll swim for it,” she said quietly. “How far do you think it is?”
“Two miles, perhaps.”
Two miles! Her heart sank.
“But the wind and waves are with us. We’ll make it.”
“The winds and the waves obey Thy will,” rang through Florence’s ears. “Yes,” she replied, “we will make it.”
For a long time there was no sound save the dip-dip of their strong arms and the occasional swirl of a whitecap as it broke near them.
An hour passed and still two dark spots, like markers for a gill net, rose above the waves. The moon, rising higher and higher, brought out more distinctly the ragged tree line of Goose Island.
At times the weary girls turned on their backs to float like so much lifeless driftwood. When their weary muscles had gained renewed strength, they began their task again.
There were times when Florence, stout-hearted though she was, was tempted to give up hope. At such times she envisioned the rocky beach, the cabinless forest of scrub trees that must grace the surface of the island. She felt, too, the chill of the wind that must await them there.
“What’s the use?” she asked herself many times. And always the answer came, “One step at a time is enough for me.” She must trust the future.
As for Tillie, she never faltered. Such is the soul of one bred to the rigor, the suffering and perils of the north country. It accepts the condition that each moment offers and awaits the rest. Who will say that this, as a rule of life, is not best?
“Cheerio, old thing!” Tillie exclaimed at last. “Another quarter of an hour, and we will be there.”
There was courage in her voice, but a look of utter weariness in her eye.
“Will she last?” Florence drew one more portion from her reserve strength, prepared, if need be, to see her gallant friend through.
Her aid was not needed. The sturdy muscles and vigorous heart of this backwoods girl carried her through. Certainly no city cousin of hers who starves her body and poisons her blood to obtain a slim and graceful figure could have done as much. Who wants to be a wisp that contains a soul? Who would not rather be a Greek goddess?
They landed at last upon a broad and pebbly beach.
As they crept up away from the waves, the sharp pebbles brought no pain to hands and knees. They were benumbed by cold, too exhausted to feel pain.
Yet, after Tillie had laid there for a moment, she drew herself to a sitting position to say an astonishing thing.
“Florence,” she exclaimed, “we’ll get that old black bass yet!”
In spite of the cold and exhaustion, Florence laughed. The laugh did them both good.
“If we are going to do that,” she said, rising stiffly, “we will have to keep moving. If we don’t, we’ll be no better than the wreck of the Hesperus. Let’s go somewhere. It’s a little late, but some place on the island may still be open. A ham and egg place. Haven’t any money, but they’ll trust us. We looksohonest, and our clothes aresospick and span.” She looked at Tillie, in her blouse that clung like a rag and knickers that turned her slim legs into pipe stems, and laughed again.
“Come on,” said Tillie, struggling to keep up the illusion. “I know a place to go.”
She made her way up the gravel beach to a spot where the surface was soft, sandy and half overgrown with grass. Then they started to skirt the shore.
They had not gone a hundred yards before Florence began to feel that Tillie was leading a lost hope. The wind was rising. The cold seemed more bitter.
“Never will stand it,” she told herself with grim conviction. “Never in the world!”
Still she trudged on. Her limbs were growing stiff, her eyes blurred. As they rounded a clump of scrub birch trees, she thought her eyes deceived her. There appeared to be something over there that was not a tree; a small square thing like an overgrown chimney.
“Look!” She pulled Tillie by the arm. “Look, Tillie! Is there something over there?”
Tillie looked, then cried out for very joy.
“It’s a fish shanty! Daddy Red Johnson’s fish shanty! He left it here winter before last. Then he died. Nobody touched it. Oh, thank God!”
She dropped to her knees, but was up in an instant.
“It doesn’t look like a shanty,” said Florence as they approached it. “Looks like a tall box.”
“That’s about all it is. Four sides and a roof. Three feet square. Just a protection from wind and snow while you fish.
“But oh, good old Daddy Johnson, if you see us now,” she murmured, talking to the sky, “you know we need your fish shanty a heap worse than you ever did!
“Here’s the door,” she said a moment later. “Walk right in and make yourself at home.”
Inside this curious box-like affair, which is moved so easily over the ice during the winter fishing, there was only standing room for two.
But how warm it seemed! “As if there were a fire.” Florence hugged Tillie for very joy. Then she thanked the Creator of all for this miraculous deliverance.
“It’s going to be hard,” she told herself, as she thought of standing there all night, “but we’ll make it. And to-morrow we will improve our condition.
“Do boats pass this island?” she asked.
“Only very far away.”
“Could they see a signal flag of distress?”
“I doubt it. Besides, they wouldn’t be looking for it. No one is ever stranded here.
“Speaking of fire,” mused Tillie, returning to the old subject, “Daddy Red Johnson used to keep a few sticks in the upper corner.
“Here they are!” she cried as her hand searched the corner.
“Everybody liked Daddy Red Johnson.” There were tears in her voice. “He was a good man. Nobody would touch his things, not even after he was dead.
“He always kept a box of matches right down here.” Her hand groped for a moment. Then such a shout of joy!
“Here they are! Saved, Florence!”
With trembling fingers she drew out a safety match and struck it on the box. It flared out cheerily, dispelling the dark.
“Come on!” she cried. “We’ll carry this shanty to the beach. We’ll build a roaring fire before it and be all warm and dry before you know it.”
As they tumbled out of the shanty, then tipped it over, something fell to the ground with a thud. It was a short handled axe.
“I forgot the axe,” said Tillie, tucking it under her arm. “He used that for cutting his hole through the ice, Daddy Red Johnson did. Shouldn’t wonder if his fish line was here, too.”
Petite Jeanne was disturbed. Nine o’clock had come and passed. Reluctantly she made tea and drank it alone. Florence was not back. It was strange.
“They went fishing, she and Sun-Tan Tillie,” she said to Tico, the bear. “One does not fish at night, unless it is for bull-heads. And who wishes for bull-heads? Bah! They are like snakes. You cut off their heads, and still they bite your finger.”
Ten o’clock found her pacing the floor. Having at last arrived at a decision, she dressed hurriedly in knickers and a heavy jacket, drew a pair of men’s rubber boots on over her shoes, called to Tico, and went out.
There was, she knew, a trail through the forest to the village. She had never followed it. She dared try it now. So, armed only with a flashlight, with the bear at her heels, she set out.
She was disturbed more than she cared to admit, even to herself. She feared, not for herself, but for Florence. All these strange, half told tales that had reached her ears, tales of gamblers and lady detectives, of strange water gypsies and half savage bears, had worked upon her imagination. One who knows no fear for his own safety is often the first to fear for others. Such was the nature of the little French girl. So she started out over an unknown trail at night in search of aid.
The trail was long and winding. More than once she lost herself. It was boggy in places. There was need for boots. At times she was obliged to take one step at a time, then lift the other foot out of the mud by the boot straps.
When at last she reached the silent, sleeping village, she was near exhaustion. The silence of the village frightened her more than the lonely forest.
“It is as if everyone in the world were dead,” she told herself through teeth that chattered.
“I must find that boy, Turkey Trot,” she said to Tico. “He may know something.”
A faint light at the rear of Tillie’s house was reassuring. Someone was there.
She knocked loudly at the door. A boy appeared with a lamp held high over his head.
The lamp descended with a crash. Fortunately it went out. The boy, who was Turkey Trot, had seen the bear, and had not seen Jeanne standing in the shadows. He vanished.
Driven to desperation, Jeanne sprang after him, seized him by the collar, and flashed her light in his eyes.
“Why do you run?” she demanded fiercely. “Where is my friend? Where is Florence?”
“It was the bear!” Turkey Trot still trembled. “Where is Tillie?”
“You do not know?”
“Not me.”
“And you are alone?”
“Folks went to the Soo this morning. Be back to-morrow.
“But I got a motor, an outboard motor,” he added cheerfully. “Man gave it to me this morning. It’s a hummer. Plenty of boats. We’ll go find them. Broke an oar, like as not.”
“Oh! Do you think so? Could we?”
This tow-headed boy had suddenly become a savior in Jeanne’s eyes.
“What’ll we do with the bear?” the boy asked doubtfully.
“Do you think we could take him?”
“Don’t he bite?”
“Tico? Never! He is tame. Oh, very!”
“We might try.”
Ten minutes later an outboard motor began its put-put-put. A sixteen foot boat with Jeanne in the prow, Turkey Trot in the stern, and the ponderous bear in the middle, was headed out toward Gull Rock Point.
“Know where they fish, I do,” Turkey Trot shouted above the noise of the motor. “Find ’em out there somewhere.”
“Perhaps,” Jeanne whispered to herself. There was doubt in her mind and misgiving in her heart. Florence had not stayed out like that before, without announcing her purpose. And there were strange doings about, very strange doings indeed.
The water was black with the peculiar blackness that is night. The path of pale light cast across it by the moon only served to intensify that blackness. From time to time Jeanne sent a narrow pencil of light from her electric torch. In a wavering circle this light searched the sea. Its efforts were in vain. No craft was on the water at all at that late hour. Florence and Tillie, as you know, were far away.
They reached Gull Rock Point. Still they discovered nothing. They began circling the deep bays between points of land. One wide circle passed within their view, a second and a third.
Then, all of a sudden, Turkey Trot, whose eyes were familiar with every detail of those shores, uttered a low exclamation. Turning sharply, he headed straight for a log-strewn, sandy beach.
Petite Jeanne had seen only logs. Turkey Trot had seen that which set his blood racing.
* * * * * * * *
In the meantime, on their bleak and barren island, Tillie and Florence were not idle. The fish shanty which they had found was composed of a light frame of wood and an outer covering of fibre board. Tillie seized the edge of the roof, Florence the bottom. Thus, in the half darkness, stumbling over stumps and stones, but cheered by the thought that here at last was shelter and a degree of warmth, they made their way to the beach.
There, with the aid of the axe, they split a dry cedar stick into small splints. They next lay down side by side in order to break the force of the wind, and Tillie struck a match. It flickered and flashed, then blazed up. Another moment, and the dry cedar was crackling like corn in a popper.
“A fire!” Florence breathed. “A fire! Oh, Tillie, a fire!”
For the moment she was as emotional as her companion.
Soon they had a roaring fire of driftwood. The lake level had risen three feet that spring. Great quantities of dead timber, to say nothing of logs and planks from docks, had been carried away. There was no scarcity of fuel.
The dance they did that night beneath the moon while their clothes were drying was a thing of wild witchery. But what of that? There was none to witness save the stars. The island was all their own.
When at last their clothes were dry, with a fire of hot coals before them, they packed themselves like two very large sardines into the fish shanty, which lay side down on the beach with its door open to the fire. In ten minutes they were both sound asleep.
The object that had caught Turkey Trot’s eye as he skirted the log-strewn beach was a rowboat that, bumping on the beach now and then as if in a futile attempt to drive itself ashore, lifted its prow in the air.
“It’s Tillie’s!” he breathed as they came close.
“It is.” Jeanne’s tone was low.
“The anchor’s gone. Painter cut.” The boy’s trained eye took in every detail. The oars, too, were gone. But within the boat, on a stout cord, mute testimony to Florence’s afternoon of perch fishing, lay a dozen or more dead perch.
“They fished,” said Turkey Trot.
“How long?”
The boy shrugged.
“Is fishing good in this bay?”
“We never come here. Tillie never does. Sand and small rocks. No weeds in the bay. They didn’t fish here.”
“Then why did they come?”
For a time Turkey Trot did not answer. Then suddenly his face brightened. “Lots of raspberries back there.” He nodded toward the fringe of forest that skirted the shore. “Clearing, back a little way. Lots of trails. Might have gone back there and got lost.”
“But the anchor? The cut painter? The dead fish?”
Once more the boy shrugged. “All I know is, we might find something back there. We can’t find anything more here.”
To this argument Jeanne found no answer. They silently grounded their boat on the sand. Turkey Trot drew it up on the beach. He did the same for Tillie’s light craft.
“It’s funny,” he murmured, as he gazed at the painter. “Brand new rope. Looks like it had been chawed off.”
Turning, he put out his hand for the flashlight, then led the way into the timber.
What can be more spooky than following a woodland trail far from the homes of men at the dead of night? Nor was this particular trail devoid of sad ruins telling of other days. They had not followed the narrow, winding, tree-shadowed trail a hundred rods when they came to the ruins of what had once been a prosperous logging camp.
Years had passed since the last sound of axe, the last buzz of saw, the last shout of teamster had died away. The roof of the cook shack had fallen in. A score of bushes had lifted their heads through its rotting floor.
The bunk house, proudly displaying its roof, still stood. Its door, which hung awry, was wide open. Into this door, from off the shadowy trail, a dark spot dashed.
Petite Jeanne started, then drew back. Was it a wolf, a wandering dog, or some less formidable creature? Without glancing back, she at last plodded doggedly on. Since Turkey Trot carried the torch, she was obliged to follow or be left in the dark.
Once more they were lost in the shadows of cedars and birches as the trail wound up a low hill. And then they came upon the most mournful sight of all, an abandoned home.
Standing as it did at the center of a grass-grown clearing, with door ajar and broken windows agape, the thing stared at them as a blind man sometimes appears to stare with sightless eyes. To make matters worse, three tall pines with mournful drooping branches stood in a graveyard-like cluster near the door, while beneath them, shining white, some object seemed a marble slab.
“Boo!” Turkey Trot’s stolid young soul at last was stirred. “We—we won’t pass that way!”
He turned down a trail that forked to the right.
Hardly had he done this than Petite Jeanne gripped his arm.
“Listen!” Her voice was tense.
Turkey Trot did listen, and to his ears came the sound of music.
“It—it’s a banjo or somethin’,” he muttered. “And—and singin’.”
He turned a startled gaze toward the deserted cabin. The sound appeared to come from there. His feet moved restlessly. He appeared about to flee.
“’Tain’t them,” he said in a near whisper. He spoke of Florence and Tillie. “They didn’t have no banjo. And besides, they wouldn’t.”
“Of course not.” Petite Jeanne had him by the arm. “All the same, we must see. They may know something. Many things.”
They moved a few steps down the trail they had chosen. At once they were able to see more clearly. Behind the cabin, and within its shadows, was a half burned-out camp fire. And about the fire people sat.
“Who can these be?” Jeanne asked.
Turkey Trot did not reply. Instead, he took her by the hand and led her farther down the trail.
In time this trail, after circling the narrow hill, came up again, thus bringing them nearer the camp fire.
At last the boy dropped on hands and knees and began to crawl. Following his example, Jeanne lost herself in the thick bed of tall ferns.
They had crept silently forward to a point where it seemed that a parting of the ferns would show them the camp of the strangers, when suddenly a blood curdling scream rent the air.
Instantly Turkey Trot flattened himself to the earth. As Jeanne did the same, she found her heart beating like waves on a rocky shore.
She thought of Tillie and Florence. The tiller of their boat had been cut. She recalled this. Their boat was adrift. Had they been kidnapped and carried here?
Instantly she was on her feet and darting forward. Knowing nothing of her thoughts, anxious only for her safety, the boy seized her foot. She fell heavily, then lay there motionless, as if dead.
The boy was in a panic. But not for long. She was only stunned. Presently she sat up dizzily.
They listened. Then they rose to their feet. A strange sound had come to them. They guessed its origin.
When they reached the camp fire no person was there. Old Tico stood grunting with satisfaction over a box of berries spilled in someone’s hurried departure.
“Tico!” exclaimed Jeanne. “We forgot him!”
It was true. In their excitement they had forgotten the bear. Having smelled refreshments, he had taken a direct course to the strangers’ camp. Beyond doubt he had poked his nose over the shoulder of some fair young lady. A scream, panic, and hasty retreat had followed.
But who were these people that indulged in an after midnight feast in so lonely a spot? To this question the boy and girl immediately sought an answer.
They were not long in forming a partial answer. It was Jeanne who cried out:
“See this handkerchief. Only a gypsy, a French gypsy, wears one like it.
“And this cigarette case!” she added a moment later. “See! It is from France, too!
“Gypsies, French gypsies!” A note of sorrow crept into her voice. “They have been here. Now they are gone. I wanted to see them, only to hear them speak!”
How little she knew.
“Listen!” The boy held up a hand.
From the nearby shore came the thunder of a speed boat leaving the beach.
“Do gypsies have speed boats?” Jeanne asked in surprise.
“Who knows?” was the boy’s wise answer.
“But where are our friends?”
“We won’t find them here.”
Little Turkey Trot was now fully convinced that his sister and Florence had been taken captive by these strange dark people. He knew little of gypsies. He had heard that they carried people away. He did not wish to disturb Petite Jeanne, so he said not a word. Such was the big heart of the village boy.
“Might as well go home,” was his conclusion.
Jeanne did not question this. They passed around the staring cabin and down the trail toward the ruins of the lumber camp.
Turkey Trot walked rapidly. Jeanne, who was afraid of tripping in the dark, was a little way behind him, when she came abreast of the black bunk house that gloomed in the dark. She stole one glance at it. Then her heart stood still. From the depths of that darkness two eyes gleamed at her.
“Green eyes!” She barely missed crying aloud.
With three bounds she was at Turkey Trot’s side.
Even then she did not speak. The boy had not seen the things. Why disturb him? Perhaps she had seen nothing. Those eyes may have been a creation of her overwrought imagination. So she reasoned, and was silent.
Turkey Trot was firm in his belief that the missing girls had been carried away. He fastened a rope to the remains of Tillie’s painter, and took the boat in tow.
“They won’t be back for it,” he muttered. “Big seas come in here. Smash it up.”
At that he started his motor and they went pop-popping toward home in the deep darkness that lay just before dawn.
The sun was high when Florence and Tillie woke on the island where for a time they were Crusoes. Their first thought was of food. To Tillie, Goose Island was no unknown land. She had been here often in winter. The time had been when wild geese laid their eggs here. They came no more. There would be no eggs for breakfast.
“Fish for breakfast,” Tillie declared. “It’s our only chance.”
“No line,” said Florence.
“Yes. Here’s one.” Tillie produced one from the pocket of her knickers.
“Got a can of worms in your pocket, too?” Florence asked with a laugh. To her the affair was becoming a lark. The sun was bright and cheering, the sea a glorious blue. There was not a cloud in the sky.
“Someone will find us,” she declared hopefully.
“We’re a long way off the ship channel,” said Tillie. “We may be here for days. They’ll search the shores for our boats and our bodies.” She shuddered. “They’ll beat the forest for miles before they think of looking on Goose Island. And you may be sure enough that those villains, whoever they were, will never whisper a word of it. They think we are at the bottom of the lake. That’s what they hope, too.
“Florence.” Her tone became quite solemn. “It’s not whether you are rich or poor that counts. It’s whether you are honest and loyal and kind. Take Daddy Red Johnson. He was poor. But he was square and kind. Once when he was fishing for trout he caught a ninety pound sturgeon. Mighty near pulled him through the hole. He got over ten dollars for it. He called that Providence. Said God sent the sturgeon so he could help out a poor Indian who was sick and had only dried fish to eat.
“He was poor. But he was good and kind. Then there’s the Eries. They’ve got millions; yacht worth a hundred thousand, big cottage up here, sailboats, speed boat, everything. But they’re just as square as any poor folks.
“Wait till we get back!” she exclaimed. “Somebody’ll suffer for this! Cedar Point has had enough of that sort of thing. Crooks rob city folks in the winter. Then they come up here to try and have a good time like real people. Do you think they ever can? Not much! Man with a black heart never has a good time anywhere. Cedar Point has had enough badness.
“But there’s the question of breakfast!” she exclaimed. “Plenty of minnows if we can catch ’em. Pull off your shoes.”
For half an hour they labored on the sandy beach, in shallow water, constructing a minnow trap of stones and sticks. They made a narrow pond that could be closed quickly. After corralling a school of sand minnows, they closed them in. One of them was soon flopping on Tillie’s hook.
“Have to swim for my breakfast,” she explained, rapidly disrobing. “Some big old rock bass out there beneath that rock, I’ll bet.”
She plunged into the water, swam thirty yards, then mounted the rock.
Standing there in the morning sunshine, she seemed a statue of bronze.
The statue became a thing of great animation shortly after her minnow hit the water. She had hooked a fish.
“He’s a whopper!” she shouted back. “We’ll get more, too.”
They did. Half an hour later four plump rock bass, spiked to a broad plank, were roasting to a delicious brown.
“Nothing better than planked fish,” said Tillie, as she cleaned up the last morsel and sucked her fingers. “Next problem is one of transportation.”
“Tickets for two,” replied Florence, “and no return tickets, please.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Tillie philosophically. “This isn’t half bad; not near so bad as what was intended for us.”
“No,” Florence’s tone was a sober one, “it’s not.”
“Well,” Florence’s voice took on a more cheerful tone, “this appears to be our island. We’d better explore it. There may be some ‘Man Friday’ just around the corner.”
They started out along the pebbly beach. Here and there they came upon bits of wreckage from cottagers’ docks that had been carried away by the high water. Two posts joined by cross pieces, long planks very full of spikes, short bits of broken boards—such was the driftwood that obstructed their path.
“Enough planks and nails to build a house,” was Tillie’s comment.
“Why not?” Florence became enthusiastic at once. “At least we could build a three-sided shelter with one side open to the fire. That’s good sound lumber.” She struck one plank a thwack with the small axe she carried in her hand.
“We might,” admitted Tillie. “We’d better go farther. Find the best place.”
They trudged on. Then, quite unexpectedly, as they turned a corner, they saw something looming in the distance.
“A boat! A boat!” Florence fairly shrieked this as she went racing away.
She was not wholly wrong. It was a boat. But one of those heavy, flat bottomed affairs, used only by commercial fishermen, it lay bottom up, displaying three stoved-in planks.
“Let’s turn her over.” Tillie’s tone was wholly practical. She had been brought up in a boat.
They put their shoulders to the craft, and over it went.
Tillie tapped it here and hacked at it there with the axe. “Not so bad,” was her final judgment. “Sides are sound. Stern, too. Have to give her three new planks in her bottom. We can calk up the seams with moss and rosin. Make some oars out of cedar poles, and there you are. It’ll be a stiff pull. All of two miles to shore. But we’ll make it.”
“How long will all that take?”
“Maybe two days.”
At once Florence became downcast. She was beginning to think of Petite Jeanne. She had come to this place for rest. “Little rest she’ll get while I am missing!” she thought gloomily. “We ought to get away from here at once. But how can we?”
“All right,” she spoke in as cheerful a tone as she could command. “Let’s get to work at once.”
They did get to work, and made famous progress, too. Lunch forgotten, supper forgotten, they toiled on until, just as the sun was dropping low, Tillie declared the clumsy craft would float.
“No oars,” objected Florence.
“Can pole her close to shore,” replied Tillie. “Try to take her down to our camp.”
This proved a Herculean task. The boat was clumsy and hard to steer. Three times she filled and all but sank. Bailing with a small wooden box they found was slow work. They reached camp at last, tired, soaked to the skin, and ravenously hungry.
“Ought to have caught some fish,” Tillie said remorsefully. “Too late now. Only bullheads bite in the dark. They stay in the bullrushes. None here.”
They made a fire, dried their clothes, then heated some water in a hollow stone. To this water they added bitter willow leaves. As they sipped this they pretended they were drinking tea.
“To-morrow,” said Tillie with a sigh, “I’ll catch a lot of fish.”
“To-morrow I would like to go home.”
“Well, maybe,” replied Tillie thoughtfully. “All depends on that old boat. If she only soaks up so she don’t leak like a gill net, we might.”
There was nothing left for it but to attempt to round out the night with sleep. They were tired enough for that, beyond question.
After building a hot fire, they curled up in their herring box shelter and prepared to sleep.
Florence had all but drifted off to the land of dreams, when she fancied she heard the throb of a motor. The impression was half real, half dream. Reality struggled for a time with dream life. Dream life won, and she slept.
Florence awoke with a start. She sat up abruptly, rubbing her eyes in a futile attempt to remember where she was.
“I am—” she muttered. “This is—”
A dull red glow met her eyes. Like a flash she knew. She and Tillie had started their second night on Goose Island. The red glow was their camp fire, burned low. She had been asleep for some time.
“But that sound!” She was now fully awake. A loud throbbing beat in upon her eardrums.
“It’s a boat! Some sort of motor boat!” she fairly screamed. “Tillie! Tillie! Wake up! There’s a boat!”
Tillie did wake up. She sprang to her feet to stare into the darkness at a spot where a dot of red light was cutting its way through the night.
“He’s passing!” she exclaimed. “It’s that boy in the ‘Spank Me Again.’ He has not seen our fire. We must scream.”
Scream they did, fairly splitting their lungs. And with the most astonishing results.
The crazy little craft gave vent to a series of sharp sput-sput-sputs. Then suddenly it went dead; the light disappeared. Night, dark and silent as the grave, hung over all.
“We—we frightened him,” Tillie gasped. “He—he—went over. He may be hurt, may drown. We must save him!”
“How?”
“Swim.” Tillie was kicking off her shoes.
Florence followed her example. Together they entered the chilling water to begin one more long swim, to the spot where the strange little motor boat had last been seen.
“He’s hurt,” Tillie panted between strokes, “or he’d yell for help.”
Florence thought this probable, and her heart chilled. In their eagerness for deliverance, had they caused another to lose his life? She redoubled her efforts.