The person nearest to Florence was a small dark man with beady eyes. Farther away, with his back to the door, was a powerfully built, swarthy man whose broad neck was covered with bristles.
More interesting than these, and at once more terrifying, was a second small man. He was working at a narrow bench. He wore dark goggles. In his hand he held a sort of torch. The light from this torch, when he switched it on, was blinding. With it he appeared to be engaged in joining certain bits of metal. There was, however, on his face a look altogether terrifying.
“I am trapped!” the girl thought to herself. “Ten stories up. And it is night. Why did I come?”
“You wished to see Professor Alcapar?” a voice asked. It was the little dark man who stood before her.
“Yes. I—” the words stuck in her throat. “They have locked the door!” she was thinking a trifle wildly.
“I am Professor Alcapar,” said the little man in a perfectly professional tone. “Perhaps these good people will excuse me. What can I do for you?”
“Why, I—” again the girl’s voice failed her.
Truly angry at herself, she was ready to stamp the floor, when the smooth voice of Madame Zaran said, “Won’t you have a chair? You must have time to compose yourself. The Professor, I am sure, can quiet your mind. He is conscious of God. He makes others conscious of divine power.” The words were spoken in an even tone. For all this, there was in them a suggestion of malice that sent a cold shiver coursing up the girl’s spine.
“You have been kind enough to visit our other place of—of business,” Madame Zaran went on when Florence was seated. “You see us here in a more intimate circle. This is our—you might say, our retreat.”
“Retreat. Ah, yes, very well said, our retreat,” the Professor echoed.
Florence allowed her eyes to wander. They took in the window. At that moment a great electric sign, some distance away, burst forth with a brilliant red light. Across this flash of light, running straight up and down, were two dark lines. She noted this, but for the moment gave it no serious thought. It was of tremendous importance, for all that. A simple fact, lightly observed but later recalled, has more than once saved a life.
“You wished to see the Professor,” Madame reminded her. There was an evil glint in her eye. At the same time the torch in the corner hissed, then flamed white.
“Yes, I—well, you see,” the girl explained in a voice that was a trifle weak, “I am interested in religion.”
“What kind of religion?” Madame Zaran smiled an evil smile.
“Why, all kinds.”
“The Professor,” said Madame, “is the sole representative of a religious order found only in the hidden places of India. It is a very secret order. They are mystic, and they worship fire,FIRE.”
She repeated that last word in a manner that caused the big girl’s cheek to blanch. The torch in the corner went sput-sput-sput.
“Fire,” said the Professor in a voice that was extraordinarily deep for one so small, “Fire destroys all,ALL! All that I know, all thatyouknow may be destroyed by a single breath of flame.”
“Yes, I—”
Florence’s throat was dry. To calm her fluttering heart she gazed again at the window. Once more the red light of that street sign flared out. As before, two dark lines cut across it, up and down. Then, like a flash, the girl knew what those lines were. They ran from the roof to the ground. She had noted them in a dreamy sort of way as she entered the building. Now they appeared to stand out before her in bold relief.
Then there burst upon her startled ears a sharp cry of anger. She looked quickly at Madame’s face. It was black as the western sky before a storm.
“You do not even listen!” She was fairly choking with anger as she fixed her burning eyes on Florence. “You did not come here to seek spiritual advice. You came here as a spy. Aspy!” Her breath failed her. But in the corner the white-hot torch sputtered, and to Florence’s terrified vision, written on the wall in letters of flame there appeared the word,SPY!
“He could burn those words upon one’s breast,” she thought. “With that torch he could burn out one’s heart!” She gripped at her breast to still the hard beating of her heart.
“Why do you spy upon us?” Madame was speaking again. “Is it because we are frauds? Because we pretend to know that which we do not know? What is that to you?
“Is it because we take money from those who can well afford to give? Look you! We are poor. We have no money. But we must live, and live we will! Why not?” She laughed a hoarse laugh. “Why not? And what is it to you if we do live well at the expense of those who are weak and foolish? You and your paper! Bah!” She arose with a threatening gesture. As she took two steps forward her hands became claws, her teeth the fangs of a wild thing.
Florence sprang back in sudden terror.
But the woman before her tottered on her feet. Her face turned a sickish purple.
“No! No!” She gurgled in her throat. “It is not for me! Come, Beppo!”
The man at the bench turned half about. At the same time his torch glowed with a more terrifying flame.
“Fire! Fire!” the Professor mumbled.
But for Florence there was to be no fire. She was half way across the room. Ten seconds later she had thrown up the window and was standing on the ledge.
Caught by surprise, the others in the room stood motionless, like puppets in a play. What did they think—that she would dash her life out on the pavement below? Or did they just not think at all?
To Florence life had always seemed beautiful; never so much so as at that moment. To live, to dream, to hope, to struggle on and on toward some unseen distant goal. Ah, yes, life! Life! To feel the breath of morning on your cheek, to face the rising sun, to throw back your shoulders, to drink in deep breaths of air, to whisper, “God, I thank you for life!” This was Florence always. She would not willingly dash out her own brains.
Nor was there the need. Before her, an easy arm’s length away, were two stout ropes. The roof was undergoing repairs. Material was drawn up on these ropes. They ended in a large tub on the sidewalk ten stories below.
There was not a second to lose. The paralysis inside that room would soon pass. And then—
Her two strong arms shot out. She gripped a rope. She swung out over space. Her feet twisted about the rope. She shot downward. There was a smell of scorching leather. Windows passed her. In one room a char-woman scrubbed a floor, in a second a belated worker kissed his stenographer good-night, and then, plump! she landed at the feet of a young man who, up until that second, had been strolling the street reading a book.
The young man leaped suddenly into the air. The book came down with a loud slap.
“Do—do you do that sort of thing reg—regularly?” the young man stuttered when he had regained a little of his dignity. He looked up at the rope as if expecting to see a whole bevy of girls, perhaps angels too, descending on the rope.
“No,” Florence laughed a trifle shakily, “I don’t do it often.”
“But see here!” the young man exclaimed, “you look all sort of white and shaky, as if you—you’d seen a ghost or something! How about a good cup of java or—or something, on a stool, you know—right around the corner? Perfectly respectable, I assure you.”
“As if I cared just now!” Florence thought to herself. “Imagine being afraid of a young student on a stool, after a thing like that!” She glanced up, then once more felt afraid.
“Fire!” She seemed to hear the Professor say, “Fire destroys all.”
“Yes! Sure!” She seized the astonished young man’s arm. “Sure. Let’s go there. Quick!”
“Curiosity,” said the young man as he reached for the mustard, “once killed a cat. But anyway, I’m curious. What about it? Were you winning a bet when you came down that rope?”
They had arrived safely at the little restaurant round the corner. Perched on stools, they were drinking coffee and munching away at small pies for all the world like old pals.
“No, I—” Florence hesitated. He was a nice-appearing young man; his eyes were fine. There was a perpetually perplexed look on his face which said, “Life surprises me.”
“Well, yes,” she said, changing her mind, “perhaps I was winning a bet with—” she did not finish. She had started to say, “a bet with death.” This, she reasoned, would lead to questions and perhaps to the disclosing of facts she wished to conceal.
“What do you do beside reading books on the street at night?” she asked quickly.
“I—why, when I don’t study books I study people,” he replied frankly. “I’m—well, you might call me a psychologist, though that requires quite a stretch of the imagination.” He grinned. Then as a sort of afterthought, he added, “Sometimes I tell people the meaning of their dreams.”
“And you, also!” Florence exclaimed, all but dropping her pie. She began sliding from the stool.
“No, no! Don’t go!” he cried in sudden consternation. “What in the world have I said?”
“Dreams,” she replied, “you pretend to interpret dreams. And there’s nothing to it. You—you don’t look like a cheat.”
“Indeed I’m not!” he protested indignantly. “And there truly is something in dreams—a whole lot, only not in the way people used to think. Slide back up on that stool and I’ll explain.
“Waiter,” he ordered, “give Miss—what was that name?”
“Florence for short,” the girl smiled.
“Give Florence another piece of pie,” he finished.
“You see—” he launched into his subject at once. “I don’t ask you what your dreams are, then tell you ‘You have dreamed of an eagle; that is a good sign; you will advance,’ or ‘You dreamed of being married; that is bad; you will become seriously ill, or shall have bad news from afar.’ No, I don’t say that. All that is nonsense!
“What I do say is that dreams tell something of your inner life. If they are carefully studied, they may help you to a better understanding of yourself.”
“Interesting, if true.” Florence took a generous bit from her second small pie. “But it’s all too deep for me.”
“I’ll explain.” The young student appeared very much in earnest. “Take this case: a woman dreamed of seeing an elephant balancing himself on a big balloon and sailing through the sky. Suddenly the balloon blew up, the elephant collapsed, and the woman wakened from her dream. What caused that dream?” he asked, wrinkling his brow. “The woman had seen both elephants and balloons, but not recently. Truth is, the balloon and the elephant were symbols of other things.
“When a dream interpreter questioned her, he found that she lived in a large, badly furnished house which she hated. All but unconsciously she had wished that the house would collapse or blow up. The collapse of the elephant symbolized the destruction of the house.”
“And s-so,” Florence drawled, “she had the old house blown up.”
“No, that wasn’t the answer!” the youthful psychologist protested. “The thing that needed changing was her own mental attitude. The way to fit our surroundings to our desires is often to change rather than destroy them. She had the house remodeled and refurnished. And now,” he added with a touch of pride, “she is happy. And all because of the proper interpretation of her dream.”
“Marvelous!” There was a mixed note of mockery and enthusiasm in the girl’s tone. “And now, here’s one for you. I too dreamed of an elephant—that was night before last. I was in a jungle. The jungle seemed fairly familiar to me. I was passing along a narrow trail. There were other trails, but I seemed to know my way. Yet I was afraid, terribly afraid. The surprising thing was, I couldn’t see a living thing, not a bird, a bat, or even a mouse.
“And then—” she drew a long breath. “Then in my dream I heard a terrible snorting and crashing. And, right in my path there appeared an immense elephant with flaming eyes, eyes of fire.Fire.
“Fire!” She fairly gasped at the apparent revelation of her own words. “Fire destroys all,” she murmured low.
“And then?” her new-found friend prompted.
“And then,” Florence laughed with a feeling of relief. “Then I woke up to find the sun streaming in at my window. And, of course,” she added, “it was that bright sun shining on my face that caused the dream.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” said the student. His tone was serious. “I have a feeling that you are in some sort of real danger. I am surprised, now that I recall it, that I did not see the elephant, or whatever he symbolized, coming down that rope after you. You—you wouldn’t like to tell me?” He hesitated.
“N-not now.” Florence slid from her stool. “Perhaps some other time.”
“O. K. Fine! I’m greatly interested.”
“So—so am I.” These words slipped unbidden from her lips.
“Here’s my card.” He thrust a square of pasteboard in her hand.
“Thanks for the pie!” They were at the door.
“Oh, that’s more than all right. Remember—” his hand was on her arm for an instant. “Don’t forget, if you need me to interpret a dream, or for—for—”
“Another piece of pie,” she laughed.
“Sure! Just anything,” he laughed back, “just give me a ring.”
“By the way!” Florence said with sudden impulse, “thereissomething. Can you help people recall, make them think back, back into their past until they at last remember something that may be of great help to them?”
“I’ve done it at times quite successfully.”
“Then I’d like to arrange something, perhaps for tomorrow or the next day. I—I’ll give you a ring.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
“Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
He was gone. Florence felt better. In this great city she had found one more substantial friend. In times like these friendships counted for a great deal.
There come periods in all our lives when life moves so swiftly that things which, perhaps, should be done are left undone. It had been so with Florence. As, a short time later, she found time for repose in the studio under the eaves of a skyscraper, she wondered if she should not have called the police and had that tenth story haunt of Madame Zaran and the Professor raided.
“And after that—what?” she asked herself. To this question she found no answer. The police might tell her she had been seized with a plain case of jitters. Truth was, not a person in that room had touched her. Madame Zaran had indulged in a fit of passion—that was about all.
“Besides—” she settled back in her chair. “It is not yet time. There are things I want to know. How was it that I saw real moving figures in that crystal ball? How much of Madame Zaran’s work is pure show? How much is real? I must know. And, meantime, I must do what I can for June Travis.” With that she went away to the land of dreams.
Jeanne toiled laboriously up the side of Greenstone Ridge on Isle Royale. From time to time she paused to regain her breath, to drink in the cool clean winter air, and to revel in the glorious contrasts of the white that was snow and the dark green that was spruce, fir and balsam.
She was on Isle Royale. More than once she had been obliged to pinch herself to make sure of that.
“Airplanes are so sudden, so wonderful!” she had said to Sandy. “Now we are in Chicago; now we are in Duluth; and now we are on Isle Royale.”
Their trip north had been just like that, a short whirring flight, and there they were coming down upon Isle Royale. Landing on skiis, they had taxied almost to the door of the low fisherman’s cabin which was to be their temporary home.
Here Sandy was to study wild life, find out all he could about trapping wild moose and send interesting stories out over the short-wave radio. Here Jeanne was to wander at will over the great white wilderness. And this was exactly what she was doing now.
“What a world!” she breathed. “What a glorious world God has given us!” Her gaze swept a magic wilderness.
Her heart leaped anew as she thought of the chance circumstances that had brought her to this “Magic Isle” sixty miles from the Michigan mainland in winter.
“I am going to like Vivian,” she told herself. “I am sure she is quite grand.” She paused a moment to consider. Vivian was the fisherman’s daughter. Her hands were rough, her face was tanned brown. Her clothing of coarse material was stoutly made to stand many storms. Jeanne was dressed at this moment in a sweater of bright red. It was wool, soft as eiderdown. Her dark blue knickers were of the latest cloth and pattern. Miss Mabee had outfitted her in this lavish manner.
“Vivian and I shall be the finest friends in all the world!” she exclaimed.
With that, she squared her slender shoulders, threw back her thick golden hair, drew her wool cap down tight, then went struggling toward her goal.
Twenty minutes later a cry of pure joy escaped her lips. “How wonderful! How perfectly gorgeous!
“And yet—” her voice dropped. “How strange! They did not tell me there was a lake on the other side, a gem of a lake hidden away beneath the ridges. I—I doubt if they knew. How little some people know about the places near their own homes!
“I—I’ll give it a name!” she cried, seized by a sudden inspiration. “It shall be called ‘Lost Lake.’ Lost Lake,” she murmured. As she looked down upon it, it seemed a mirror set in a frame of darkest green.
“Hemlock turned to pitchy blackAgainst the whiteness at their back.”
“Hemlock turned to pitchy black
Against the whiteness at their back.”
“My Lost Lake,” she whispered, “I must see it closer.”
Little did she dream that this simple decision would result in mysteries and adventures such as she had seldom before known.
“How wonderful it all is!” she exclaimed again, as at last her feet rested on the glistening surface of the little lost lake.
She went shuffling across the dark, deeply frozen surface. The first spell of severe weather of that autumn had come with a period of dead calm. All the small lakes of the island had frozen over smooth as glass. And now, though the ice was more than a foot thick, it was possible while gliding across it to catch sight of dull gray rocks and deep yawning shadows where the water was deep.
Only the day before on Long Lake, which was close to Vivian’s home, Jeanne and her friend had thrown themselves flat down on the ice, shaded their eyes and peered into the shadowy depth below. They had found it a fascinating adventure into the great unknown. In places, standing like a miniature forest, tall, heavy-leafed pikeweeds greeted their eyes. Among these, like giant dirigibles moored to the tree-tops, long black pickerel lay. Waving their fins gently to and fro, they stared up with great round eyes. Here, too, at times they saw whole schools of yellow perch and wall-eyes. Once, too, they caught sight of a scaly monster more than six feet long. He was so huge and ugly, they shuddered at sight of him. Vivian had decided he must be a sturgeon and marveled at his presence in these waters.
Recalling all this, Jeanne now slipped the snowshoes from off her feet and, throwing herself flat on the ice, began her own little exploring expedition beneath the surface of her own private lake.
She had just sighted a school of tiny perch when a strange and apparently impossible sight caught her gaze. Faint, but quite unmistakable, there came to her mental vision a circle of gold, and within that circle these letters and figures: D.X.123.
One moment it was there. The next it was blotted out by the passing of that school of small fish. When the fish had passed, the vision too was gone.
“I didn’t see it at all,” she told herself. “It was just a picture flashed on the walls of my memory—something I saw long ago. It is like the markings on an airplane—the plane’s number. But it really wasn’t there at all.
“I have it!” she exclaimed. “That must be the number on the airplane that carried us here. I’ll look and see when I get back.”
She straightened up to look about her. As she did so, she realized that the sun had gone under a cloud. Disquieting thought, this may have been the reason for the vanishing picture in the depths below.
“The fish hid it. Then the sun went under that cloud. I must look again.” She settled down to await the passing of that cloud.
“What if I see it again?” she thought. “Shall I tell the others? Will they believe me? Probably not. Laugh at me, tell me I’ve been seeing things.
“I know what I’ll do!” She came to a sudden decision. “I’ll bring Vivian up here and have her look. I’ll not tell her a thing, but just have her look. Then if she sees it I’ll know—”
But the sun was out from behind the cloud—time to look again.
Her heart was beating painfully from excitement as she shaded her eyes once more.
For a time she could make out nothing but rocks and deep shadows. Then the school of small fish circled back.
“Have to wait.” She heaved a sigh almost of relief.
But now something startled the perch. They went scurrying away. And there, just as it had been before, was the circle and that mysterious sign: D.X.123.
Ten seconds more it lingered. Then, as before, it vanished. Once again the bright light had faded. This time a large cloud was over the sun. It would take an hour, perhaps two, for it to pass.
“I must go back,” she sighed. Slipping on her snowshoes, she turned about to make her way laboriously up the ridge.
As she struggled on, climbing a rocky ridge here, battling her way through a thick cluster of balsams there, then out upon a level, barren space, a strange feeling came over her, a feeling she could not at all explain. It was as if someone were trying to whisper into her ear a startling and mysterious truth. She listened in vain for the whisper. It did not come. And yet, as she once more began the upward climb it was with a feeling, almost a conviction, that all she had done in the last few days—the flight to Isle Royale, her hours about the cabin stove, the climb up this ridge, her discovery of Lost Lake and that mysterious D.X.123—was somehow a part of that which she had left behind with Florence in Chicago.
“I can’t see how it could be,” she murmured, “yet somehow I feel this is true.”
That same evening in Miss Mabee’s studio an interesting experiment was in progress. Made desperate by her terrifying experiences in that tenth floor “retreat” of Madame Zaran and Professor Alcapar, and quite convinced that the beautiful June Travis was in great danger, Florence had resolved to use every possible means to discover the whereabouts of June’s father and bring him back.
“Gone ten years!” Doubt whispered to her, “He’s dead; he must be.” Yet faith would not allow her to believe this.
She had put herself in touch with June’s home and had secured permission to invite her to the studio. When June arrived, she found not only Florence, but the young psychologist, Rodney Angel, and Tum Morrow. Tum had his violin.
“The point is,” the psychologist launched at once into the business at hand, “you, June Travis, wish to find your father. If you can recall some of your surroundings while you were with him, we may be able to locate those surroundings, and through them some friend who may know at least which way he went.
“Now,” he said in a tone of perfect ease, “we are here together, four friends in this beautiful studio. Our friend Tum is going to give us some music. Do you like waltz time?”
“I adore it.”
“Waltz time,” he nodded to Tum.
“While he plays,” he went on, “we shall sit before the open fire, and that should remind you of Christmas, stockings and all that. I’m going to ask you to think back as far as you can, Christmas by Christmas. That should not be hard. Perhaps last Christmas was a glad one because all your friends were present, the one before that sad because some treasured one was gone. Think back, back, back, and let us see if we cannot at last arrive at the last one you spent with your father.”
“Oh!” The look on June’s face became animated. “I—I’ll try hard.”
“Not too hard. Just let your thoughts flow back, like a stream. Now, Tum, the music.”
For ten minutes there was no sound save the sweet, melodious voice of Tum’s violin.
“Now,” whispered the psychologist, “think! Last Christmas? Was it glad or sad?”
“Glad.”
“And the one before?”
“Glad.”
“And the one before that?”
“Sad.”
So they went on back through the years until with some hesitation the girl said once more, “Sad.”
“Why?” the psychologist asked quickly.
“I wanted a doll. I had always had a new doll for Christmas. The lady gave me no doll.”
“But who always gave you a doll at Christmas?” In the young psychologist’s eye shone a strange light.
“A man, a short, jolly man.”
“And the last doll he gave you had golden hair?” He leaned forward eagerly.
“No. The hair was brown. The doll’s eyes opened and shut.”
“So you opened its eyes and said, ‘See the fire!’”
“No. I took the doll to the window and said, ‘See the tower.’”
“What sort of tower?” The air of the room grew tense, yet the girl did not know it.
“A brownstone tower. A round tower with a round flat roof of stone. There was a bell in the tower that rang and rang on Christmas Eve.”
“Could you draw it?” He pressed pencil and paper into her hand. She made a crude drawing, then held it up to him.
“It will do,” he breathed. “Now, one more question. What kind of a house was it you lived in then?”
“A red brick house—square and a little ugly.”
“Fine! Wonderful!” Rodney Angel relaxed. “I know that tower. There is only one such in all Chicago-land. It was built before the Civil War. It is a college tower. I doubt if there is more than one red brick house within sight of it. If there is not, then that is where you lived. And if you lived there, we will be able to find someone who knew that short, stout, jolly man who was your father.”
“My father!” the girl cried, “No! It can’t be! He is tall, slim and dignified.”
“Do you know that to be a fact?” The young man stared.
“I saw him in the crystal ball.”
“Oh!” Rodney heaved a sigh of relief. “Well, perhaps your father is subject to change without notice. We shall see.
“And now—” he turned a smiling face to Florence. “How about another cup of coffee and just another piece of pie, or perhaps two?”
“To think!” June looked at the young psychologist with unconcealed admiration. “You helped me do what I have never been able to do before. You made me think back to those days when I was with my father!”
“Some day,” Rodney said thoughtfully, “people will begin to understand the working of their own minds. And what a grand day that will be!
“In the meantime,” he smiled a bright smile, “if you girls have had any dreams you don’t quite understand, bring them to little old Rodney. He’ll do his best to unravel them.
“Now,” he sighed, “how about the pie?”
In the meantime, Jeanne, having returned from her little voyage of discovery on Isle Royale, was learning something of life as it went forward at Chippewa Harbor. Here, on the shores of a little cove, Holgar Carlson, a sturdy Scandinavian fisherman, had his home. There were four children; two girls, Violet and Vivian, about the same age as Jeanne, and two small boys. From November until April no boats visit the island. It would be difficult to picture a more completely isolated spot. And yet Violet and Vivian, who were to be Jeanne’s companions, were never lonesome. They had their duties and their special interests which kept them quite fully employed. And, had they but known it, the coming of Jeanne meant mystery and unusual discoveries.
“Discovery.” Ah, yes, to Vivian, the younger and more active of the two sisters, this was one grand word. On this unusual island she had made many a discovery.
“This,” she was saying to Jeanne with the air of one about to display rich treasures, “is our curiosity shop. Not everyone who comes to Chippewa Harbor gets a peek in here.”
After removing a heavy padlock she swung wide a massive door of varnished logs.
“You see,” she explained as Jeanne’s eyes wandered from one article to another displayed on the shelves of the narrow room, “each article here has something to do with the history of Isle Royale.”
“Only look!” Jeanne exclaimed. “Arrowheads and spear points of copper! A gun—such an old looking one! A pistol, too, and a brass cannon. Some very queer axes! Did you find them all by yourself?” she asked in surprise.
“Oh, my, no!” Vivian laughed. “They come from all over the island. Fishermen are constantly finding things. Some were found where long lost villages have been, or around deserted mines. Then, too, some were taken up in nets.”
“In nets?” Jeanne’s voice showed astonishment.
“You’d be surprised!” Vivian’s face glowed. She had something truly interesting to tell.
“We set our nets close to the lake bottom. Sometimes the water is deep, sometimes shallow, but always the net is on the bottom. Storms come and bring things rolling in. The waves work heavy objects over our nets. If a net is strong enough, when it is lifted, up they come.
“And not so easily either!” she amended. “Sometimes it takes a lot of pulling and hauling. Not so fine when it’s freezing on shore and snow is blowing in your eyes. If you get a log in your net, all water soaked, and so long you never see both ends of it if you work for an hour, then the net slips from your half-frozen fingers, and it’s just too bad! The net is gone forever.
“Look.” She put a hand on some hard mass that rested on the lower shelf. “We brought that up in our net.”
“What is it?” Jeanne asked.
“Lift it.” Vivian smiled.
Lightly Jeanne grasped it. Then she let out a low exclamation. “Whew! How heavy!”
“Eighty pounds,” said Vivian, not without a show of pride. “Solid copper.
“You see,” she went on, allowing her eyes to sweep the place, “it is just this that has made me realize that history and geography are not just dull things to be studied and forgotten. When father brought in that mass of copper, I wanted to know all about it, how it got there and all that.
“Well,” she sighed, “I didn’t find out everything, because no one seems to know whether it was put in its present form by the grinding of glaciers or by the heat of a volcano. I did find out a great deal, though.
“Then,” she hurried on, “one day while I was hoeing in our garden I found this.” She held up a copper spear point. “It belonged to the time when Indians roamed the island, building huge fires; then cracking away the rocks, they uncovered copper. I read all I could about that.
“Then—” she caught her breath. “Then Mr. Tolman over at Rock Harbor gave me this.” She held up a curious sort of pistol. “They called it a pepper-box. It is more than a hundred years old. Perhaps it belongs to fur-trading days, perhaps to the beginning of the white copper-hunter. Anyway, it took me along in my study. And—”
“And the first thing you knew,” Jeanne laughed, “history and geography had come alive for you.”
“Yes, that’s it!” Vivian smiled her appreciation.
“But look!” Jeanne exclaimed. “What’s this? And where did it come from? Looks as if it had been at the bottom of the sea for a hundred years.”
“Not quite a hundred years perhaps,” Vivian said slowly, “and not at the bottom of the ocean; only Lake Superior. It’s an old-fashioned barrel-churn, and we caught it in a net.”
“How very strange!” Jeanne examined it closely. “It’s all screwed up tight.”
“Yes,” said Vivian, “the fastenings are all corroded. You couldn’t open it without tearing it up, I guess. It’s empty.” She tapped it with the ancient pistol butt, and it gave forth a hollow sound. “So what’s the use of destroying a fine relic just to get a smell of sour buttermilk fifty or more years old?” She laughed a merry laugh.
“But you got it in a net at the bottom of the lake?” Jeanne’s face wore a puzzled look.
“About fifty feet down.”
“If it’s full of air it would float,” Jeanne reasoned, “so it can’t be quite empty.”
“Lift it. Shake it,” Vivian invited.
Jeanne complied. “That’s queer!” she murmured after shaking the small copper-bound barrel-churn vigorously. “It’s heavy enough to sink, yet itdoesappear to be empty.”
As Jeanne lay in her tiny chamber that night with the distant roar of old Superior in her ears, she found herself confronted with two mysteries. One was intriguing, the other rather startling and perhaps terrible. The first was the mystery of the unopened churn, the other that of those figures and letters with a circle, D.X.123.
“There it is. Or is it?” Rodney Angel turned enquiring eyes upon June Travis. They had traveled by the third-rail line twenty miles into the country. There before them stood a large stone building topped by a circular tower. Rodney held his breath. If the girl said “No,” all this work had gone for nothing.
June half closed her eyes. A dreamy expression overspread her face. Once again she was thinking back, back, back, into the dim, misty realm of her childhood.
“Yes,” she said quite simply, “yes, that is the tower. I have seen it before. That must have been when I was very young.”
“Then—” the word was said with a shout of joy. “Then right over there is the brick house you once lived in with your father.”
“Our house!” Who can describe the emotions that throbbed through June’s being as she looked upon the home of her earliest childhood?
She was not given long to dream. “Come on,” said Rodney. “There is a little cottage next door to it. Looks as if it were half a century old and been owned by the same person all the time. That person should be able to help us.”
“That person” turned out to be a little old dried up man with a hooked nose.
“Do I know who lived in the red brick house ten years ago?” He grinned at Rodney. “Yes, and forty years ago. There was Joe Green and Sam Hicks, and—”
“Buttenyears ago!” Rodney insisted.
“Oh, yes. Now let me think. It was a—oh, yes! That was John Travis.”
“J—John Travis!” June stammered, fairly overcome with joy. “Oh, Rodney, you surely are a wonder!
“Please!” There were tears in her eyes as she turned to the old man. “Please tell me all about him! He—he is my father.”
“Your father? Yes, so he might be. There was a small child and a woman, a little old woman that wasn’t his wife nor his mother—
“But I can’t tell you much, miss,” he went on, “not a whole lot. He didn’t live here long. Wanderin’ sort, he was. A gold prospector, he was. Made a heap of money at it. Short, jolly sort of man, he was, short and jolly.”
“See?” Rodney reminded her, “Your memory was O. K.”
“Short and jolly—” June murmured, “I can’t understand. In the crystal ball—”
The little old man was talking again. “He seemed to like me, this John Travis. When he went away in an airplane, he—”
“Airplane!” June breathed.
“Why, yes, child! Didn’t you know? He went in an airplane. He invited me to the airport. I saw him off. Just such a day as this one, fine and clear, few white clouds afloatin’. I can see that plane sailin’ away. Recollect the number of it even. It was D.X.123.
“And they say,” he added slowly, “that he never came back!”
“Wh—where was he going?” June’s voice was husky.
“That’s what I don’t know. He never told me that.” The old man looked away at the sky as if he would call that airplane back.
“And that,” he added after a time, “is just about all I can tell you.”
That too was all they found out from anyone that day. The other people living close to the red brick house were recent arrivals. They knew nothing of John Travis.
When June, weary and sleepy from travel and excitement, arrived at her home, she found a telephone number in her letter box.
“Florence wants me to call,” she thought. “Wonder if she’s found out something important. I’ll have a cup of tea to get my nerves right. Then I’ll give her a ring.”
Jeanne watched a blue and white airplane soar aloft over a lake of pure blue. Now the plane was two miles away, now one mile, and now—now it was right over her head. But what was this? A tiny speck appeared beneath the airplane. It grew and grew. Now it was the size of a walnut, now a baseball, now a toy balloon, now—but now it was right over her head! It had fallen from the plane. It was big, big as a small barrel. It would crush her!
But no! She would catch it. She put out her hands and caught it easily as she might have a real toy balloon.
She looked at it closely. It was a barrel-like affair, an ancient churn.
“Not heavy at all,” she whispered.