Ten minutes of running and dodging brought Florence, still gripping her rifle, squarely against a towering wall of rock.
“Did he see me?” she asked herself. “And if he did?”
Dropping back into the protecting branches of a black old fir tree, she stood breathing hard, listening.
Her mind was in a whirl. She had saved the moose. But what of herself?
“Probably a foolish thing to do,” she muttered low. “And yet—”
Her mind took another turn. Who was this man? Certainly he was breaking the law. No man had a right to kill a moose on Isle Royale.
“They are one of the great joys of the island,” she told herself. “Hundreds of people come just to see them. Nowhere else can one see them so easily and safely in their native haunts. If men begin to shoot them they will go to the heart of the island and no one will see them. What a pity!”
Again, who was this man? She thought of the black schooner that had come creeping up the bay in the dead of night and that other one Jeanne had seen by the wrecked ship. Were they the same? And did this man belong to that schooner? To none of these questions could she form a positive answer.
When she had rested there in the shadows until she was sure the man had not followed her, she went gliding along beneath the rocky ridge, then started, slipping and sliding downward, to the camping ground.
Like a patient steed her boat lay waiting on the beach.
“Should hurry back to the ship,” she told herself. But the waters of Duncan’s Bay, so peaceful, so undisturbed and deserted, seemed to call. She answered that call.
After rowing quietly for a half hour, she dropped her oars, took up her rod and began to cast. Her reel sang, the spoon gave off a silvery gleam as, cutting a narrow arc through the air, it sank from sight.
Without truly hoping to catch a fish, she reeled in slowly. She repeated this again and again. Her boat was drifting. She gave no attention to that. Each cast was straighter, longer than the last. Here was real sport.
But wait! Of a sudden the pole was fairly yanked from her hand. “A fish!” she exclaimed. “Oh! A fish.”
She reeled in rapidly. The fish came up from the deep.
“Only a poor little four pound pike,” she sighed as she shook him free.
The little pike had three brothers; at least she hooked that number and threw them back.
Then came a sudden shock. It was as if a powerful man had seized her lure and given it a terrific yank.
“That’s the big boy again, or his brother.” She was thinking of that other night with Jeanne. She set her shoulders for a tussle. “If it is—” She set her teeth tight. “Watch me land him!”
The “tussle” never rightly began. With a suddenness beyond power to describe, a voice in her very ear said:
“So! Now I have you!”
It was the man who meant to murder the aged moose. In his two gnarled hands he gripped a stout ashen oar. The oar was raised for a blow.
What had happened was this. Her mind fully occupied with the fishing adventure, the girl had allowed her boat to drift farther and farther into the bay. She had at last come within the stranger’s view. Still angry because of his interrupted piece of vandalism, he had pushed off from the shore and, by using an oar for a paddle, had stolen upon her unobserved.
That there would be a battle the strong girl did not doubt. How would it end? Who could say? Her pulse pounded madly as she reached for her own oar.
The two small boats were a full mile from the Narrows, through which one enters Duncan’s Bay. At that moment a white fishing boat, fully forty feet long and gay with all manner of flags and bunting, was entering the Narrows.
There were a number of men and women on board, all gayly dressed, and, until a few moments before, enjoying a grand fete of music and dancing. Now they were silent. Duncan’s Bay affects all in this same manner. Dark, mysterious, deserted, it seems to speak of the past. A hush falls upon all alike as they pass between the narrow, sloping walls that stand beside the entrance to this place of strange enchantment.
Conspicuous because of his size and apparent strength, one man stood out from the other voyagers. Garbed in green breeches and a gayly decorated vest, he stood at the prow, massive brown arms folded, silently directing the course of the boat by a slight swaying, this way and that, of his powerful body.
Florence was quick. Hours of work in a gymnasium each day for months on end had given her both the speed and strength of a tiger. Before the intruder could strike she had seized her oar and was prepared to parry the blow.
The oars came together with a solid thwack. Not a word was said as they drew back for a second sally. This was to be a silent battle.
The man tried a straight on, sword-like thrust. It became evident at once that he meant to plunge her into the icy water. What more?
Swinging her oar in a circle, she struck his weapon such a blow as all but knocked it from his hands.
Before he could regain his grip, she sent a flashing blow that barely missed his head, coming down with a thud upon his back.
Turning upon her a face livid with anger, he executed a crafty thrust to the right, leading her weapon astray. Before she could recover, her boat tipped. She fell upon one knee. At the same instant there came a crashing blow that all but downed her for a count of ten. The man smiled.
“I’m done!” her aching heart seemed to whisper.
But what was this? There came the sound of heavy feet dropping upon the bottom of the boat. This was followed by a wolf-like growl. Then came the panting breath of terrific struggle.
Florence regained full consciousness in time to see her adversary caught in the grip of a powerful man, and to witness the feat of strength that lifted him clear of the boat and sent him sprawling into black waters a full ten feet away.
At that her deliverer turned and smiled, showing all his fine white teeth.
“Bihari!” she exclaimed. “Bihari the gypsy!”
“Yes, Miss Florence.” The man bowed. “Here we meet again. And this one—” He glanced at the man struggling in the water. “What of him?”
“It’s not far to shore. Perhaps he can swim that far.”
“Ah, yes, I am sure of that.” Bihari’s grin broadened. “Come then, we will forget him. You will come aboard our fine little schooner. My good Mama will look you over and see if you are hurt.”
To her surprise Florence found the flag-bedecked boat close at hand. The villainous intruder had been outgeneraled by his own tactics. He had come upon Florence silently, unobserved. In this same manner Bihari, witnessing the struggle, had stolen upon him. Not, however, until he had won the battle had Bihari discovered he was defending a long-time friend.
“Florence!” his buxom wife cried as the girl climbed aboard. “It is indeed good to see you! And where is my Jeanne?”
“She—she’s not far away. You shall see her within an hour if you choose.”
“Choose?” Bihari laughed a great roaring laugh. “Have we not traveled half way round the world that we might see her? Have we not traded our vans for a boat that we might come to this place? Show us the way.”
“You saw the wreck as you came in?”
“Ah, yes.”
“That is the place.”
“The wreck?” Bihari stared.
“The wreck,” she repeated.
Without another word this strange skipper mounted the deck to begin that unusual directing of his craft.
Four words came back to Florence, as with her boat in tow, she rode in luxurious ease out of the bay. “We will forget him.” Bihari had said that. He had been speaking of the stranger. Could they safely forget him? Something seemed to tell her they could not.
It is not difficult to imagine Jeanne’s wild joy when, after an hour of disappointment because she had no boat for rowing to Duncan’s Bay, she saw the gay gypsy boat slip from out the Narrows and head straight for the spot where she stood upon the sloping deck.
“Oh!” she cried to Greta. “They are coming! Florence has found them. She knows how I love gypsies who are good. She will bring them.” She sprang into a dance so wild that Greta thought she would spin quite off the deck and go flying through the air to meet the gay white boat.
“It can’t be Bihari!” she exclaimed at last, throwing herself down upon the deck. “It just cannot be!”
It was Bihari for all that. The schooner was still an arm’s length from the side of the wreck when with one wild leap Jeanne was in Madame Bihari’s strong arms.
“Jeanne! My Petite Jeanne!” the good woman cried. Tears stood in her eyes. “Jeanne, you are with us once more!”
There followed hours of great joy, of music and feasting; telling of stories, too.
“In France,” Bihari said to Jeanne, “all is beautiful. Every day grows longer without you. We said, ‘Well, we will return to America.’ And here we are.
“We came to Chicago. You were not there. We came to the shore of Lake Superior. You were not there. They said, ‘She is on an island, Isle Royale.’ We said, ‘Take our vans. We must have a boat.’ See! We have a boat. Is it not a jolly one? And we have you!
“And see!” he exclaimed, pointing at a brown mass of fur against the cabin. “See, we have found you a bear. He is almost as wise as your other one. And Mama here has taught him some of your dances.
“Come!” he exclaimed, poking the sleeping bear with his foot. “Come! Dance for us!”
Unrolling himself, the bear stood up. At first, still groggy with sleep, he looked more like an empty sack trying to play it was a man. When Bihari seized his violin and began to play, it was as if the bear were run by a motor and the current was suddenly turned on. He began hopping about in a most grotesque manner. Soon he and Jeanne were doing a wild, weird dance.
Florence, accustomed to all this from the past, sat looking on in silence. Greta too was silent. Yet how strange it all seemed to her!
“Bravo!” Bihari shouted when the dance was over. “We will visit the island. We will go to every place where there are people. They shall have music and dancing, such entertainment as they have never known before.”
The days that followed were one round of joy for the little French girl. The old wreck became once more a pleasure ship. Flags and bunting were hung on every brace and spar. The deserted cabins overflowed with life and echoed sounds of joy from dawn to dark.
Great flat boxes of clay were brought from the mainland. On these campfires were kindled. Their red and yellow gleam might be seen wavering upon the water far and near. Strange dishes were prepared in kettles hung over these fires. They feasted, danced, sang and told stories by the hour. Both Jeanne and Florence lived the life of the open as they had lived it in France with Bihari and his band.
As for the dark-eyed Greta, it was all so wild and strange she could only sit shyly smiling in a corner, both charmed and bewildered by the ways of these people of the open road.
At times she stole away to the prow. One night, when songs were loudest, she took her violin from beneath her arm and played to the rushing waves. Then again she would sit staring away toward the land where no light shone, dreaming strange dreams.
“Gold,” she would murmur, “a barrel of gold. Florence said there might be a barrel of gold buried on the camping ground.
“But that,” she would exclaim, “that is absurd!” In spite of all her denials, the conviction clung to her that somehow, somewhere a barrel of gold would play an important part in her life.
“Wonder how much that would be?” she murmured. “Enough for—for everything?” For a long time she had wished to study violin under a very great master, and had not been able.
“Money, money, money,” she whispered now. “Some have much more than they need, and some none at all. How strange life is!”
Finding in this no source of joy, she gazed away toward the shores of Isle Royale, to dream that she was once more listening to the magic music of the phantom violin.
In this mood she took up her own violin and was soon lost to all else in an attempt to reproduce the notes of the haunting melody that had come to her that night.
To her unspeakable joy, she found she could catch here and there a few scattered notes. With time it came to her more and more.
So engrossed was she in this joyous adventure into the unknown, she did not know that the gypsy songs had ceased, that soft padded footsteps approached, that a little circle of eager listeners had gathered about her.
“Ah!” someone sighed as her last note died away.
Then, in consternation she became conscious of their presence.
“Magnificent!” Bihari exclaimed. “We have artists of the violin in France. Few play more wonderfully. What piece is that?”
“It—” Greta stared. “Why, that is the song of the phantom.”
“Song of the phantom!”
Greta was obliged to tell her story.
“That is no phantom!” Bihari declared stoutly. “Some great artist is hidden away in those hills. Why? I wonder. I should like very much to hunt him out and sit at his feet. But tomorrow—no, the day after—we become water gypsies again. We must play and dance. Coins must jingle, for we must live.
“And you—” He turned eagerly to Jeanne. “You will go with us, round the island?”
“Yes! Yes! She will go, Jeanne will go!” The gypsy band, all old friends, swarmed about her. What more could she say but “Yes, I will go.”
“And you,” she cried, gathering Greta and Florence in her arms, “you will go also?”
“It would be a grand adventure,” Florence replied, “but Greta is here, in part to rest and grow strong. I think we must stay and keep the ship until your return.”
So in the end this was agreed upon. “And we,” Greta whispered to Florence, “we shall go over to Duncan’s Bay. We shall dig for a barrel of gold and hunt down the home of that phantom who plays so divinely.”
“Yes,” Florence agreed. “We will do just that.” But in her own mind’s eye was the face of a very ugly man. And that man was trying to cut off her head with an ashen oar.
Next day was Sunday. There was no wild and hilarious music on this day, for Bihari and his band were deeply religious. All day they sat about the ship, some in groups talking quietly, and some alone meditating on the ways of a great Creator who rules the waves and watches over His children in all their wanderings.
As darkness fell a bright fire was lighted. Bihari took down his violin and all joined in those sacred melodies that belong to all time, all lands and all people.
Next day, with many a shout of farewell, the gypsy bark sailed away. And in the prow, standing beside Bihari, was the little French girl.
“I’ll be back in ten days,” she shouted back as the wreck began to grow small in the distance.
“Will she?” Florence whispered. “I wonder.”
Bihari and his gypsy band in theirShip of Joyhad scarcely passed from sight around Blake’s Point when the sun went under a cloud and a damp, chill wind came driving in from the north.
“Boo! How cold!” Greta wrapped her sweater tight about her.
With the gay flags down, the hilarious music stilled, the wreck seemed a cold, dull and lifeless place. “Something sinister and threatening about it,” Florence thought.
To Greta she said, “Pack up the things you’ll need for ten days, plenty of warm stockings and the like. We’re going camping on the island. We’ll tramp all over Greenstone Ridge and sleep where night overtakes us.”
“That,” Greta cried, “will be grand! Shall I take my violin?”
“Surely. You might be able to take a few lessons from your mysterious phantom,” Florence laughed as she began packing away eatables that were both light and nourishing.
“There are streams and small lakes,” she murmured half to herself. “We shall have fish to fry, and some berries are ripe, blueberries, raspberries and a sort I have never seen before.
“Here,” she said to Greta as her feet touched the shores of the camping ground on Duncan’s Bay, “here we shall camp for the night. Tomorrow we will go on. I mean to do a little digging.”
“For gold?” Greta stared.
“For a barrel of gold.” Florence smiled. “Well, anyway, for something.”
Dragging a small trench spade from her pack, she studied the lay of the land.
“Now where would one make camp?” she said thoughtfully as her keen eyes surveyed the narrow patch of ground. “Not too far back. Campfire might be blown into the forest and set the hillside blazing. Not too close to the shore either. Wind might come up and drive the waves over you while you slept.
“About here.” She set her spade at the very center of the level stretch of ground that in all is not larger than one city lot.
“You know, Greta,” she said thoughtfully as she began to dig, “it really doesn’t matter whether we find a barrel of gold. Very often people are harmed by having too much money. It’s good for us to work. There are ways of getting things we need—good stout clothes, plain food, and all the education that’s good for us, if we are wise and really work hard.
“We may find gold. No one could be sure we will not. We may find charcoal and scorched bones. If we study these carefully we can say, ‘This fire was kindled two hundred years ago, before ever white men set foot on these shores.’ We will be adding a sentence or two to Isle Royale’s strange history. That’s something.
“And we might—” she was digging now, cutting away the thin sod, then tossing out shovelfuls of sandy soil. “We might possibly find some copper instruments crudely made by the Indians.
“That—” she stood erect for a moment. “That would be a great deal. Any museum would pay well for those. Some may have been found on the island, but I doubt it. But it is known that the Indians came here from the mainland to take chunks of solid copper from the rocks.
“They had to heat the rock, build great fires upon it, then drag the fire away and crack the brittle hot rock.
“Copper!” She breathed a deep breath. “That’s why we have the island instead of Canada. History, Greta, is truly fascinating if you study it as we are doing now, right on the ground. We—what’s that!” she broke short off. Some metal object had clinked on her spade.
“Its a coin!” she exclaimed a moment later. “A very old coin, I am sure!” She was all excitement. “Money! I told you, Greta! Gold!”
It was indeed a golden coin, very thin and quite small for all that. By careful scouring they managed to make out that the words stamped on its face were French. They could not read the date.
“Gold!” Greta seized the spade to begin digging vigorously. “Gold! There was a barrel of gold! The barrel rotted long ago. But the gold, it is still there. We will find it!”
In a very short time the slender girl found her breath coming in deep pants. Blisters were rising on her hands. She might soon have exhausted herself had not Florence shoved her gently to one side and taken the spade from her.
Strangely enough, the big girl had thrown out but three shovelfuls of sand when again her blade rang.
This time the earth yielded a greater treasure—not gold, but copper. A small knife with a thin blade and round handle of copper, it showed the marks of the crude native smithy who fashioned it.
“From the past!” Florence’s eyes gleamed. “The very distant past! How Doctor Cole of the museum will exclaim over that!”
So engrossed were the two girls in their study of this new treasure, they failed to note three facts. Darkness was falling. A stealthy figure was creeping upon them in the shadows of the forest. A short, powerful motor boat had entered the Narrows and was headed for the camping grounds.
In the meantime Jeanne had made an important discovery. TheShip of Joyhad gone cruising round Blake’s Point to turn in at a narrow circular bay known as Snug Harbor.
Jeanne thought this one of the most beautiful spots she had ever known. White lodge building, more than half hidden by fir and balsam, little cottages tucked away at the edge of the forest, and about it all an air of quiet and peace. They were at the door of Rock Harbor Lodge.
“We will disturb their quiet,” Jeanne thought to herself, “but not their peace, I am sure.”
While Bihari was talking with the owner of the lodge regarding a night of music and dancing, she stole away over a path shadowed by mountain ash and fir. At the end of the path she came to a long, low, private cottage, boarded up and closed. Before this house a long narrow dock ran out into the bay. Tied to this dock was a schooner.
“The black schooner!” Jeanne shuddered.
Yet drawn toward it as a bird is drawn to a snake, she walked slowly down the dock to find herself at last peering inside the long, low cabin.
At once she sprang back as if she had seen someone. She had seen no one. The schooner was for the moment deserted. What she had seen, hanging against the wall, was a diver’s helmet.
“The black schooner!” she murmured once more as she hurried away, losing herself from sight in the shadow of the forest.
* * * * * * * *
Back on the camping ground, the first intimation Florence and Greta had that there was anyone about was when, with a startling suddenness, a bright searchlight flashed into their eyes. The light came from the water. At the same time there came the sound of movement in the dry leaves of the forest at their backs. Instinctively Florence whirled about. Her bright eyes searched the forest. No one was there.
* * * * * * * *
When Jeanne once more reached the lodge dock where theShip of Joywas tied, a crowd of people from the cottages had gathered about Bihari and his band. She grasped the sleeve of a tall young man to say in a low, agitated tone, “Do you know what schooner that is?”
“Schooner?” He smiled down at her.
“Yes, the one by that other dock. Over—why!” she exclaimed, “it is gone! It was a black schooner. But now it is not there.”
The tall young man looked at her in a manner that seemed to say, “You’ve been seeing things.” This embarrassed her, so she lost herself in the crowd.
But not for long. One moment, and a pleasing voice was saying in her ear, “And are you the golden-haired gypsy who will dance with the bear tonight?”
When the searchlight from the water had been switched off, Florence saw the dark gray power boat approaching the camping ground.
“Greta,” she groaned, “we should have gone up the ridge at once! There’s no peace or privacy anywhere!”
As the boat came nearer they read in large letters across the prow one word, “CONSERVATION.”
This brought momentary relief to the startled girls. Conservation men are government men and these, Florence believed, could be trusted.
Pulling in close to shore, the boat dropped anchor. A sturdy, sun-tanned man leaped into the small boat they had in tow, and rowed rapidly toward land.
“Who’s the man who went into the bush just now?” he demanded the instant his feet touched land.
“M—man?” Florence stammered. “There is no man.”
“So I see,” the newcomer grumbled. “There was one, though. Don’t try to deceive me! I saw him! He’s short, stoutly built, rather dark, with a week’s beard. Now then! Does that convince you?”
“Yes.” Florence found her knees trembling. “Perhaps,” she thought, “these Conservation men have saved us from trouble without knowing it.”
“Yes,” she repeated, “I believe you are telling the truth. You did see a man. But—but he doesn’t belong to us. Truly he does not! Wait! I’ll tell you about him.”
“Tell me about yourself first. What are you doing here?” The man did not smile.
“Why—we—we—we—” Florence was greatly disturbed. “We came over here from the wreck. We—”
“Oh!” her inquisitor broke in as a smile overspread his face. “You’re the girls living out there on the wreck. That—er—I owe you an apology. We’ve heard of you. You’re O. K. You see, we’re the Conservation men on the island, Dick and I. Got to see that no game is killed, no trees cut, no fires started, all that.
“But tell me now—” His voice took on an eager note. “Tell me about that man.”
Florence told him all she knew. He was, she felt quite certain, the man who had intended murdering Old Uncle Ned, the veteran moose, and the man who had fought with her that battle of oars. She trembled now as she thought what might have happened had not these Conservation men happened along.
“God seems to be keeping an eye on us,” she was to say to Jeanne some time later. And Jeanne was to reply reverently, “He notes the sparrow’s fall.”
“Excuse me,” the Conservation man said when the story was done. “My name is Mell. As man to man, I’d like to shake your hand. The way you saved the old moose was keen. You’re the right sort. I—I’ll get you a job on our force.” He shook her hand warmly.
“But this fellow—” his brow wrinkled. “We’ll have to look after him. He’s a head hunter, beyond a doubt. Fellow can get good money for a fine pair of moose antlers. These rascals come over here and kill our best friends of the wildwood, just for a few sordid dollars. Watch us go after him!”
Leaping into his boat, he was away.
“He’s—he’s all right.” Florence was enthusiastic. “Question is, shall we camp here or try a return trip to the ship?” For a moment all thoughts of the treasure hunt were forgotten.
“Moon will be out by ten o’clock,” she said after a moment’s thought. “Be safer on the water then. We’ll make a fire and have something to eat.”
Their evening lunch over, the girls curled up side by side with the wall of their small tent at their back and the glowing fire before them. All about them was blackness. Not a gleam came from the surface of dark waters. Not a break appeared in the wall of bottle-green that was the forest at their back. For all this, they were not afraid. Swen’s rifle lay across Florence’s knees. Their ears were keen. No intruder could slip upon them unannounced.
“Gold!” Greta whispered. “We found a tiny bit. I wonder if there can be much more.”
“Who knows?” Florence murmured dreamily.
Presently the big girl’s head fell forward. She slept, as the wild people before her had slept, sitting before the fire.
Greta did not wake her. “I will hear in time if there is any danger,” she told herself. She liked the feel of it all, the warmth of the fire on her face, the little breezes playing in her hair, her sleeping comrade, the night, the mysterious forest—all this seemed part of a new world to her. She smiled as she thought of her own soft bed at home with its bright covers and downy pillow. “Who would wish to live like that always?” she asked herself. “Who—”
Her thoughts snapped off like a radio singer who had been cut off. Wind was beginning to come down the bay and, wafted along by it was a sound, faint, indistinct but unmistakable.
“The phantom violin!” she whispered.
This time the sound came from so great a distance that it was but a teasing phantom of sound.
She wanted to slip away into the forest and follow the sound. But she dared not.
* * * * * * * *
Petite Jeanne was with her wild, free friends of other days. In the pale light of Japanese lanterns she danced with the bear the old fantastic dances of those other days. When it was over and she passed the tambourine for Bihari, a great weight of silver coins thumped into it. For a moment she was deliriously happy. When it was all over and she had rowed alone in a small boat out to the center of the narrow bay, her feelings changed. For one short moment she wished herself back on the wreck with Florence and Greta.
“But I must not!” She pulled herself up short. “Bihari and his people have done much for me. I must not fail them now.
“Ah! But this is beautiful!” she breathed a moment later. “And I shall see it all—all this marvelous island!”
The scene before her was like some picture taken from a fairy book. A dark circle of forest with only a pale light gleaming here and there like a star, and at the center of all this the lights of a long, low room casting mellow reflections upon the water.
Figures moved about like gay phantoms in this light. To her ears came the low melody of guitar and violin.
“It is so beautiful!” She felt her throat tighten with the joy of it all. “And yet—”
She was thinking of the black schooner that had slipped away into the great unknown lying away beyond the shrouds of night.
“The diver was on that schooner,” she assured herself. “What if they return to our home, our poor wrecked ship! They may set fire to it! They may blow it up with dynamite!” She shuddered. “They came there to look for something. I wonder what it could be? Florence is a famous diver. When we are back at the wreck—if we ever are,” she murmured dreamily, “she shall dive into that place and see. She—”
But someone was calling her name. She must return to the shore. Her brief hour of revery was at an end.
* * * * * * * *
On the camping grounds at Duncan’s Bay for two hours Florence slept. When she woke the moon was out. The wind too had risen.
“Waves will be too high,” was her instant decision. “We must stay here for the night.”
“And tomorrow,” Greta whispered eagerly, “tomorrow at dawn we will go up the ridge.”
“Why so soon?”
Greta told of hearing that faint thread of music.
“We shall see,” said Florence, and began preparation for the night.
Their tent was small, only seven feet square. It had a floor of canvas. Once inside with the flap buttoned tight, they were as securely housed as the caterpillar in his chrysalis.
Greta was not slow in creeping down among the blankets. She went to sleep at once.
As for Florence, she drew on her heavy sweater, thrust her feet under the blankets, propped the rifle against the tent wall and, folding her arms across her knees, sat at half watch the night through.
The sun had not cleared the tree tops when the Conservation boat appeared. It had a small black power boat in tow.
“We waited for him all night, that head hunter,” Mell explained. “Didn’t show up. Hoofed it back into the hills, I guess. The boat was stolen. We’re taking it back.
“No good, his hiding in the forest,” he concluded. “We’ll get him, you’ll see. Tell every ship captain to watch for him.”
“I hope,” said Florence when they were gone, “that they get him very soon.”
A half hour later, with packs on their backs, the two girls headed up the rocky slope.
“Treasure hunt can wait,” was Florence’s comment. “We can go after that when Jeanne is back. Now we’re going to explore Greenstone Ridge.”
This course, she had thought during the night, might seem a bit dangerous with the head hunter still at large. “But the ridge is a trackless wilderness,” she had reassured herself. “He will never come upon our trail.” Which, as you will see by what follows, was a fair conclusion.
The events that followed the climbing of Greenstone Ridge on that bright and beautiful day were strange beyond belief.
Late next afternoon theShip of Joywith Bihari and his band, including Jeanne and the bear, went gliding down the long, narrow stretch of water known as Rock Harbor. As Jeanne, seated in a sunny spot on the deck, watched the small island to the left go gliding by, she felt, as one feels the current of galvanic electricity go coursing through his system, the thrill and mild terror that comes when one senses impending adventure, terror, or disaster. She could not tell what was to happen.
“Something will happen,” a voice seemed to whisper. “You are coming nearer and nearer.”
She did not doubt the voice. It had come to her before. Such is the gift of wandering people; they feel and know in advance.
No, she did not doubt. And yet, the low sun shone so mildly, waves lapped the boat’s sides so dreamily, islands of green and brown glided by so like drifting shadows, she forgot all else and, stretching out upon the deck, she surrendered herself to the spell of it all.
Not for long. A chill wind came sweeping over the tops of the islands. Dark clouds scurried overhead.
“This is bad!” Bihari grumbled. “Our next stop is Chippewa Harbor. We must go out into the lake to get there. Lake Superior is bad when he is angry. He puts out hands and seizes small boats. He drags them down and they are never seen again.
“At Chippewa Harbor there are little cabins and just now a large party camping in tents. We will sing and dance for them.
“But tomorrow—” he laughed a large, good-natured laugh. “Tomorrow. We have with us always tomorrow. That will do.
“In this harbor we are safe. Tonight we will sing for ourselves.”
He was right. When at last they reached the narrow passage through which they were to glide into broad, open waters, they saw an endless field of black and white, a stormy sea.
Pulling in behind a small island where the wind could not reach them and the water was at rest, they dropped anchor and at once the gypsy band were engaged in a merry and quite innocent revel of wild music.
Jeanne did not join them. Had one asked her why, she perhaps could not have told. She thought of Florence and Greta, wondered if they were at the wreck or on land, wondered, too, how the wreck would stand the storm. She thought of friends in Chicago and her castle in France where her great-aunt saw to it that she lived up to her position as a great young lady.
“Life,” she whispered, “is strange. We long for the past. And when we find it again, we are not sure that we want it. Life, it seems, goes on and on, but never truly backward. We must go on and on with it to the end. And then—
“Oh, but life is truly wonderful!” she cried, springing to her feet and doing a wild fling across the deck. “Who would not love to live on and on and on forever!
“And perhaps—” her voice dropped as if in a prayer. “Perhaps we shall.”
Jeanne’s soul was like a day of clouds and sunshine, a change with every tick of the clock.
Next instant she had caught sight of a tall, narrow tower rising above a low building.
“The abandoned lighthouse!” she cried. “That is where our good friend the fisher boy, Swen, lives. He told me he had his home with his father and mother in that tower. What an odd home it must be! No corners in the rooms at all. Oh, I must see it and our good friend Swen!”
Next instant she sprang into a boat bumping at the side of the schooner, untied the rope, seized the oars and rowed away alone. Even as she did this there came over her again that sense of impending danger.
* * * * * * * *
Greenstone Ridge, like the backbone of a very lean horse, runs the entire length of Isle Royale. The crest of that ridge may be reached only by climbing a very steep slope. This climb is broken by narrow plateaus. When Florence and Greta had reached the first plateau they turned their backs upon that end of the island that was known to them and headed straight on into the great unknown.
They came at once upon a well-trodden moose trail. Hundreds of moose wander from end to end of this strange island. This trail made travel easy. Moss soft as carpet, bits of soft wood beaten into pulp, with here and there a stretch of black earth or gray rock, offered pleasant footing for their patiently plodding feet.
“We’ll stop at noon,” Florence said. “Have a cold lunch and a good rest. We’ll travel some more after that. When we’re tired we’ll find a big flat rock, build a fire, make hot chocolate, fry bacon, have a real feast. Then the tent and blankets. We’ll be living where no one has lived, explorers. Won’t it be grand?”
Greta had thought it might be. She did not feel quite sure. Pictures of her own safe bed, of a table spread with snowy linen and shining silver, floated before her eyes. “If mother could see me now!” she whispered.
“But, oh, it is good to breathe—just breathe!” Throwing back her shoulders, she drank in a breath of air that was like water, clear and cold from a deep well.
On this long tramp Florence led the way. Never a person who would waste breath with idle talk on such an occasion, she plodded along in silence. For all that, her active brain was busy. She was thinking through a very special and private interview she had had with Swen the fisher boy only three days before.
“So you are going way back up yonder?” He had waved a sun-browned arm toward the distant ridge.
“Yes.” Florence had caught her breath. “Yes, we are going up there. Won’t it be gr-a-a-nd! They say no one goes up there—that perhaps no one has ever been up there. It must be lonely, silent, beautiful!”