Chapter XVIII: Dreaming at Dawn

After ten winks caught in the scout’s cozy cabin, Red Rodgers and Berley Todd were up before dawn.

“I don’t think much of the bush wolves as weather prophets,” Red said in a hoarse whisper. He was ever conscious that their lives were in danger. “What a morning! We must get a rowboat and be away for Passage Island.”

“In the light of day?” The girl pressed his arm hard. “They’d see us. Then all would be at an end. But no, perhaps not. There are islands, small islands all in a row that lie half a mile off this main shore. Once behind those, we would be hidden.”

“Let’s have a look. Which way is the shore?”

“Over this way.” The girl led him down a path that, circling a clump of bushes, led them past a group of buildings that loomed large in the blue-gray dawn.

They passed through tall grass drenched with dew, to climb at last a pile of rocks and finally reach a great boulder that overlooked the water.

In this moment of hushed silence just before dawn, the water was like glass, smooth white glass.

“What could be sweeter? We must find a boat at once.” Red turned his eyes upon the girl.

He realized at once that she had not heard him. She was listening instead for some sound that must come from far away.

Without willing it, he also listened; heard it, too, a long, deep, long-drawn sigh. No human sigh was this, but the sigh of great waters. He heard it again and yet again.

“It is as if Father Superior were waking from his sleep,” the girl whispered. “It tells of a coming storm. We must not go. We must wait.”

They had not long to wait. As the water took on the faint pink of dawn a mist appeared to rise from afar and to steal upon them.

One by one the distant points of land became misty suggestions, mere ghosts of earth. Like ten thousand great white fish leaping in the sea, two miles away white-caps appeared, while in the foreground with the gray-black sky as a reflecting mirror, the water took on a startling clearness.

Gulls ceased to soar and scream. Settling upon a rocky ledge, they stood erect, silent, like uniformed officers observing the outcome of a battle. From time to time a member of the party, some aid-de-camp, came soaring in to report the results of his observation.

And all the time ten thousand spots of gleaming white advanced. Now they were two miles away, a mile and a half, a mile, half a mile. Like some dirigible swept from its mooring, a fragment of cloud detached itself from the vast mass and came sweeping over. It left in its wake a disturbing chill.

And now the spots of white lay before them, at their very feet. A burst of wind swept the hair back from the girl’s temples. The wind increased in volume. Waves began beating at the rocks. A few large rain drops spattered.

And then, with a suddenness that was startling, the storm broke. Rain came down in torrents. Wind twisted at the birches, and set all the spruces whispering and sighing. The ever-increasing roar of water on the rocks vied with the din of crashing thunder. The sky, laced and interlaced by lightning, revealed itself as some vast shroud. There are no storms like the storms of November.

But even the fury of nature is futile. Men do not agree upon man’s destiny. No more does nature agree upon its own. Rain beating upon the water subdued it. White water vanished. The beating of waves subsided. Having outdone itself, in its mad fury, the wind swept the clouds to other lands and other waters. A brief half hour and a scene of surpassing beauty, a tiny world studded with diamonds lay before the waiting pair.

“It is over,” Red whispered from the depths of a great spruce where they had found shelter.

“For now,” came the girl’s experienced reply. “For all that, we do not stir from this spot. Superior has moods all its own. And remember, Superior never gives up its dead.”

Leading the way out from their sheltered nook, she perched herself upon a high rock. Red took a place beside her. When she spoke again a dreamy look had overspread her countenance.

“This,” she said, spreading her arms wide, “this is Isle Royale. Forget the drifting leaves, the gray tossing branches. It is summer now. Night has come and a great golden moon paints a patch of silver down the bay. The rippling water seems alive. Every tiny wave bears a tinier craft upon its bosom—the silver schooner of a fairy.

“Listen! From far down the bay comes, wafted on by the breeze, the faintest suggestion of a song. What is it, the whisper of a bird talking to his mate?

“No. There comes the put-put of a motor, yet even this seems to keep time to the music that, gathering power and sweetness, floats on and on down the bay. A craft appears. All white in the moonlight, it seems as unreal as a fairy’s dream.

“Strange men who drift about our island in tiny gas boats. Like gypsies they are. They are here. Who are they? You do not care to know. Where did they come from? The mines, the forests, the pulp mills perhaps. This does not matter. They are here. They have a tune for you. They belong to the night.

“So, with the moon hanging high, they drift down that silver patch of moonlight to vanish into the night. And still, long after they are lost from sight, comes wafted in by the wind and waves faint, sweet music that one cannot forget. This,” she sighed, “is Isle Royale in summer. And you have not seen it, and have never heard it.”

“But all this—” Red smiled down at her. “All this is play. And I never play.”

“But you will! You must!” she exclaimed in a breath. “You will play with me here. See! A storm is rising, a three days’ storm.

“See! It is light. We are in danger! We must hurry back to our refuge.” Like a gleam of white light she was away.