Chapter XXII: Strange Comrades in Battle

When Florence learned of Jeanne’s exciting discovery on Birch Island she was for going there at once.

“You saw him!” she exclaimed. “The boy in the crimson sweater? The firebug?”

“Yes,” Jeanne replied quietly. “The boy in the crimson sweater.”

“What is he like? Does he look dangerous? What if—”

Florence shot a dozen more questions at Jeanne. Strangely enough, the little French girl was quite vague in her answers, much more so than the occasion warranted. And, when the question of her accompanying Florence arose, she pleaded a headache.

“It’s only a two hour’s run in a small motor boat,” Florence said to Dave. “You have another wait of several hours?”

“That’s right.”

“Then suppose I hire the lodge fishing boat and get Indian John to run me over here?”

“O.K. by me. You might take Katie with you. But watch your step! If this fellow is really a firebug, he may be dangerous.”

“I’ll watch,” Florence was off.

Arrived at Birch Island, they found the fisherman’s cottage just as Jeanne had left it. But when, after a silent march down the island, they came to the spot where the log shelter had stood, they discovered that it was gone.

“Every trace of it,” Florence exclaimed.

No, this was not quite true. Dry moss had been strewn over the spot upon which it had stood. When this was dragged away, they found a smooth, hard surface which once had been an earthen floor.

“Jeanne was not dreaming.” Florence looked about her as if expecting the mysterious boy to appear. “There has been a shelter here. But now it’s gone.”

“Easy to move,” said Indian John. “Take ’em down logs. Put ’em in boat. Row away, that’s all.”

“Yes, or just throw the logs into the lake and let them float away,” said Katie.

For some time they stood there in silence. At last Florence said, “I am not Jeanne and not a gypsy, but she says there is always a third warning and so there shall be.”

Imitating Jeanne, she wrote her warning on birch bark. It read:

“The Gypsy’s third warning. And the last. A last chance to clear
yourself. Once we leave Birch Island, we shall set a company of
fire-fighters on your trail.

Signed,
The Gypsy’s Friend.”

After pinning this note to a tree with the aid of three long thorns, she was prepared to follow her companions back to the fisherman’s cabin.

It was a silent and mystified Florence who walked slowly back. All that had happened appeared to prove that she was right. This boy wished to hide. Why, unless he were doing wrong? And what was more probable than that he was setting fires? And yet— Why had Jeanne been so silent, so reluctant to tell all?

As they at last stood again on the small fisherman’s dock, Florence looked at Indian John’s jet black hair and smiled.

“John,” she said, “you are rapidly growing gray. There are white ashes in your hair.”

It was true. Fine white specks of ash were slowly drifting down from the sky.

“The threat is still with us,” the girl murmured.

Nor, on this day, was it long in making itself known. A brisk wind, blowing off the island, began bringing in an uncomfortable feeling of heat. Then, quite suddenly, like battling troops coming out of the trenches, a long line of flames appeared at the crest of a low ridge not a mile from Birch Island.

“Florence!” Katie exclaimed. “It is terrible. This beautiful island will burn unless—”

“Unless what?” Florence asked eagerly.

“Unless we can save it.”

“How?”

“There are many birch trees, not so many balsams. Balsam needles will catch from sparks. Birch leaves will not. If we cut away the balsams and throw them into the water—”

“We must try,” Florence broke in. “All this,” her gaze swept the small island, “must not be destroyed.

“John,” she said, turning to the Indian, “run the boat to a safe spot and anchor it. Come back in the skiff. We must all do our best.”

“Perhaps,” she thought grimly a moment later, “that boy in the crimson sweater will be smoked out like an owl in a hollow tree.”

Very little she knew about the truth of her prophesy. Not knowing, she dragged a dull ax from the fisherman’s cabin and began doing her bit to save Birch Island.

It was a battle indeed. As the wind increased and the fire crept closer not ashes alone, but tiny, glowing sparks fell at their feet.

Whacking away at the trunks of small spruce trees, dragging them to the water’s edge, then whacking and dragging again, Florence never faltered. Grim, grimy, and perspiring, hating her dull ax, she toiled doggedly on. One thought was uppermost in her mind, this battle, perhaps their last, must be won.

And then she received a sudden shock. A boy stood beside her. Taller than she, he smiled down at her. He was dressed in high boots and corduroys. His blue, plaid shirt was open at the neck. In his hand he carried an ax with a razor-like edge. She had never seen him before.

“Come on in,” she invited.

“What are you doing, may I ask?” He smiled again.

“We are saving this island,” she fairly snapped. “If—if we get all the balsams out it won’t burn.”

“Say! That—that’s an idea!” His face brightened like a sky after a storm.

“I’ll cut. You drag ’em off,” he said shortly.

After that for a full hour it was cut and drag, cut and drag, a seemingly endless task. And the fire grew hotter every moment.

Not even the girl’s strenuous endeavors could keep her from wondering about that boy. Who was he? Where had he come from? Why was he here?

“He works like one who is defending his own home,” she told herself.

Strangely enough there was something vaguely familiar about his movements. “As if I had seen him before. But I can’t have.”

Then a strange and mystifying thing happened, as the boy bent over to pick up his ax which had slipped from his aching fingers, a small square of white fluttered from his pocket to the ground. He was quick in retrieving it but not quick enough. In one corner of this girl’s handkerchief Florence had read the initials, “J. E.”

“Jeanne’s handkerchief,” she whispered to herself with sudden shock. “Where did he get it and why does he keep it?” Strangely enough, at that moment, all unbidden, three words came into her mind, “The Gypsy’s warning.” Then the stern business of the moment claimed her entire attention.

The last, slim end of the island was closest to the fire. The heat became all but unbearable. Twice the boy’s cotton shirt began to smoke. At last he drew it off, and dipped it in water, to put it on again.

Then came the moment when the last balsam tree toppled into the water.

“Come on,” he grabbed Florence’s arm. “We gotta get out o’ here quick.”

They did get out quick.

When at last Florence reached her skiff where Katie and Indian John were anxiously waiting, to her astonishment she saw the strange boy go racing away.

“Wait!” she called. “Come back.”

Did he hear? It seemed he must. But he raced straight on.

“We’ll just row out a little where the heat is not so bad,” Florence suggested. “Then we’ll wait and see what happens.”

This they did. The moment when the raging furnace reached the water’s edge, then came to a sudden halt, was a glorious one indeed.

Florence was watching with all her eyes when, of a sudden, she seemed to hear oarlocks creaking. At first, looking out over the smoke-clouded water she saw nothing. Then she caught the shadowy outline of a small boat moving out on the water.

“Must be that boy,” she told herself. “But where is he going?”

The answer came to her at once. Beyond him was the outline of a small power boat. He was rowing toward that.

Strangely enough, just as he reached the motor boat’s side, a current of air lifted the smoke and everything stood out clearly.

“It _is_ that boy,” Florence said aloud. “But what’s he doing?”

“Standing up in his row-boat,” said Katie.

“Putting on a sweater. A crimson sweater!” Florence was ready to fall from the boat in her excitement. “He—he’s that boy, the boy in the crimson sweater. And how he has fought this fire!

“And that motor boat!” she exploded again. “It’s the one Jeannie says carries the Phantom Fisherman.”

Then, as if a curtain had been dropped, the smoke fell hiding the boy in the crimson sweater, the Phantom and all. Was Florence sorry? She could not tell.

She did not know it at that moment, but this was the last time she was to see either the Phantom or the boy in the crimson sweater on Isle Royale.

“It’s the end,” Florence thought, as they went chugging back toward Tobin’s Harbor. “The wind is really shifting. It will drive the fire back upon itself.” Even as she thought this, cold drops of rain struck her cheek. Rolling up from across the lake a real rainstorm, the first in weeks, was on its way.

Two hours later, drenched to the skin but joyously happy, the little party arrived at Tobin’s Harbor.

Late that night, the great log cabin used as a lounge for the lodge was comfortably crowded with people. The little fisherman’s wife was there. One child was asleep in her lap, another played at her side. On her face was a look of joy.

“Listen!” she was saying to the old man near her, “how it rains!” Great sheets of rain were beating against the window panes. “A northeast wind,” she added in a whisper, “the fires are over. Our homes and our islands are safe.”

This was the joyous feeling in every heart. That was why they were there. Drawn together by an invisible bond of common interest and friendship in hope and in despair, they had gathered to celebrate.

In the corner, an impromptu trio—piano, cello and violin—began playing, _Over the Waves_.

As the music rose and fell, as the sparks from the driftwood fire leaped toward the sky, Florence thought that no moment in her whole life had been as joyous as this.

“Jeanne,” she exclaimed, “you must dance. Dance to the patter of rain on the roof.”

“Yes,” Jeanne agreed almost eagerly, “I shall dance. I have been practicing a new dance quite in secret.”

“A new dance,” exclaimed one of the musicians, “what is it?”

“_Dance of the Flames_,” said Jeanne.

“Good! We have the very thing, an Indian dance to the fire god—you shall dance to our music.”

A few moments later, after the lights had been dimmed, when the flames from great logs in the broad fireplace leaped high and the strains of a weird Indian dance rose from the corner, a slender figure clad in garments of orange and red, with two long scarfs streaming behind, came dancing into the room.

It would be hard to describe the dance that followed. Only the little French girl could have so caught the movement and seeming spirit of flames. Now she was a low fire creeping stealthily upon some stately spruce tree. And now, urged on by some mischievous wind, she went rushing forward. And now, by a trick performed with the scarfs, she appeared to rise straight in air as the flames rushed to the very top of the tree.

When at last, quite exhausted, she flung herself down at Florence’s side, there came a burst of applause that would have done credit to a much larger gathering.

Katie arrived with a great pot of delicious hot chocolate and a pan of cakes. They ate and drank and then, led by a very pious old cottager, sang a hymn of thanks to the God who, with their aid had saved their island for them and for their children, years on end.

“Jeanne,” Florence whispered, as they groped their way back to the boat, “it is for such times as these that we live.”

“Ah, yes,” the little French girl agreed, “for such times as these.”

Just then Florence caught the sound of a voice that caused her to start. “Ya dese fires dey will be over now. Dis is de end we is been waiting for so long.”

At that Florence did a strange thing. Rushing up to the aged fisherman who had spoken she said, “You are the man!”

“Ya, I is de man,” the fisherman agreed, “but what man, this is de question?”

“Twice I heard you say the fires were being set.”

“Ya, it may be so.”

“Why did you say that? Was it true?”

“Perhaps ya. Perhaps no,” was the strange answer, “dese is been hard times. Might be we old men think too many t’ings.” At that the old man disappeared as silently as usual into the night, leaving the girl with her own thoughts.