Chapter III: Beauty and a Threat

Slipping away from the main dock, the _Wanderer_ moved down the moonlit harbor to find a berth close to the brightly lighted lodge.

After a hasty meal of boiled potatoes and trout fried in deep fat, topped off with coffee and apple pie, Florence felt much better.

The little party went ashore. Dave and Rufus soon settled down in a dark corner to talk with fishermen about boats, motors and the latest catch of fish.

Florence stole off alone to wander down the narrow path that leads to the main dock. Hanging high, the moon shining between the birch trees painted patches of gold on the path. The strong smell of damp earth, mingled with the heavy odor of thimbleberries in bloom, greeted her at every turn. The cool damp of the night made her shiver with sheer joy.

“After all that stifling heat,” she whispered.

Arrived at a spot close to the dock, she turned to one side, climbed a steep slope, scrambled up the side of a great rock, then with hands clasped about her knees, sat looking away at the moonlit harbor that, stretching away and away in that darkness, seemed never to end.

“Glorious!” Suddenly she sprang to her feet to swing her arms wide and to drink in the cool air of night as some famished one fresh from the desert might drink cold water.

“How perfect to live here,” she breathed. “Never too hot nor too cold, and always, always, so beautiful!” And it was beautiful—jagged rocks here, primeval forest there and, far as eye could see, the deep, dark, mysterious waters of Superior.

Yet, even as she stood there, she saw, as in an evil dream, the threat. For, from the far-off shores of Siskowit just then a distant red gleam caught her eye.

“The fire!” she exclaimed breathlessly.

It was true, even as she watched, like the flash of a distant lighthouse, there came a flare that increased in intensity for an instant, then went black.

All too well she knew the meaning of that; those boys had worked hard, but had not entirely won their battle.

A moment passed, then came a second flash. And after that another.

Then, of a sudden, the girl started. She had spied a movement in the bushes close to her rock.

“Who—who’s there?” she demanded.

For the space of a second there came no answer. Then a voice said:

“Them is spruce trees. Dey go up in fire like dat—you have been dere—you have seen. Dey is burning yet. And dey will burn. Dey will burn de whole island. Oh, ya. Dese fires dey is bein’ set by somebody. Oh ya, dey iss.”

“Why?” the girl asked, almost in a whisper. “Why would anyone wish to set a forest fire on this beautiful island?”

There came no answer, only a movement in the brush. The speaker, whoever he might have been, was gone. A strange thrill ran up her spine.

But now the sound of distant music reached her ear, and, as she strained her eyes, she caught the gleam of a moving light. It was over the water.

“The yacht,” she thought. “It is coming.” Once again she settled herself comfortably on her rock to watch the boat’s light grow brighter and brighter, to catch the rise and fall of music that appeared to sway with the boat and at last to hear the deep, mysterious sound, the call of a boat in the night.

“How often,” she thought, “that haunting sound has come drifting in out of the night, the voice of a ship lost in the fog, or in distress on the rocks. But tonight,” once again she stood up to fling her arms wide, “Tonight it is a call of pure joy, a call to a grand good time on the deck of a beautiful yacht. But then I wonder,” she dropped back to her rock, to wonder some more.

It was true that once a boat docked anywhere on this friendly island, the cottagers and lodge guests swarmed aboard. They were always welcome. But she was not dressed for such an occasion. All her party clothes were on shore. She looked at her smoke-browned slacks, at her blouse torn at the sleeve, then murmured with a low laugh, “Invitation to the dance. But not for me. I’ll be a spectator. They won’t even know I am here.”

It was a large white yacht that at last tied up at the dock.

Sounding out in the silent night and across the dark, mysterious bay that lay beneath the stars, the music was enchanting.

The wail of violins, the tum-tum-tum of the bases, the organ-like roll of a piano accordion all seemed to blend with the beauty of the night.

“It’s glorious!” Florence whispered.

At that instant once again her eyes caught and were held by that faint red threat against the sky.

“The fire!” she exclaimed softly. “Must all this beauty vanish? No!” Her hands were tight clinched now. “No! It must not. At all cost we must save the island.”

But now there was a stir on the deck of the yacht. Something unusual was about to happen. What that was, for the moment, she could not tell.

She gave herself over to speculation regarding the people on that boat. Were they rich? Some of them must be. The yacht was magnificent in its burnished brass and polished mahogany.

“Not all are rich,” she told herself. “Some are guests of honor, famous people perhaps, artists, writers, musicians, dancers—”

Scarcely had she whispered this last word when the orchestra began the low rhythmic notes of a gypsy song she knew all too well, and at once a slim, spirit-like figure, clad in a gown that shone like silver in the moonlight, glided out upon the deck and began to dance.

“Jeanne!” The sound that escaped Florence’s lips was almost a cry. “Petite Jeanne! It can be no one else. No one can do those gypsy dances so divinely.”

As she sat there entranced, listening to the enchanting music, watching each gliding movement of the dancer, she became more and more convinced that her good pal of other days, the little French girl, Petite Jeanne, was really there within a stone’s throw of her, dancing as she had never danced before.

“But why?” she asked herself. “Why?”

Jeanne, who had been adopted by gypsies, had at last found true kinfolks in France. She had inherited an ancient castle. Florence believed her rich. And yet here she was, dancing as in those old golden days when they were all very poor and happy together.

Involuntarily Florence allowed her mind to drift back over days that were gone. She saw Jeanne dancing with a bear, before the hedges of France, saw her in the wilds of this very northland, and then in a poor tenement of Chicago. She rejoiced with her again as she recalled her success and triumph as a dancer in light opera.

“And now?” she whispered. She was unable to answer her own question, but her heart yearned to know.

“Perhaps she is still rich,” she thought. “This may be her own yacht. She may be dancing for her guests.” Of this she could not be sure. One resolve she made at once, Jeanne should not be disturbed by an old friend in soiled slacks.

“Very soon,” she thought, “the yacht will leave the dock, the music grow faint in the distance, and Jeanne, like a spirit, will float away into the night.”

“Like a spirit,” she repeated musingly. “Jeanne was always like that, always kind, a great friend, but never quite like other humans.”

The dance went on. Again and again, in response to applause, the swaying figure returned to the deck.

There came at last a time when neither applause nor bewitching music could lure her from her retreat.

“She is gone,” Florence thought, in a dreamy mood, “disappeared down a moonbeam.”

How true this was she was to know soon enough. The deck of the boat was all aglow, but the broad dock was in the shadows. Hidden by these shadows was a little group of onlookers—a cook from the lodge, two roustabouts, a sailor or two. With them were Dave and Rufus. Gliding along in the shadows a slender figure approached this group, whispered a question or two, received her answers, then vanished into the night.

Two minutes later, to her great astonishment, Florence heard her name called ever so softly:

“Florence! Florence! Where are you?”

The big girl thrilled to her fingertips, but did not answer at once.

“Florence!” again the low silvery voice called. “Where are you? It is I, Petite Jeanne. I have come all this way to find you!”

“Here!” The big girl’s voice was husky. She was on her feet now. Tears of joy were in her eyes. “Here. On the rock!”

“Ah!” Jeanne murmured, quoting from a very old book, “Lead me to a rock that is higher than I.” And then they who had had so many adventures together were in each other’s arms.