A STRANGE CATCH
In the meantime there were things to do. The boat must be dragged up and
turned over, to afford them a shelter for the night. Balsam tips must be
gathered. These are nature’s mattresses. Over these their blankets must
be spread. This accomplished, they would think of supper.
Three pairs of eager hands accomplished all this in a surprisingly short
time. Then, over a fire that had burned down to a bed of glowing coals,
they brewed strong tea, toasted bread, broiled bacon, and in the end
enjoyed a delicious feast.
After this, with a great log at their backs, they sat staring dreamily at
the fire.
“It’s so good to live,” Jeanne murmured.
“Just to live,” Florence echoed.
“And breathe,” Greta added. “You can’t know how it feels to take one
long, deep breath of this glorious air, after you have struggled and
struggled just for a tiny breath of life.”
For some time after that they sat in silence. Florence was thinking of
the wreck, wondering what might be happening to it in their absence. In
her short sojourn there she had come to love the old _Pilgrim_ that would
sail no more.
“A diver,” she whispered low. “He came in search of something. I wonder
what? Will I ever know?”
Jeanne’s thoughts were in far-away France. The glowing coals reminded her
of many another campfire that had warmed her on the sloping hillsides of
France.
“Bihari,” she thought, “I wonder where he and his gypsy band are
tonight?” He had returned to France. She had left him there. But gypsies
seldom remain in one place. “He may be back in America.” She listened to
the rustle of cottonwood leaves. They seemed to say, “He is in America;
you will see him soon.”
“But how could this be?” She smiled at her own fancy. “He is a gypsy. I
am on an island. Can he drive his van across miles of water?” But
gypsies, she knew right well, went where they chose. Neither wind, storm
nor broad waters could stop them.
As for Greta, she was hearing again the magic music of the phantom
violin. “Some day,” she told herself, “I shall see that violin and the
hands that created that entrancing melody.” But would she? Who could
tell?
“Do you know,” Florence at last broke in upon these reveries, “Swen is a
fine boy. I wish we could help him with that boat affair he told about.”
“What boat affair?” Jeanne looked at her.
“Don’t you remember? He said it would help the whole island. There are
many fishermen living all around the island. A boat comes twice a week
for their fish. And the captain pays so very little for their fish! In
these hard times money is so scarce the fishermen are being obliged to
stay on the island all winter. And some of them have no opportunity to
send their children to school.
“Swen says they are trying to charter a boat so they can carry their own
fish to market. Not a big boat, but large enough. They’ve got some money
pledged. But it is not enough. So there you are.”
Swen was a fine young fisher boy whose nets were set not far from the
wrecked _Pilgrim_.
He it had been, who pointed out to them what a wonderful summer home the
wreck might become. For a very little pay he had assisted them in fitting
up their rooms. He had rented them a boat and had thrown in much
equipment besides.
“He’s a fine boy,” Florence repeated. “When hard times came he was
planning to enter college. Now—”
“Now if we only could help him!” Jeanne put in eagerly. “He might go!”
“They live in a lighthouse,” Greta said, “he and his people do. He told
me.”
“How romantic!” Jeanne hugged her knees. “We should see him in his
lighthouse tower.”
“But most of all I wish we could help him,” Florence said. “All we need—”
she prodded the ground with a sharp stick. “All we need is a barrel of
gold. Greta wants a fine music teacher. I’d love to travel. Swen wants a
boat for his people. And you, Jeanne, what is it you want?”
“I?” Jeanne laughed. “Only happiness for all my good friends.”
“A barrel of gold,” Florence repeated dreamily. “And perhaps it is right
beneath us, in this very soil.”
“Beneath us?” Greta stared.
“Why not? A very small barrel, even a tiny keg. This spot, the only level
ground on the shores of this bay, has been a camping ground for countless
generations. The Indians came to Isle Royale to pound out native copper
from the rocks. They built their campfires right here. Swen says if you
dig down you will find the remains of those campfires still.”
“How thrilling!” Greta’s eyes were large with wonder. “Suppose we dug
down and found some treasure—a barrel of—. But then, Indians didn’t have
barrels, not even kegs.” Her dream faded.
“The voyageurs did,” Florence encouraged.
“Who were they?”
“The traders who came after the Indians. They camped here on their way
across the lake. Can’t you see them?” With outstretched hands, the big
girl stared into the darkness that is Duncan’s Bay at night. “Great,
stalwart men, muscles like iron bands, faces browned by the sun, eyes
ever looking forward to fresh fields of adventure, the voyageurs!
“Perhaps—” her voice dropped to a low note of mystery, “perhaps they
camped here one night with a great bag of gold. Perhaps they were
expecting an attack by Indians and, thrusting their gold in their water
barrel, buried it here, never to return.”
“Yes,” Jeanne smiled doubtfully, “perhaps they did. Anyway, you are right
on one score. It’s a barrel of gold we need.”
“Just now,” Florence laughed, “what we need most is a good night’s
sleep.”
Their balsam-scented bed at last called them to rest. They went
reluctantly.
Greta and Jeanne were weary. After listening for a time to the constant
rush of water against the rocky shores of Blake’s Point and staring at
the ribs of their boat just over their heads, they fell asleep.
Florence did not fare so well. Lying there in that narrow bed beneath
their boat, she found her mind going over the events of the day and of
those days that had gone before.
The adventure with that great pike had excited her beyond belief. Ever a
child of nature, she had experienced in this event a return to the wild
desires of her early ancestors. They had been wanderers, adventurers,
hunters, fishermen, explorers. The world had changed. Her people were now
city dwellers.
“And yet—” she felt her splendid muscles swell, “adventure has not passed
from the earth. There still are adventures for those who desire them,
clean, clear adventures. One—”
She broke short off to sit straight up. The stretch of level land on
which they were camped was hardly a hundred feet wide. Back of that was a
sloping hillside where the spruce, balsam and pine of a primeval forest
battled for a place in the sun. From this forest she had caught some
faint sound, the snap of a twig, the click of some hard object against a
stone.
“Could be men,” she whispered. “Just over that ridge is Tobin’s Harbor.
Many people there. But such a trail! Straight up! And on such a night.
They—”
There it was again. She clenched her hands hard to prevent crying out. A
loud click had sounded out in the night. “Like the raising of a rifle’s
hammer,” she told herself.
But was it a rifle? She must see. Lying flat down, she pushed the covers
quietly aside, rolled over twice and found herself beneath the dark night
sky.
The moon was still shining. Her eyes soon accustomed themselves to the
light. Still lying flat on the damp earth, she listened with all her
ears. What she heard set her blood racing. “Footsteps,” she whispered,
“in the night.”
They seemed very near, those footsteps. But were they human footsteps?
She doubted it. And from this came a sense of relief.
Raising herself on one elbow she peered into the night. At that moment a
loud groan sent the chills down her spine.
Next instant she was ready to laugh. A giant old patriarch of his tribe,
a moose with wide-spreading antlers had stepped out into the moonlight.
“A moose,” she whispered. “Swen says there are a thousand or more on the
island, and that they are harmless. But how old and feeble this one
seems!”
She had judged correctly. The moose was nearing the end of his days. His
giant antlers were a burden. He walked very slowly and with many a groan.
On the island he was known as Old Uncle Ned.
The girl’s lips were parted in a smile when, of a sudden, the blood
seemed to freeze in her veins. A second creature had appeared at the edge
of the forest—a great, gaunt wolf.
At this instant, with one more groan, Old Uncle Ned stepped into the
water prepared to swim across the bay.
The bit of wild life drama witnessed by the girl during the next moment
will never leave the walls of her memory. Neither the moose nor the wolf
had seen her. The moose, no doubt, smelled fresh water grass on the other
side. The wolf was eager for a kill.
Waiting in the shadows, the killer opened his mouth to show his white
teeth, his lolling tongue. But the instant the aged moose was well in the
water and, for the time, quite defenseless, with one wild spring his
pursuer was after him.
“He—he’ll kill that moose!”
Scarcely knowing what she did, in her excitement Florence sprang to her
feet, seized the steel casting rod and, racing to the bank, sent the red
and white spoon darting toward the swimming wolf.
The first cast fell short. The reel sang and she rolled in for a second
try. All this she had done under the impulse of the moment, without truly
willing it.
Next instant she was awake to reality, for on a second cast the spoon,
striking the wolf on the back, slid down to at last entangle the
three-pronged hook in the tangled hair of his bushy tail.
“Jeanne! Greta!” the girl screamed. “Wake up! I’ve caught a wolf!”
“Wake up yourself,” Jeanne replied dreamily. “You are walking in your
sleep. You let that fish free long ago.”
“No! No!” Florence, quite beside herself, protested. “Get up! Quick!
Quick! I’ve caught a wolf. A real wolf of the forest!”
At the same time she was saying to herself, “Whatever am I to do?”