NIGHT ON ISLE ROYALE
Once again it was night on Isle Royale. All day a wild south-easter had
lashed the waters of Lake Superior into foam. All day in the scout’s
cabin Red Rodgers and Berley Todd had waited for that which they felt to
be inevitable—the arrival of the kidnapers and the battle that must
follow. Or would there be a battle? The snow had melted. No footprints
remained. Perhaps Ed could make the outlaws believe they were not there.
For a time after a breakfast of sour dough flapjacks they sat discussing
possibilities. After that, overcome by their long vigil, they slept.
Now that night had come, they were as wide awake as night owls.
“It’s tough to be waiting without knowing what they are about,” Red
exploded at last. “I’d almost rather meet them face to face and fight it
out.”
“Oh, no! Not that!” The girl shuddered. “But we might have a look at them
from the Palisades. Surely we’d not meet them on that trail. And, if we
should, we could lose ourselves on the instant.”
“Safe enough,” Ed commented.
“What are the Palisades?” Red rose as if prepared to go.
“The highest point on this ridge,” the guide explained. “Trees are cut
away there. You can look down a hundred feet to Tobin’s Harbor. Their
camp’s back there. If there’s a light showing they will still be in camp.
If one moves on the water, you’ll know they are out looking around.
“No need for me to go,” he added, nodding at Berley Todd. “She knows
every step of the way.”
“In the dark?”
“In the dark. But there’s a little light. Better take your flashlight.
Don’t use it unless you have to.”
A short time later two dusky figures stole out into the night, a tall one
and a short one.
In silence they passed through a narrow fringe of spruce, birch and
balsam with here and there a cottage looming black and silent in the
dark.
Once the girl seized Red’s arm to point through a clump of shapely spruce
trees. “That,” she whispered impressively, “is my home—my summer home.”
“If the storm keeps up, shall we go there, perhaps to-morrow night, you
and I and Ed?”
“Perhaps.”
They mounted a low hill, then followed along a tree-grown ridge. He
marveled at her ability to find her way in the dark. “Great little sport,
this one,” he told himself. “Not soft like so many girls.” This was true.
The hand that gripped his arm was as hard and muscular as a boy’s. So was
her arm.
In his mind’s eye he saw Lake Superior flecked with foam, four miles of
it. “It’s going to be tough, at best.”
“Here!” the girl whispered in his ear. “It’s just up there. The trail’s
almost straight up. Follow me. Be sure of your footing.”
Her dark form loomed above him, but from her lips came no panting breath.
“Fit,” he told himself. “As fit as a marathon runner.” A moment of wild
scrambling and he stood beside her. At that instant the clouds parted
and, for a space of seconds, the harbor lay beneath them in all the dark,
majestic beauty of a moonlight night. Almost directly beneath them, a
golden ball, lay the reflection of the moon. Off to the left a dark bulk
loomed.
“Island.” Berley caught her breath as she whispered: “Kidnaper’s island.”
Then a black cloud obscured the light and the harbor. The distant shore
lay beneath them, a vast well of darkness.
Darkness? Not quite all. From the far end of that long, narrow island on
which their log prison stood, a pale yellow light shone.
“They are there,” the girl whispered.
“At least some of them,” Red amended.
“We can go down this way.” Once again the girl led.
In time they came to a spot Red recognized, the short dock at which they
had disembarked on the previous night. The rowboat they had taken from
the island still bumped at the dock.
To Red, reared as he had been close to the slips where rusty ore boats
lay at anchor, a boat, any sort of boat, had an all but irresistible
appeal.
Apparently some such spell hung over the girl, for when he gave her his
hand to help her into the boat she did not say, “No, no! We dare not.”
Instead, she whispered: “We will glide along in the shadows.”
The oars made no sound. Sky and water seemed one. To the girl, as she sat
in the stern, they appeared to float in air.
And then, all in a flash, this stillness was shattered. The prow of their
boat struck some solid object with a dull thud. That same instant it
reared high in air to pitch the dreaming girl into cold, black waters of
night.
Paralyzed by the suddenness of it all, the boy, riding high in air but
still clinging to his seat, saw her go.
For a space of seconds he hung there in midair. Then with a dull splash
the boat fell once more to the water. At that same instant he saw that
which caused him to rub his eyes and stare. At a speed quite impossible
for a swimmer of the girl’s skill or strength she was streaking away
across the water toward an island that loomed out of the dark.
“A trap,” he thought. “They—they got her!”
Seizing the oars, he swung the boat about and began rowing madly.
* * * * * * * *
It was during this same hour that Johnny Thompson happened upon something
that mystified him more than he was willing to admit. This affair might
have ended badly but for the boy’s splendid physique and careful
training.
He was about to pass over the river bridge on his way home when his eye
was caught by a brilliant display of flowers in Angelo Piccalo’s window.
Coming to a halt, he stood there studying the flowers for some little
time. “Some flowers I never saw,” he told himself. “Have to ask Angelo
about them. Those red, heart-shaped ones and—”
His thoughts broke off. Two men, having crossed the bridge, hesitated a
moment, then went down the stairway leading to the breakwater landing.
“That’s queer,” he told himself, “at this hour of the night!”
As he lingered his wonder grew, for two more men appeared from the dark
bridge and descended into the depths below, and after these came three
others.
“I’ll have a look,” he told himself.
As he shifted his position a door at the foot of the stairs opened and a
man disappeared. “Odd sort of business. A door opens. No light comes out.
Yet the man goes in. Something wrong about that. That’s beneath Angelo’s
flower shop. He’s my friend. I’ll have a glimpse inside.”
His glance inside netted nothing but darkness. Putting out a hand, he
pressed against a surface that yielded—a silent, swinging door.
At once he was in a large, smoke-filled room. A curious place it was,
fitted with tables and a counter; yet there was apparently nothing to
sell.
A strange feeling of discontent appeared to hover over the room. Johnny
felt a desire to vanish. He resisted this to stare at the men who sat
about in groups grumbling in monotones and at two who complained loudly
in a strange language to a large, poker-faced man leaning over the
counter.
All this will remain in the boy’s mind as a scene from some mystery
drama, for a rough voice at his ear said:
“How’d you get here?”
Startled, he looked at the speaker. He was almost twice Johnny’s size.
And he had help. A companion stood at his side. Together they glared at
the boy.
“I walked in,” he said in deliberate tones.
“Well, walk out again.”
“Who says so? This is Angelo’s place.”
“It may be, and it may not. Out you go!”
Seizing the boy by the shoulder, they pushed him through the folding
doors and, following, gave him a sudden shove and a vicious kick that
landed him outside.
It was a brutal and cowardly act. Unfortunately for the perpetrator, he
followed halfway through the door. Like a flash of light, Johnny was on
his feet. The next instant his left arm was about the big man’s neck with
a vise-like grip that both choked and silenced him in one act. Next
Johnny’s good right played a tattoo on the other’s face. He went down
like a log. With a deft twist, Johnny pitched him into the river.
Just in time he caught the shadow of the second man as he leaped toward
him. Dropping like a deadfall, he stopped the headlong plunge of the man
and sent him to join his pal in the river where they did a spluttering
act.
“Coarse lot!” Johnny grumbled. “On second thought, I’ll not stay.”
Climbing the stairs, he vanished into the night.
This affair was to linger in his memory. What place was this? What were
those men doing there? Some were grumbling, some smiling. Why? Was this
Angelo’s place? It couldn’t be. But it was beneath his flower store.
Would he rent the space to such men if he knew their nature?
“Naturally he wouldn’t,” Johnny assured himself. “I’ll speak to him about
it next time I see him.”
This resolve was never carried out. Before he chanced upon Angelo’s
flower shop again, strange discoveries were made. These discoveries were
to change his entire course of action.