THE BATTLE OF SISKOWIT
The “Battle of Siskowit,” as the boys later named it, was gloriously
fought.
“To think,” Florence exclaimed, as she watched one band of weary
smoke-choked fighters fall back only to be replaced by fresh shock
troops, “to think that those boys are willing to risk and endure so much
to save us and our boat! What does it matter now if we never make a
dollar from this summer’s work?”
There were times in that hour of fire fighting when the battle seemed
lost; when tall spruce trees, caught in the flames, blazed toward the
sky; when the heat burned the faces of the fighters and tar oozed up from
the _Wanderer’s_ deck.
Three times Rufus went below to set the motors roaring in the hope that
some small tide had lifted the ship off the rocks, but his efforts were
in vain. The _Wanderer_ stuck fast.
Meanwhile, with fresh wet cloths to protect their faces from the
blistering heat, some of the camp boys were swinging axes, clearing a
broad fire lane, while others had dug a deep trench and were filling it
with water to defeat the creeping flames.
“They—they’ll make it,” Florence breathed. “The wind is falling.”
A moment later she, too, was obliged to hold a damp cloth before her
eyes. A sudden fierce gust had thrown a shower of sparks on the deck of
their boat.
“Quick!” Dave shouted. “Buckets and mops! We must wet down the deck.”
Five minutes later they were breathing more easily. The fire had reached
the last tree standing before the lane that had been cut to stop the
flames.
“But will it stop there,” the girl questioned anxiously, “or will it jump
the gap? If it does, we’re lost.”
Slowly but surely, as if by a miracle, the flames died down. With a shout
of victory on their lips, a troop of workers sprang at the charred tree
trunks which still stood flaming and threatening at any moment to fall
across the gap. With sparks falling all about them, with smoking garments
and parched faces, the boys hacked and pushed until the last fiery pillar
lay flat upon the earth, its burning tinder extinguished. Only then did
all join in a hoarse shout of triumph, Dave sounding the boat siren to
heighten the note of rejoicing.
“Just think,” there was a suggestion of tears in Florence’s eyes,
“Grandfather’s boat is worth fifteen thousand dollars, and we might have
lost it!”
“It might have been blown to splinters of wood and a mass of twisted
steel,” Dave agreed. “We should be thankful.”
“We’ll go ashore and hold a jubilee,” Florence exclaimed.
This, for two reasons, they did not do. Half the would-be celebrators
were at once dispatched to a point where the fire still threatened to
outflank them, and at the same time a slim, powerful motor-boat, Patrol
Boat No. 1, rounded the point.
“Yo-ho there!” cried the skipper. “What are you lying here for?”
“Been helping a little,” Dave replied modestly. “Now we’re on the rocks.”
“On hard?” the skipper asked.
“Not very.”
“Good! We’ll have you off in a twinkle. Stand by to take a rope.”
The rope was thrown and attached to the _Wanderer’s_ stern. The motors of
the patrol boat roared, and the grounded craft moved slowly backward off
the rocks.
“Ahoy there!” Dave shouted joyously. “We’ll be all right now. Thanks a
lot.”
The _Wanderer_ had lost a little paint from her bottom, that was all, and
as the boat’s prow headed for Chippewa Harbor, Florence sat down for a
breathing spell before going below to prepare the evening meal. The look
on her face was a sober one.
“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,” she said aloud.
“But we have to live only today,” Dave said as he appeared on deck.
“Only today,” she smiled up at him, “and that—why that’s wonderful, isn’t
it?”
Fifteen minutes later when Dave emerged from a little wireless cabin he
had arranged on the afterdeck, he held two slips of paper in his hand.
“Important messages,” he announced. There was a hint of mystery in his
voice. He held out a paper on which she read: “Your passengers have been
taken to Rock Harbor. Signed: Ve and Vi.”
This was from Vivian and Violet Carlson, daughters of a fisherman. It
meant that the _Wanderer_ could proceed at once to Rock Harbor, unload
freight, swing around to Tobin’s Harbor and Belle Isle, then head back to
the mainland.
“If only,” Florence thought. What question was in her mind? Perhaps she
could not have told. She was for the moment oppressed by a feeling of
impending catastrophy.
The second message, picked up by chance, was strange. “Important
message,” it began. “To all lodgekeepers and to all captains of ships
touching at Isle Royale: Be on the lookout for red-and-black boat powered
by heavy outboard motor. Tall gray-haired man and girl of sixteen on
board. They are believed to have left Port Arthur for Isle Royale two
days ago. Nothing has been heard from them. Be on the lookout. Important.
Be on the lookout.”
“From Port Arthur. Forty miles of Lake Superior,” Dave said thoughtfully.
“Weather’s been pretty good. They should have made it. We’ll be on the
lookout.”
An hour later Florence dropped down upon a box of life preservers to
watch the stars come out. Far off, dim, indistinct, but suggesting all
manner of strange mysteries, could be seen the rocky, all-but-uninhabited
shores of Isle Royale. Here there might be a fisherman’s cabin and there
an abandoned lighthouse; there the shack of a recluse who mended boats;
and there, nestling along the shores of a snug little harbor, the
cottages of a small lodge.
“Not three hundred people on the entire end of the island,” she said, as
Dave passed.
“And not many coming,” said Dave. “Just think! They told us there would
be thousands. And they never said,” he went on, “that the _Iroquois_,
three times the length of our poor, little bouncing tub, would be coming
here three times a week. We’re stuck all right.”
“Yes, and yet—” Florence sighed. “Well, it’s one grand vacation.”
“What about the fire at Siskowit?” Cottagers, fishermen, lodge people and
their guests swarmed the dock at Rock Harbor on the arrival of the
_Wanderer_.
“We licked it,” Dave reassured them.
“Yes, you did,” exclaimed a skeptical old-timer. “You don’t lick a fire
on this island in that short time.”
“That’s right,” said another. “It creeps along on the ground.”
“Yes, and under the ground,” added a third. “All our soil is of vegetable
origin. Dry as it is here, everything but the rocks burn. I’ve seen holes
burned four feet deep.”
“Four feet!” Dave stared.
“No kiddin’,” the man insisted. “Question is, what’s going to be done
about it? This island is a national park. Are a pack of boys going to be
allowed to burn it up?”
“I take it,” said Dave soberly, “that you are referring to the camp boys
at Siskowit.”
“Exactly,” said the man.
“Then,” said Dave, still speaking slowly, “all I’ve got to say is that,
in a time like this, little talk and much thinking should be the order of
the day. Captain Frey says his boys didn’t set the fire. I believe him.
I—”
“Then what—”
“One thing more,” Dave broke in, “we’ve just seen those boys put up a
fight to save their camp and our boat that would have done credit to
seasoned fire fighters.”
Dave stood six feet in his stockings. He had a sharp, penetrating eye.
There was that about his tone at this moment that brought the argument to
an end.
“All right,” said a sturdily-built old man, known to all at Rock Harbor
as the Commodore. “Run your boat into Snug Harbor. Water’s deep there.
You’ll tie up for the night?”
“Why, no.” It was Florence who started to speak, then stopped. They had
meant to go on but she was weary from the day’s battle, and so, too, were
her companions.
“A few hours’ rest,” she thought with a sigh. Then a question came to
her, “What of the mysterious man who had insisted that they pass up the
‘Battle of Siskowit’?”
“There’s a boat coming in soon,” she heard the Commodore telling Dave. “A
big pleasure yacht from Chicago. She’ll be tying up at the big dock here.
That’s why—”
“Oh sure,” Dave broke in, “we’ll slide into Snug Harbor.” He had sensed
Florence’s feelings. They would stay for a while at least. Florence
heaved a sigh of relief.
“A large pleasure yacht!” she exclaimed. “That will be swell, just to
look at.”
“Yes, to look at,” Dave laughed. “That’s as far as we’ll get.” He glanced
down at his smoke-blackened clothes.
“But Commodore,” Florence exclaimed. “What about that man? Did he go on
the _Iroquois_?”
“What man?” The commodore stared at her.
“A short, stout man with a dark face.”
“I don’t recollect seeing him,” was the reply. Florence stared at the
commodore, but said no more. Somehow she had felt all along that this man
did not intend to leave the island. But why? She could not answer.
“I believe he’s still here,” she thought. “Perhaps back there somewhere
in the dark just now.” The thought gave her a sudden turn. “But why
should I care?” she whispered almost fiercely, “Why should he wish to
break us? ‘Break you’—yes, those were his very words.” Dave had said they
were broke. That was not quite true. They were paying expenses. That was
something. But if someone robbed them of their few passengers? What then?
“We’d have to leave the island,” she thought in sudden consternation.