SECOND WARNING
In the meantime, driven from her sun bath by that same storm, Jeanne had
begun worrying about the safety of her friends.
“Must be getting pretty wild out there,” Dave said, as he tried to see
through the driving fog.
“Do you think they would go far?” Jeanne asked anxiously.
“You know Florence,” was the reply. “She’d take a chance.”
Turning to a fishing guide on the dock he said, “Where are the best
spots?”
“For lake trout fishing? Blake’s Point and Five Foot.”
“And neither is protected from storms?”
“I’ll say not,” the man laughed hoarsely. “Blake’s Point reaches out into
Lake Superior like a pointing finger. Five Foot is a clean mile from
anywhere.”
“Would it do any good to go out and look for them?” Dave asked.
“In this fog?” the man laughed again. “Not a bit. Never find them.
“Oh, they’re probably O.K.,” he consoled. “They’re a sturdy pair. They’d
make a point on one of the small islands. Plenty of driftwood everywhere.
With a good fire and moss for a bed they’ll get on very well.”
“And there are narrow channels between the small islands,” said Dave.
“Storms don’t hit there. They may come sneaking in along the shore any
time.”
Loaded with supplies, the _Iroquois_ arrived alongside the _Wanderer_ at
dusk. Captain Frey was on board.
“Some of these supplies,” he said, “go to Florence Bay. That’s about
twenty-five miles up the north shore. The _Iroquois_ can’t get in there.
We have a hundred fire-fighters there. They’ve been living on salt pork
and beans for two days. How about going there tonight?” he asked Dave.
“We—we can do it,” was Dave’s prompt response. He was thinking of
Florence and Katie. But his first duty was to those hungry men.
“If those girls don’t show up by dawn,” he said to the guide, “get out
your boat and look them up. I’ll stand the expense.”
“O.K.,” was the prompt response, “you can depend on me.”
“I know that,” Dave replied heartily.
An hour later, well loaded with supplies, the _Wanderer_ stole out into
the night. From time to time as they moved slowly down the channel
between small islands and at last around Blake’s point, they gave long
blasts on their siren. The only response was the scream of a seagull or
the wail of the wind.
The pitching of the boat made rest impossible, so, encased in sweaters,
blankets and a huge oilskin coat, Jeanne sat huddled on deck, feeling the
cold damp of spray on her cheeks, and wondering about the fate of her two
good pals.
Shortly after midnight, guided by the light of a forest fire, they
slipped into a narrow bay, there to be given an uproarious welcome by a
hundred hungry men.
“We’ll wait the night out here,” was Dave’s decision. “There are supplies
for McCargoe’s Cove on board. We’ll drop them off on the way back. And
you—” there was an extra note of friendliness in his voice as he spoke to
the little French girl, “you better get some sleep.”
Jeanne’s beauty-rest that night was a short one. However, her hours of
dreaming in the sun the previous day stood her in good stead and she was
up with the sun. Early as it was she found the _Wanderer_ in motion.
After serving the crew with coffee and hot cakes, she came on deck to
watch the shore line slipping by.
It was still early when the boat began sliding into McCargoe’s Cove. At
the entrance of this cove was one of the most entrancing little islands
Jeanne had ever seen.
“Oh, Dave!” she exclaimed. “Please drop me off in the dory and let me
visit that island until you come back this way!”
“Sure! Be glad to.” Dave signaled for a stop. “They call it Birch Island.
It’s a beauty.”
As she came close to the island in her small boat, Jeanne assured herself
that here was a place of great enchantment.
White birches, evenly spaced and reaching for the sky, grew to the very
water’s edge. Mingled with these were hundreds of fern-like balsams.
A single fisherman’s cottage, built of weather beaten logs, stood close
to the shore. Silent and seemingly deserted, it told of another day.
That this cabin had not been long deserted, Jeanne was not slow in
discovering. True, save for a few rusty cans of pepper, ginger and other
spices, there was no food on the narrow shelves. But the frying pan,
tea-kettle and coffee pot still shone brightly.
Leaving the cabin, the little French girl wandered down a narrow path
that ran the length of the island. It was not a long walk. She was soon
at the far end of the island. There, to her surprise, she discovered a
second cabin. Perhaps one might say it was only a shelter. Built of
driftwood logs, it had but three sides and a roof. The front was enclosed
only by a mosquito-bar canopy.
When Jeanne had looked within she backed hurriedly away. She was, she
thought, intruding on someone’s privacy. A few pots and pans hung against
one wall, while on the opposite side, in considerable disarray, were
garments, quite evidently a man’s. From the nature and color of these
clothes she concluded the man must be from some city and quite a young
man.
She was not long lacking in proof of this theory. Even as she stood
there, the low thud of footsteps reached her. With a voiceless cry and a
soundless leap, she was away in the bush.
She had escaped. Yet curiosity compelled her to linger for a peeping look
through the bushes.
What she saw startled her no end. A tall, good-looking youth of uncertain
age stood before the shelter. His gaze wandered from place to place. “He
suspects something,” the girl told herself as her heart skipped a beat.
And then she barely avoided a gasp. She had, for the first time, noted
his manner of dress.
“A crimson sweater!” she breathed. “The—the youth in the crimson
sweater.”
Had she found any reason for questioning her judgment in this case it
would not have been for long. Of a sudden, the youth glanced down at his
feet then, without a backward look, dashed away into the bush.
Surprised and startled, Jeanne held her ground. For all this, her heart
was beating a pretty tattoo against her ribs. Where had this boy gone?
Would he return? And if he did what should she do? Her first thought was
to slip swiftly and silently away. And yet—she recalled her first
warning, dropped from the airplane. He had not heeded the warning, at
least had not come out into the open and proved himself innocent. Would a
second warning help? She dared hope it might.
With fingers that trembled in spite of her best efforts to control them,
she drew a stub of a pencil from her jacket pocket, pulled a square of
birch bark from a tree to serve as paper, then wrote in scrawled words:
“_Second warning_: You are suspected of a terrible crime. If you are
innocent you will come out and clear yourself. Gypsies never forget.
Signed,
Gypsy Jeanne.”
Why had Jeanne signed this second warning? Perhaps she could not have
told. Was it because the youth in the crimson sweater seemed a rather
romantic figure?
With knees that all but refused to support her, she moved slowly toward
the shelter. Once there, she slipped inside, placed the note on a small,
hand-made table, weighted it down with a stone, then, springing away like
a startled deer, went racing toward the fisherman’s cabin and her boat.
Arrived at the small dock she found all serene as before. Some small bird
whistled at her from a tree. A pine squirrel chattered at her. For a
moment she stood there thinking. Why had the young man run away? He had
seen something. What had it been? In a twinkle she had the answer, her
handkerchief was gone. “Must have lost it and my initials were in the
corner,” she thought, a little startled.
After that, shoving off in her boat, she rowed to the opposite shores,
hid in a narrow cove and waited until Dave’s return, then climbed aboard
and rode away without a word concerning her adventure.
Dawn came on the barren rock that had saved Florence and Katie from the
storm. They were awakened by wild screams. These were uttered by a host
of angry gulls demanding to know who had invaded their favorite roosting
place during the night.
Breakfast of fish and gull’s eggs, a few bright hours of watching the
waves lose their threat, then once more they were on the water.
Two hours of hard, double rowing against the wind, a line out for trout
and two catches—one a beauty—then they were entering the Passage Island
harbor they had missed before.
Exclaimed over and welcomed by the lighthouse keeper’s smiling wife, they
were fed on roast beef and baked potatoes and brown gravy, plied with
questions, and at last taken aboard a neat little motor craft that
carried them back to Tobin’s Harbor and their astonished friend who had
all but given them up as lost.
“See!” exclaimed Katie, true to her promise. “We have been fishing. And
just look what we caught. A whopper!”
A whopper indeed it was—thirty-seven pounds by the scales—easily the best
fish of the season. Was Florence proud? No end of it. There was, however,
little time for strutting. A few moments of triumph and her insistent
mind was demanding, “What of the future?”
“Where is the _Wanderer_?” she asked.
“Somewhere on the north shore,” was the answer. “Make yourself
comfortable. They should be back before dark.”
In two big chairs before a driftwood fire the girls dozed the hours away.
And so ended one more happy adventure that might not have been so happy
after all, had it not been for Lady Luck’s kindness and Katie’s good,
strong arms.