STRANGE COMRADES IN BATTLE
When Florence learned of Jeanne’s exciting discovery on Birch Island she
was for going there at once.
“You saw him!” she exclaimed. “The boy in the crimson sweater? The
firebug?”
“Yes,” Jeanne replied quietly. “The boy in the crimson sweater.”
“What is he like? Does he look dangerous? What if—”
Florence shot a dozen more questions at Jeanne. Strangely enough, the
little French girl was quite vague in her answers, much more so than the
occasion warranted. And, when the question of her accompanying Florence
arose, she pleaded a headache.
“It’s only a two hour’s run in a small motor boat,” Florence said to
Dave. “You have another wait of several hours?”
“That’s right.”
“Then suppose I hire the lodge fishing boat and get Indian John to run me
over here?”
“O.K. by me. You might take Katie with you. But watch your step! If this
fellow is really a firebug, he may be dangerous.”
“I’ll watch,” Florence was off.
Arrived at Birch Island, they found the fisherman’s cottage just as
Jeanne had left it. But when, after a silent march down the island, they
came to the spot where the log shelter had stood, they discovered that it
was gone.
“Every trace of it,” Florence exclaimed.
No, this was not quite true. Dry moss had been strewn over the spot upon
which it had stood. When this was dragged away, they found a smooth, hard
surface which once had been an earthen floor.
“Jeanne was not dreaming.” Florence looked about her as if expecting the
mysterious boy to appear. “There has been a shelter here. But now it’s
gone.”
“Easy to move,” said Indian John. “Take ’em down logs. Put ’em in boat.
Row away, that’s all.”
“Yes, or just throw the logs into the lake and let them float away,” said
Katie.
For some time they stood there in silence. At last Florence said, “I am
not Jeanne and not a gypsy, but she says there is always a third warning
and so there shall be.”
Imitating Jeanne, she wrote her warning on birch bark. It read:
“The Gypsy’s third warning. And the last. A last chance to clear
yourself. Once we leave Birch Island, we shall set a company of
fire-fighters on your trail.
Signed,
The Gypsy’s Friend.”
After pinning this note to a tree with the aid of three long thorns, she
was prepared to follow her companions back to the fisherman’s cabin.
It was a silent and mystified Florence who walked slowly back. All that
had happened appeared to prove that she was right. This boy wished to
hide. Why, unless he were doing wrong? And what was more probable than
that he was setting fires? And yet— Why had Jeanne been so silent, so
reluctant to tell all?
As they at last stood again on the small fisherman’s dock, Florence
looked at Indian John’s jet black hair and smiled.
“John,” she said, “you are rapidly growing gray. There are white ashes in
your hair.”
It was true. Fine white specks of ash were slowly drifting down from the
sky.
“The threat is still with us,” the girl murmured.
Nor, on this day, was it long in making itself known. A brisk wind,
blowing off the island, began bringing in an uncomfortable feeling of
heat. Then, quite suddenly, like battling troops coming out of the
trenches, a long line of flames appeared at the crest of a low ridge not
a mile from Birch Island.
“Florence!” Katie exclaimed. “It is terrible. This beautiful island will
burn unless—”
“Unless what?” Florence asked eagerly.
“Unless we can save it.”
“How?”
“There are many birch trees, not so many balsams. Balsam needles will
catch from sparks. Birch leaves will not. If we cut away the balsams and
throw them into the water—”
“We must try,” Florence broke in. “All this,” her gaze swept the small
island, “must not be destroyed.
“John,” she said, turning to the Indian, “run the boat to a safe spot and
anchor it. Come back in the skiff. We must all do our best.”
“Perhaps,” she thought grimly a moment later, “that boy in the crimson
sweater will be smoked out like an owl in a hollow tree.”
Very little she knew about the truth of her prophesy. Not knowing, she
dragged a dull ax from the fisherman’s cabin and began doing her bit to
save Birch Island.
It was a battle indeed. As the wind increased and the fire crept closer
not ashes alone, but tiny, glowing sparks fell at their feet.
Whacking away at the trunks of small spruce trees, dragging them to the
water’s edge, then whacking and dragging again, Florence never faltered.
Grim, grimy, and perspiring, hating her dull ax, she toiled doggedly on.
One thought was uppermost in her mind, this battle, perhaps their last,
must be won.
And then she received a sudden shock. A boy stood beside her. Taller than
she, he smiled down at her. He was dressed in high boots and corduroys.
His blue, plaid shirt was open at the neck. In his hand he carried an ax
with a razor-like edge. She had never seen him before.
“Come on in,” she invited.
“What are you doing, may I ask?” He smiled again.
“We are saving this island,” she fairly snapped. “If—if we get all the
balsams out it won’t burn.”
“Say! That—that’s an idea!” His face brightened like a sky after a storm.
“I’ll cut. You drag ’em off,” he said shortly.
After that for a full hour it was cut and drag, cut and drag, a seemingly
endless task. And the fire grew hotter every moment.
Not even the girl’s strenuous endeavors could keep her from wondering
about that boy. Who was he? Where had he come from? Why was he here?
“He works like one who is defending his own home,” she told herself.
Strangely enough there was something vaguely familiar about his
movements. “As if I had seen him before. But I can’t have.”
Then a strange and mystifying thing happened, as the boy bent over to
pick up his ax which had slipped from his aching fingers, a small square
of white fluttered from his pocket to the ground. He was quick in
retrieving it but not quick enough. In one corner of this girl’s
handkerchief Florence had read the initials, “J. E.”
“Jeanne’s handkerchief,” she whispered to herself with sudden shock.
“Where did he get it and why does he keep it?” Strangely enough, at that
moment, all unbidden, three words came into her mind, “The Gypsy’s
warning.” Then the stern business of the moment claimed her entire
attention.
The last, slim end of the island was closest to the fire. The heat became
all but unbearable. Twice the boy’s cotton shirt began to smoke. At last
he drew it off, and dipped it in water, to put it on again.
Then came the moment when the last balsam tree toppled into the water.
“Come on,” he grabbed Florence’s arm. “We gotta get out o’ here quick.”
They did get out quick.
When at last Florence reached her skiff where Katie and Indian John were
anxiously waiting, to her astonishment she saw the strange boy go racing
away.
“Wait!” she called. “Come back.”
Did he hear? It seemed he must. But he raced straight on.
“We’ll just row out a little where the heat is not so bad,” Florence
suggested. “Then we’ll wait and see what happens.”
This they did. The moment when the raging furnace reached the water’s
edge, then came to a sudden halt, was a glorious one indeed.
Florence was watching with all her eyes when, of a sudden, she seemed to
hear oarlocks creaking. At first, looking out over the smoke-clouded
water she saw nothing. Then she caught the shadowy outline of a small
boat moving out on the water.
“Must be that boy,” she told herself. “But where is he going?”
The answer came to her at once. Beyond him was the outline of a small
power boat. He was rowing toward that.
Strangely enough, just as he reached the motor boat’s side, a current of
air lifted the smoke and everything stood out clearly.
“It _is_ that boy,” Florence said aloud. “But what’s he doing?”
“Standing up in his row-boat,” said Katie.
“Putting on a sweater. A crimson sweater!” Florence was ready to fall
from the boat in her excitement. “He—he’s that boy, the boy in the
crimson sweater. And how he has fought this fire!
“And that motor boat!” she exploded again. “It’s the one Jeannie says
carries the Phantom Fisherman.”
Then, as if a curtain had been dropped, the smoke fell hiding the boy in
the crimson sweater, the Phantom and all. Was Florence sorry? She could
not tell.
She did not know it at that moment, but this was the last time she was to
see either the Phantom or the boy in the crimson sweater on Isle Royale.
“It’s the end,” Florence thought, as they went chugging back toward
Tobin’s Harbor. “The wind is really shifting. It will drive the fire back
upon itself.” Even as she thought this, cold drops of rain struck her
cheek. Rolling up from across the lake a real rainstorm, the first in
weeks, was on its way.
Two hours later, drenched to the skin but joyously happy, the little
party arrived at Tobin’s Harbor.
Late that night, the great log cabin used as a lounge for the lodge was
comfortably crowded with people. The little fisherman’s wife was there.
One child was asleep in her lap, another played at her side. On her face
was a look of joy.
“Listen!” she was saying to the old man near her, “how it rains!” Great
sheets of rain were beating against the window panes. “A northeast wind,”
she added in a whisper, “the fires are over. Our homes and our islands
are safe.”
This was the joyous feeling in every heart. That was why they were there.
Drawn together by an invisible bond of common interest and friendship in
hope and in despair, they had gathered to celebrate.
In the corner, an impromptu trio—piano, cello and violin—began playing,
_Over the Waves_.
As the music rose and fell, as the sparks from the driftwood fire leaped
toward the sky, Florence thought that no moment in her whole life had
been as joyous as this.
“Jeanne,” she exclaimed, “you must dance. Dance to the patter of rain on
the roof.”
“Yes,” Jeanne agreed almost eagerly, “I shall dance. I have been
practicing a new dance quite in secret.”
“A new dance,” exclaimed one of the musicians, “what is it?”
“_Dance of the Flames_,” said Jeanne.
“Good! We have the very thing, an Indian dance to the fire god—you shall
dance to our music.”
A few moments later, after the lights had been dimmed, when the flames
from great logs in the broad fireplace leaped high and the strains of a
weird Indian dance rose from the corner, a slender figure clad in
garments of orange and red, with two long scarfs streaming behind, came
dancing into the room.
It would be hard to describe the dance that followed. Only the little
French girl could have so caught the movement and seeming spirit of
flames. Now she was a low fire creeping stealthily upon some stately
spruce tree. And now, urged on by some mischievous wind, she went rushing
forward. And now, by a trick performed with the scarfs, she appeared to
rise straight in air as the flames rushed to the very top of the tree.
When at last, quite exhausted, she flung herself down at Florence’s side,
there came a burst of applause that would have done credit to a much
larger gathering.
Katie arrived with a great pot of delicious hot chocolate and a pan of
cakes. They ate and drank and then, led by a very pious old cottager,
sang a hymn of thanks to the God who, with their aid had saved their
island for them and for their children, years on end.
“Jeanne,” Florence whispered, as they groped their way back to the boat,
“it is for such times as these that we live.”
“Ah, yes,” the little French girl agreed, “for such times as these.”
Just then Florence caught the sound of a voice that caused her to start.
“Ya dese fires dey will be over now. Dis is de end we is been waiting for
so long.”
At that Florence did a strange thing. Rushing up to the aged fisherman
who had spoken she said, “You are the man!”
“Ya, I is de man,” the fisherman agreed, “but what man, this is de
question?”
“Twice I heard you say the fires were being set.”
“Ya, it may be so.”
“Why did you say that? Was it true?”
“Perhaps ya. Perhaps no,” was the strange answer, “dese is been hard
times. Might be we old men think too many t’ings.” At that the old man
disappeared as silently as usual into the night, leaving the girl with
her own thoughts.