by Roy J. Snell
She did find them, and that very soon--the same three who had left theirpatteran on the dock post. She lost them, too, only to be found by themlong weeks afterward under the most unusual circumstances.
In the meantime, there was the rowboat and water that was like glass. Sherowed on and on down the bay until the cottages, the store, the ancientsawmill, the dock, were all but specks in the distance. Then, with a firtree on a point as her guide, she rowed straight for their cabin.
They ate their lunch on the beach that evening. Then Jeanne went for astroll along the shore.
Florence pushed her boat out into the bay and rowed toward the open lake.She loved this spot. No small lake could have so won her affection. Herein this land-locked bay she was always safe from storms. Yet, justbeyond, through the gap between two points of land, she could see LakeHuron. "Makes you feel that you are part of something tremendous," shehad said to Tillie, once. And Tillie had understood.
Now she dropped her oars and sat there alone, watching the light fadefrom the sky while "some artist Saint spilled his paint adown the westernsky."
She was glad to be alone. She wished to think. Jeanne had a disturbingway of reading one's thoughts, or very nearly reading them, that wasuncanny. It was of Jeanne, in part, that she wished to think.
"It is positively weird," she told herself, "the way exciting happeningskeep bobbing up in this quiet place. Just when I think those gypsies haveleft these parts and Jeanne is free from any harm they might do her, shediscovers that patteran and gets excited about it."
She had not expected Jeanne to be so anxious to see the gypsies. Now shewas in a quandary. Should she attempt to find the gypsies and bring themto Jeanne? She did not doubt that this could be done.
"Their camp is just over there," she told herself, nodding toward thelittle island that lay across the bay. "But if I find them; if they meetJeanne face to face, what then?"
Who could answer this question? Certainly it was beyond her. There weretimes when she felt certain that this gypsy band had come to America forthe purpose of revenge; that they had somehow secured possession of aspeed boat, had perhaps stolen it, and that it had been they who tippedover the rowboat and had come near drowning Jeanne on that other night.
Just now she was not so sure of this. "If they stole a speed boat theywould not dare remain so long in one place," she thought. "But, afterall, what other motive can they have for remaining in this vicinity?"What, indeed? They were not to be seen at the village, nor along theshore selling baskets and telling fortunes as gypsies are accustomed todo. Yet they did not go away.
"If they did not run us down, who did?" she asked herself for thehundredth time. She all but hated herself for clinging so tenaciously tothis question.
She thought of the rich people who lived on Erie Point. At first she hadblamed them for the near catastrophe--had thought of it as a cruel prank.The lady cop's opinion of rich young people had cast a deep shadow uponthis theory. Still she had not wholly abandoned it.
Then, of course, there were the people on Gamblers' Island. The lady cophad said she believed someone had mistaken their boat for hers. "Thatwould mean that they know she is after them, and they wish to destroyher," she reasoned. "And yet she hides from them as if they knew nothingabout her. It's all very puzzling."
She recalled her latest visit to the lady cop's cabin. They had beenseated by the lady cop's fire when Tillie said, "O-oo! How thrilling tobe the friend of a lady detective!"
"It may be thrilling," Miss Weightman had replied, "but you must notforget that it is dangerous, too."
"Dangerous!" Tillie had stared.
"The crook, the lawbreaker is sought by the detective," the lady cop hadcontinued soberly. "Too often the tables are turned. The detective ishunted by the crook. There is an age-long war between the law and thebreakers of the law."
"Such peril," Florence assured herself now, "should be welcomed by everyright-minded person. If being a friend to justice and to those who upholdthe arm of the law puts one in danger, then welcome, oh you danger!"
All the while she was thinking these problems through, she was consciousof a drumming sound beating in upon her senses. Now it suddenly grew intoa roar.
"Another speed boat. And I am alone, far out at sea," she thought toherself in sudden consternation as, gripping the sides of her boat, shebraced herself for a sudden shock.
The shock did not come. Instead the put-put-put of a motor ceased and,ten seconds later, the strangest craft Florence had ever seen glided upbeside her boat. She stared at it in amazement. The thing was not onequarter the size of her rowboat; yet it boasted an outboard motor capableof handling a twenty foot boat. It had no keel. The prow was flat as asurfboard. There was one seat, large enough for a single person. In thatseat reposed a grinning boy of some eighteen summers.
"What is it?" The question escaped her lips unbidden.
"Name's 'Spank Me Again.'" The boy's grin broadened.
"But what is it?" she persisted.
"Guess."
"I can't." She was beginning to feel amused. "It makes a noise like anairplane. But it has no wings. Looks like a surfboat. But surfboats don'thave their own power. It can't be a boat because it has no keel. I guessit's a what's-it."
"Correct," laughed the boy. "And I'm a who's-it. I'm Bradford Erie. Mydad's frightfully rich, so I have to have this thing to advertise."
"Advertise?" Florence was puzzled.
"To advertise the fact that I'm just like everybody else. People thinkrich folks are not. But they are. How could they be different, even ifthey wanted to? They eat and sleep, drink, fish, play, fight and go toschool if they are boys. And what does anyone else do? Exactly the same."
"I think I could like that boy," Florence thought to herself.
She said to him in a mocking tone, "It must be truly dreadful to berich."
"Oh! it is!
"Want a tow back?" He changed the subject.
"That might be thrilling, and perhaps a trifle dangerous."
"I won't dump you out. I'm no rotter. Give me a try."
She gave him a try. It was indeed a thrilling ride. His boat cut the foamas it leaped from side to side. She got some spray in her face, and washome before she knew it.
"With that boy at the wheel," she told herself, after thanking him andbidding him good-night, "no speed boat would run down a humbler craft.But then, perhaps he only mans the 'Spank Me Again.'
"That thing will be the death of him," she said, as she finished tellingJeanne of this little adventure. "It will turn over when it's going atfull speed. The motor will take it to the bottom, and him with it."Little she knew how nearly a true prophetess she was.
That evening Florence sat for some time before the fire. She was tryingto read the future by the pictures in the flames. The pictures were dimand distorted. She read little there. But often the smiling face of the"poor little rich boy," who found it necessary to advertise the fact thathe was just like other folks, danced and faded in the flames.
"He's a real sport," she told herself. "I hope we meet again."
Strangely enough, with this wish came the conviction that they would meetagain, that his life and her life, the life of Tillie, of Jeanne, and ofthe lady cop, were inseparably linked together.
"But after all," she told herself skeptically, "this, too, may be but adream of the passing flames."
CHAPTER XV FISHING AND FIGHTING
"Do you want to catch some fish, some real big black bass?" Tillie's faceshone, as she shouted this to Florence.
Did she? The supreme thrill of a born fisherman, that which comes fromseeing one's line shoot out sweet and clean, telling of a bass on thehook, had come to her but three times in all her young life.
"Do I!" She seized Tillie and gave her an impulsive hug. "Lead on!"
"It's a long way out. Two miles; maybe more."
"What's two miles?" Florence tightened the muscles of her right arm tillthey
were hard as stone.
"We'll go," said Tillie. "I saw them yesterday; three big black bass. Andwere they black! And big! Long as your arm. Anyway, half. They allmarched out to see my minnie, like three churchmen in black robes. Theylooked, then turned up their noses and marched right back into the weeds.
"But now!" Her eyes shone in triumph. "I got crawdads (soft-shellcrawfish). Five of them. And do they like 'em! You'll see!"
Half an hour later, in Florence's clinker-built rowboat, their two pairsof bronzed arms flashing in perfect unison as they plied four stout ashoars, they glided down the bay toward Gull Rock Point.
A second half hour had not elapsed before they were silently driftingtoward the edge of a weed bed that ran along a narrow point.
"It's right there before us," Tillie said in a low tone. "You can see thebullrushes. You can't see the pikeweed, only a top sticking up here andthere. The pikeweed's got wide leaves and stands thick on the bottom likea forest. Fish hide there just as wolves and bears do in the woods.
"Here's the spot." She dropped her anchor without the slightest splash.
"You catch 'em by the back," she whispered, seizing a crawfish. "So theycan't pinch you, you hook 'em through the tail. Then you spit on 'em.That's for luck."
When she had performed all these ceremonies, she tossed her crawfish farout toward the edge of the weed bed.
"Now for yours." She adjusted Florence's struggling crab, then sent himoff at another angle from the boat.
After that she jammed her boy's cap down over one eye, squinted at thewater with the other, and sat quietly down to wait.
A moment passed into eternity; another, and yet another. Five minutes,ten, fifteen. The water lapped and gurgled about the boat. A slightbreeze set the bullrushes murmuring. A great, green dragon fly camebobbing along over the water. A sea gull soared aloft, but uttered nevera sound. From his point of vantage, what did he see? Two girls fishing.Quite true. But what of the fish? Were those three bass lying among theweeds? Had they seen the crawfish?
It was Tillie who first knew the answer. The rattler was off her reel.The reel spun round with no effort and no sound. Suddenly it stopped.
Tillie placed a thumb on the spool, then counted in a whisper. "One, two,three, four, five."
The tip of her pole executed a whip-like motion. The fish was hooked, thebattle begun.
She gave him line. She reeled him in. He saw the boat and ran. He leapeda full foot from the water. He came down with a splash. The lineslackened. Was he off? No. One more wild tug.
And after that a slow, relentless battle in which the girl won.
The fish lay flopping in the boat, a fine three pounder. Tillie bent overhim, exultant, when with startling suddenness a voice sounded in her ear.
"Hey, you kids! Beat it! This is our fishing hole." The tone was cold andgruff.
Tillie looked up in amazement. Then she scowled. A trim sailboat, mannedby two boys and a girl, all in their late teens, had glided silently upto them and dropped anchor.
Tillie fixed her keen blue eyes upon the trio. All were dressed in silkpajamas and were smoking cigarettes.
"Since when?" she demanded, as her hands moved toward an oar.
"Since then!" The older of the two boys seized a short pike pole from thedeck and struck her across the back.
To Florence, who looked on, it seemed that Tillie's red hair stood onend, as she seized her oar and, using it as a spear, gave the intruder asharp thrust in the stomach that doubled him up and sent him reeling offthe narrow deck into the water.
"Hey, you little devil!" The other youth turned purple with rage.
All to no purpose. Tillie's oar mowed him down. He, too, went into thewater.
"That for all your robbin', gamblin' lot!" Tillie screamed.
Then in quite another tone, "Up anchor and away. There's a stormbrewing."
They were away before the first of their adversaries had reached the sideof the sailboat.
The shore was not far away. Tillie headed straight for it.
"Got to defend our ship," she breathed. "But we lack ammunition."
Gull Rock Point is a finger of land three rods wide, a quarter of a milelong, extending straight out into the bay. Its shores are moderatelysteep and composed entirely of small rocks.
They bumped the shore, threw off their anchor, caught at overhangingbranches, and climbed to land.
They looked about. The two boys were on board the sailboat now. They werelifting anchor and setting sail.
"They'll come after us," said Tillie, in the calmly assured tone of agreat commander. "Load up." She set the example by piling her left armwith rocks the size of a baseball.
"Don't shoot till you see the whites of their eyes," she murmured. "Makeevery shot count. We can retreat if we must. They'd never find us in thebrush. But don't give up the ship."
Silence once more hung over the bay as the sailboat glided forward. Therushes whispered, the dragon fly bobbed and the water winked in the sun.
The sailboat was a beautiful thing. Highly varnished it was, and alltrimmed in brass.
"Must have cost a small fortune," was Florence's mental comment. "They'rerich. How does Tillie dare?"
In all this there was no thought of disloyalty to Tillie. She was readyto fight the affair through at her side.
"Come on," shouted Tillie, as the boat drew near. "Come on, and I willgive thy flesh unto the fowls of the air and to the beasts of the field."
The answer was a contemptuous laugh.
This angered Tillie still more. "Come on!" she screamed, "come on, youcrooks, you tin horn gamblers, you--!"
The names Tillie called her adversaries belong only to the land of thenorth. Florence heard them that day for the first time. We shall notrepeat them here, but utter a little prayer that Tillie may be forgivenin Heaven.
She punctuated her last remark with a wild swing of the arm. Not so wildas it seemed, however, for a stone, crashing against the side of thehighly polished craft, cut a jagged line of white for fully two feet.
"Come on!" she screamed. "We'll make your pretty boat look like a tin canthe day after Fourth of July!" A second swing, a second streak of whitedown the shiny surface of brown.
Suddenly, the younger of the two boys took command. He veered the boatsharply about, then went sailing away.
"We win!"
For the first time Florence saw that Tillie's face had gone white. Sheslumped down among the rocks to hide her face in her hands.
"I forgot!" she moaned at last. "I got mad, and I forgot. Now they'llruin us. Dad told me not to do it. But I done it all the same."
After that, for a long time the bay belonged to the rushes, the ripplesand the dragon flies alone.
Rising at last, Tillie seized the anchor line, drew the rowboat close in,climbed aboard, motioned to Florence to do the same, seized the oars andbegan to row.
They fished no more that day. Not a word was spoken until the boat bumpedat Tillie's dock.
Then Tillie, dangling the fine black bass from the end of a string, said,
"Here! You take it. I couldn't eat a bite of it. It'd choke me."
"Thanks."
"It's all right. You're a brick."
"So are you."
"Good-bye."
"Good-bye."
Tillie was gone.
CHAPTER XVI SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE TWILIGHT
That evening, while the sky was still pink and the water changing fromblue to purple and then to gold, Florence went for a row alone. Shewanted to think. The events of that day had stirred her to the verydepths. She had not believed that there were such persons in the world asthose three young people who had attempted to drive them from Tillie'sfishing hole.
"Rich, that's it," she told herself. Yet, in the depths of her heart sheknew that this was not all.
"Tillie called them crooks, gamblers," she told herself. "A professionalgambler must have a cold heart. He takes money in an unfair
way from menwho have earned it and need it. How can one expect to find a warm heartin the breast of a gambler's son?"
As she asked herself this question, she rounded a small island that lay alittle way out from the point upon which the palatial summer home ofErie, the millionaire, had been erected.
She barely missed bumping into a canoe that lay motionless in the water.The canoe held a solitary occupant, a girl of sixteen.
Instinctively Florence knew that this was the millionaire's daughter, shewho had lost the three priceless rubies in a gambling den.
Instantly her heart warmed. The girl was beautiful. She was rich. Yet, onher face was a look of loneliness and sadness such as Florence had seldomseen on any face.
"It's not so much the disgrace of losing the rubies," she told herself."This girl is young. She is just launching out into life. She has foundit strange and rather terrible. She doesn't understand."
Her first impulse was to pause close beside the girl, to tell her thatshe had heard much about her; that she longed to aid her; that she andthe lady cop would help her; that if she would but allow it they wouldexplain life to her; that in the end they would restore the rubies totheir proper place.
"But she is rich," thought Florence, with a quick intake of breath. "I ampoor. Her family is in society. I will never be."
Ah, yes, "society," that mysterious something to which people have giventhis name. She did not understand it. There was a barrier. She must notspeak. So she passed on. And the twilight deepened into night.