by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER X THE REAL CRUISE BEGINS
Next morning Florence was skating down the lagoon, deep in thoughts ofthe mysterious events of the past few days. So deeply engrossing werethese thoughts that she did not see what lay before her. Suddenly herskate struck some solid obstacle. She tripped, then went sprawling. Herloosened skate shot off in another direction.
"That's queer," she murmured as she sat up rubbing her knees.
Glancing back over the way she had come, she saw nothing more than acircular raised spot which had formed when water had sprung up through ahole in the ice.
"That's strange," she mused, and rising, she hopped and glided back tothe spot.
"Someone must have cut a hole in the ice," she reflected, "though whatthey'd do it for is more than I can see. We youngsters used to do that toget a drink when we were skating on a little prairie pond, a long wayfrom nowhere. But here the ice is fourteen inches thick and there's adrink of water to be had for the asking up at the skate house."
As she glanced down at the spot, another strange circumstance surprisedher. "What makes that spot look so much bluer than the other ice?" sheasked herself.
As she examined it more closely she saw that this patch of blue had avery definite outline, but rough and jagged, like the edges of a piece ofcloth haggled by a child who is just learning to use a pair of scissors.
Having recaptured her fugitive skate, she clamped it to her foot and wasabout to go on her way when another startling fact arrested her.
"Why, that," she thought, "is just about where that man was sitting lastnight; the one Marian and I saw who had apparently dropped in fromnowhere."
So struck with the discovery was she that she skated over to the edge ofthe ice where the sled drawn by the two strangers had left the snow.There she took good notice of the direction in which the sled had beengoing when it came upon the ice.
Turning about, she skated backward with her eyes on the track made by thesled runners. She was endeavoring to retrace the sled over the ice whereno tracks were visible, in an effort to prove that the sled had arrivedat the point on the ice where the hole had been cut when it turned andstruck off at another angle.
So successful was she in this that she all but fell over the rise in theice a second time.
"That's that," she murmured. "Now for something else."
Skating rapidly to the end of the lagoon nearest the dry dock shecirculated about until she discovered the spot at which the sled had leftthe ice.
Again guiding herself by the course taken by the sled, she skatedbackward and in a short time found herself once more beside the spot inthe ice where the hole had been cut.
"That proves something," she told herself, "but just how much I can'ttell. But I'll leave that to study out to-night. Must hurry on or I'll belate to my lecture."
"That sled track went toward the dry dock," she told herself a fewmoments later. "To-night when I go home I'll try to trace it out and seewhere it went."
Lucile was home early that day. Marian had not gone to school at all. Shehad stayed on the beach making sketches of the ice-jam on the lake front.
"I'll be going out again to-night," she told Lucile. "Wind's shifted.It's offshore now and rising. There are certain effects of lights andshadows which you get on the rim of a body of fresh water which you don'tin the sea ice. Sea ice is white, dull white, like snow. Fresh water iceis blue; blue as the sky sometimes. I want to catch it before it blowsout again. But what brings you home so early, Lucile?"
"Cut my lecture. Headache," she explained, pressing her temples. "Nothingmuch though. And, Marian," she exclaimed suddenly, "what do you think?That story!"
"Did he take it?"
"The editor of the Literary Monthly? No, better than that."
"Could anything be better than that?"
"Lots of things."
"What _is_ better?"
"Listen," declaimed Lucile, striking a mock dramatic attitude. "He said,the literary editor did, that it was too good for his _poor littlepublication_! Fancy! 'His poor little publication!' My story too good! Mystory! A freshman's story!" She burst into sudden laughter, but stoppedabruptly and sat down pressing her temples and groaning: "My poor head!"
"You never can tell about it--about stories," said Marian. "Heads either.You'll have to go to bed early to-night and get a good night's sleep.There's been entirely too much excitement on board these last fewnights."
"He said," Lucile went on, "that the Literary Monthly didn't pay forstories. Of course I knew that. And he said that he thought I could sellmy story; that he thought it was good enough for that. The technique wasnot quite perfect. There was too much explanation at the beginning andthe climax was short, but the theme and plot were unusual. He thoughtthat would put it over. He knew exactly the place to send it--'SeasideTales,' a new magazine just started by a very successful editor. He knowshim personally. He gave me a letter of introduction to him and I mailedthe story to him right away. So you see," she smiled folding her arms, "Iam to be an authoress, a--a second George Eliot, if you please!"
"But Seaside Tales is published right down town. Why did you mail it?"
"Do you think," said Lucile in real consternation, "that I would darebeard that lion of an editor in his den? The editor of a real magazinethat pays genuine money for stories? Why I--I'd die of fright. Besides,one does not do it. Really one doesn't."
"What was your story about?" asked Marian suddenly.
"Why, I--I wasn't going to tell, but I guess I will. It was about threegirls living on a yacht in a dry dock. And, one night in a storm theyacht broke loose on the dry dock and went out into the water. Then itdrifted out to sea. Then, of course, they had to get back to land. Wasn'tthat dramatic?"
"Yes, very!" smiled Marian. "Goodness! I hope it never happens to the OMoo! Just think! Not one of us even knows how to start the engine."
"I mean to have Dr. Holmes show me the very next time he and Mrs. Holmescome down."
"He'll think you're crazy."
"Maybe he will. But you never can tell."
That was one time when Lucile was right; in this queer old world younever can tell.
When Florence returned from the university the shades of night werealready falling. There was, however, sufficient light to enable her tofollow the track of the sled she had seen the night before. This trackled straight across the park to the beach, then along the beach in thedirection of the dry dock. A few hundred yards from the dry dock itturned suddenly to the left and was at once lost among the tumbled massesof ice, where no trace of it could be found.
"Sled might be hidden out there," she mused.
For a time she contemplated going out in search of it. When, however, sherealized that it was growing quite dark, and recalled Lucile's unpleasantexperience of the night before, she decided not to venture.
"If they come back to the beach again," she told herself, "I can pick uptheir tracks in the snow farther down."
Walking briskly, she covered the remaining distance to the spot on thebeach opposite the O Moo.
"Not yet," she whispered, and climbing over the trestle she made her wayon down the beach. Her eyes were always on the ground. Now she climbed atrestle, now walked round an anchor frozen into the sand, but always hereyes returned to the tracks in the snow. Tracks enough there were,footprints of men, but never a trace of a sled leaving the ice.
She had gone a considerable distance when she became conscious of someperson not far away. On looking up she was startled to note that she hadreached a point opposite the great black scow where the Orientals lived.
At the end of the scow stood a man. His face disfigured by a scowl, hestood watching her. He was dressed in the black gownlike garb of theChinese. He wore a queue. There was, however, something strange about hisface. She fancied she had seen him somewhere before, but where she couldnot tell.
Then the man moved out of the light that shone on him from a window andwas swallowed up by
the shadows.
"No use going farther," she told herself. "If the sled belongs on the drydock somewhere it would be the easiest thing in the world for two personsto lift it on their shoulders and carry it in from the ice. That wouldthrow one completely off the trail."
Turning, she retraced her steps along the beach to the trestle work onwhich the O Moo rested, then swinging about to the right she made her wayto the yacht's side.
Once on deck, she made certain that the other girls were aboard, thenretraced her steps to the deck's side, where she pulled down the canvasand tied it securely. For a moment she stood listening to the lash ofropes on the mast. The canvas covering bulged and sagged. Cool air fannedher cheeks.
"Going to be a bad storm," she told herself. "Offshore wind, too. All theice will go out to-night, and everything with it that isn't tied down."When all was tight on deck she slipped into the cabin.
Lucile, who ate very little dinner that night, retired early. Marianstudied until nine-thirty. The clock pointed at eleven when Florence,with a sigh of regret, put down her psychology to prepare for sleep.
"Whew!" she breathed, "what a storm! Listen to the canvas boom! Like aschooner at sea! Hope it doesn't tear the canvas away. Hope it doesn't--"
She did not finish the sentence. The thought which had come to her wastoo absurd.
Once snugly tucked in her bed, she found her mind returning to themorning's discovery. What did that new ice on the lagoon mean? Why hadthe hole been cut? Why was the ice blue? Did the sled and the man sittingon the ice the night before have anything to do with it? Did the man cutthat hole? If so, why?
He might, she told herself, have had something to conceal, somevaluables, stolen diamonds or gold. But how could he hope to recover itif he dropped it through a hole in the ice. The water beneath the ice wasalways murky and there was a strong current there. Anything droppedbeneath that ice would be lost forever.
She remembered the two policemen whom Lucile had seen on the beach thatsame night. Perhaps those two men had been running from the officers,trying to conceal something. But how had the man come there on the ice?Perhaps--she started at the thought--perhaps this man rode there beneaththe sled. The runners had been extraordinarily broad. A man could easilyride between them. The thought gave her a start.
She thought of Lucile's experience in the old Mission, and of her ownwith the blue candlestick. Perhaps, she told herself, they dropped theblue god through the ice.
Then she smiled at herself. How could the blue god be in Chicago? If itwere they would never drop it in the water beneath the ice where it couldnever be recovered. Yet why had the ice been blue? Why--
She fell asleep, to listen in her dreams to the lash of ropes, the boomof canvas and to dream of riding a frail craft on a storm-tossed sea.
It would be difficult to determine just why it is that one knows how longhe has slept, yet we very often do know. One wakens in the middle of thenight and before the clock strikes the hour he says to himself, "I haveslept three hours." And he is right.
When Florence awoke that night she knew she had been asleep for aboutfive hours. It was dark, pitch dark, in the cabin. The storm was stillraging.
"Just listen," she murmured dreamily, "One could easily imagine that wewere out to sea."
There was a tremendous booming of canvas and a lashing sound whichresembled the wash of the waves, but this last, she told herself, was theropes beating the mast. She had dozed off again when some strange elementof the storm brought her once more half awake.
"One would almost say the yacht was pitching," she thought as in a dream,"but she's firmly fastened. It is impossible. She--"
Suddenly she sat up fully awake. She had moved a trifle closer to theporthole. Her head had been banged against it.
"It _is_ pitching!" she exclaimed in an awed whisper.
Her mind whirled. What had happened? Was the storm so violent that the OMoo was being rocked from side to side on her trestle. Would she soontopple over, to go crashing on the frozen sand? Or had they in some waybeen blown out to sea?
This last seemed impossible. She thought of the block beneath the wheelsof the car on which the O Moo stood, then of the strong cable fastened toher prow.
"It _is_ impossible!" she muttered.
There was one way to prove this. She proceeded to apply the test.
Turning a screw which held her porthole closed, she swung the metalframed glass wide open.
Instantly she slammed it shut. She had been soaked with a perfect delugeof water.
Her heart stopped beating. She tried to shout to the other girls, but hertongue clung to the roof of her mouth. There could no longer be any doubtconcerning the nature of the catastrophe which had come over them. How ithad happened, she could not even guess. This much she knew: _They wereafloat._
"Girls! Girls!" Her own voice shouted to her like that of a ghost,"Marian! Lucile! Wake up! We're afloat! The O Moo's adrift!"
Marian groaned; sat up quickly, then as quickly fell back again. Her headhad collided with a beam.
"What--what's the matter?" she stammered.
There came a low moan from Lucile: "I'm so sick."
"Seasick. Poor child," said Florence.
"No--no, not that." Lucile's voice was faint. "It's my head--it'ssplitting. I can't raise it. I--I'm afraid it's going to be--be--bad."
Florence leaped to the floor. Her feet splashed into a thin sheet ofwater which washed about on the carpet. The cold chill of it brought herto her senses. They were afloat.
Someone had cast them adrift. Was that someone on deck at this moment orhad he merely cut the cable, removed the blocks and allowed the wind todo the rest? This must be determined at once.
Hastily dragging some rubbers on her benumbed feet, she splashed her wayto the door. Having made sure that this was securely locked, she went toeach window and porthole, fastening each as securely as possible. Thisdone, she fought her way to Lucile's berth and, steadying herself withone hand, placed the other on Lucile's brow.
An exclamation escaped her lips. The forehead was burning hot. Lucile hada raging fever.
"If I had the coward who cut us loose," she cried through clenched teeth,"I--I'd kill him!"