by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER XIV "A PHANTOM WIRELESS"
It was night, dark, cloudy, moonless night. Florence could scarcely seeenough of the sandy beach to tell where she was going. She had, however,been over that same ground in the daytime, so she knew it pretty well.Besides, she wasn't going any place; just walking back and forth, up anddown a long, narrow stretch of hard-packed and frozen sand.
She was thinking. Walking in the darkness helped her to think. When thereis nothing to hear, nothing to see and nothing to feel, and when themovement of one's feet keeps the blood moving, then one can do the bestthinking. Anyway that was the way this big, healthy, hopeful college girlthought about it. So she had wrapped herself in a heavy cape and had comeout to think.
They had been ice-locked on the island for thirty-six hours. The ice hadcrowded on shore for a time. It had piled high in places. Now the windhad gone down and it was growing colder. It seemed probable that the icewould freeze into one solid mass, in which case they would be locked infor who knows how long.
The water in their little natural harbor had taken on something of acrust. It was possible that the boat would be frozen into the stream.
"Not that it matters," she told herself rather gloomily. "We can't startthe engine and as long as we can't it is impossible for us to leave theisland; only thing we can do is wait until someone discovers our plightor we are able to hail a boat."
They were on an island; they had made sure of that first thing. She andMarian had gone completely around it. It wasn't much of an island either.Just a wreath of sand thrown up from the bottom of the lake, it couldscarcely be more than three miles long by a half mile wide. The streamthey had entered, running almost from end to end of it, drained the wholeof it. The highest point was at the north. This point was a sand dunesome forty feet high. Their boat was moored at the south end. The entireisland, except along the beach, was covered with a scrub growth of pineand fir trees. As far as they could tell, not a single person had everlived on the island.
"It's very strange," Marian had said when they had made the rounds of it."It doesn't seem possible that there could be such an island on the lakewithout summer cottages on it."
"No, it doesn't," Florence had answered. "What an ideal spot! Wonderfulbeaches on every side. Fishing too, I guess. And far enough from land toenjoy a cool breeze on the hottest day of summer."
Though they had constantly strained their eyes in an endeavor to discoverother land in the distance, they had not succeeded.
"Probably belongs to someone who will not lease it," said Florence atlast.
So here she was trying to think things through. There was danger of areal catastrophe. The food in their pantry could not possibly last overten days. Then what? As far as she knew, there was not a thing to beeaten on the island. It was possible that fish could be caught beneaththe lake ice or in their stream. She meant to try that in the morning.
"What a plight to put one in!" she exclaimed. "Who could have done it andwhy did they do it?"
This question set her mind running over the mysterious incidents which,she could not but believe, had led up to this present moment.
There had been Lucile's seeing of the blue face in the old Mission, herown affair with the stranger in the museum; the blue candlestick; thevisit to Mr. Cole in the new museum; Lucile's frightful adventure on thelake ice; the incident of the two men with the sled on the ice of thelagoon and the single man sitting on the ice; then the spot of blue icediscovered next day.
"Blue ice!" she exclaimed suddenly, stopping still in her tracks. "Blue!Blue ice!"
Florence frowned, as she considered it.
A new theory had come to her regarding that spot of blue ice on thelagoon, a theory which made her wish more than ever to get away from thisisland.
"Ho, well," she whispered at last, "there'll probably be a thaw before weget back or those men will come back and tear it up. But if there isn't,if they don't then--well, we'll see what we'll see."
She was still puzzling over these problems when a strange noise, leapingseemingly out of nowhere, smote her ear.
It was such a rumble and roar as she had heard but once before in all herlife. That sound had come to her over a telephone wire as she pressed herear to the receiver during a thunderstorm. But here there was neitherwire nor receiver and the very thought of a thunderstorm on such a nightwas ridiculous.
At first she was inclined to believe it to be the sound of somedisturbance on the lake, a sudden rush of wind or a tidal wave.
"But there is little wind and the sea is calm," she told herself.
She was in the midst of these perplexities when the sound broke into aseries of sput-sput-sputs. Her heart stood still for a second, then racedon as her lips framed the word:
"Wireless."
So ridiculous was the thought that the word died on her lips. There wasno wireless outfit on the yacht; could be none on the island, for hadthey not made the entire round? Had they not found it entirelyuninhabited? Whence, then, came this strange clash of man-made lightning?The girl could find no answer to her own unspoken questions.
After a moment's thought she was inclined to believe that she was hearingthe sounds created by some unknown electrical phenomena. Men wereconstantly discovering new things about electricity. Perhaps, all unknownto them, such isolated points as this automatically served as relaystations to pass along wireless messages.
Not entirely satisfied with this theory, she left the beach and, feelingher way carefully among the small evergreens, came at last to the base ofa fir tree which capped the ridge. This tree, apparently of an earliergrowth, towered half its height above its fellows.
Reaching up to the first branch she began to ascend. She climbedtwo-thirds of the way to the top with great ease. There she paused.
The sound had ceased. Only the faint wash-wash of wavelets on ice andshore, mingled with the mournful sighing of the pines, disturbed thesilence of the night.
For some time she stood there clinging to the branches. Here she caughtthe full sweep of the lake breeze. She grew cold; began to shiver; calledherself a fool; decided to climb down again, and was preparing to do so,when there came again that rumbling roar, followed as before by theclack-clack-clack, sput-sput.
"That's queer," she murmured as she braced herself once more andattempted to pierce the darkness.
Then, abruptly, the sound ceased. Strain her ears as she might she caughtno further sound. She peered into the gloom, trying to descry the wiresof an aerial against the sky-line, but her search was vain.
"It's fairly spooky!" she told herself. "A phantom wireless station on adeserted island!"
Ten minutes longer she clung there motionless. Then, feeling that shemust turn into a lump of ice if she lingered longer, she began to climbdown.
"I'll come back here in the morning and have a look," she promisedherself. "Won't tell the girls; they've troubles enough."
She made her way back to the yacht and was soon in her berth fast asleep.
It was with considerable amusement that she retraced her steps nextmorning. There could not, she told herself, be a wireless station of anykind on that island. A wireless station called for a home for theoperators and there was no such home. She and Marian had made sure ofthat.
"But then what was it?" she asked herself, "What could it have been?"
She climbed the tree, this time up to its very top, then, turning, shadedher eyes to gaze away the length of the island.
"Just as I thought," she murmured. "Nothing. Just nothing at all."
It was true. There could be no wireless tower. If there had been shecould have seen it. What was more, there certainly was no house on theisland. Had there been, she could not have failed to detect its roof fromher point of vantage.
There was no house and no wireless station, yet, as she looked her lipsparted in an exclamation of surprise.
She was witnessing strange things. Toward the other end of the islandsomething w
as moving in and out among the drifting ice-cakes. This, shemade out presently, by the flash of a paddle, was some sort of a boat.
"And it is," she breathed. "No--no it can't be! Yes, it is, it's anEskimo kiak!"
At once she thought of the Negontisks. Could it be possible that they hadstumbled upon a secret home of some of these people?
As if in answer to her question, the strange manipulator of this queercraft drew the kiak on shore, then, skipping hurriedly along the beachand up a sandy ridge, suddenly put two hands on something and the nextinstant dropped straight down and out of sight.
Florence caught her breath sharply. She clutched the fir boughs in thefear that she would fall.
Then, realizing that she might be plainly seen if anyone chanced to lookher way, she began hastily to descend.
"He might come out of his igloo and see me," she told herself.
That the thing the person had entered was an igloo she had no reason todoubt. Igloos go with kiaks and are built beneath the earth.
"But," she said suddenly, "the other girls will know a great deal moreabout those things than I do. I must tell them at once. We will hold acouncil of war."