Swinging her own rifle into position, she fired well over the heads of man and moose. The shot rang out. The startled moose fled.
And the man? She did not pause to see. Like a startled rabbit she went dodging and gliding back and forth among the evergreens. In her mind, repeated over and over, was the question, “Did he see me? Did he see me?”
* * * *
After a long and glorious sun bath followed by a delicious lunch served on deck, Jeanne and Greta sat for a long time staring dreamily at the sea. Then Jeanne, throwing off her velvet robe, stood up, slim and straight, on the planked deck.
“Wonder if I can have forgotten,” she murmured. Then, seizing a tambourine, she began a slow, gliding and weaving motion that, like some beautiful work evolved from nothing by the painter’s skillful hand, became a fantastic and wonderful dance.
For a full quarter hour Greta sat spellbound. She had seen dancing, but none like this. Now the tambourine was rattling and whirling over the little French girl’s head, and now it lay soundless on the deck. Now the dancer whirled so fast she was but a gleam of white and gold. And now her arms moved so slowly, her body turned so little, she might have seemed asleep.
“Bravo! Bravo!” cried Greta. “That was marvelous! Where did you learn it?”
“The gypsies taught me.” Dropping upon the deck, Jeanne rolled herself in a blanket like a mummy.
“People,” she said slowly, “believe that all gypsies are bad. That is not so. One of the very great preachers was a gypsy—not a converted gypsy—just a gypsy.
“Bihari and his wife were my godparents in France. They were wandering gypsies, but such wonderful people! They took me when I had no home. They gave me shelter. I learned to dance with my bear, such a wonderful bear. He is dead now, and Bihari is gone. I wish they were here!”
Next moment she went rolling over and over on the deck. Springing like a beautiful butterfly from a cocoon, she whirled away in one more riotous dance.
It was in the midst of this that a strange thing happened. Music came to them from across the waters—wild, delirious music.
Jeanne paused in her wild dance. For a space of seconds she stood there drinking in that wild glory of sound.
Then, as if caught by some spell, she began once more to dance. And her dance, as Greta expressed it later, was “like the dance of the angels.”
“Greta,” Jeanne whispered hoarsely when at last the music ceased and she threw herself panting on the deck, “that is gypsy music! No others can make music like that. There is a boat load of gypsies out there by Duncan’s Bay.”
“Yes, yes!” Greta sprang to her feet. “See! It is a white boat. It is just about to enter the Narrows. Perhaps Florence will see it.”
“Florence—” There was a note of pain in Jeanne’s voice. “Florence has the boat. I cannot go to them. Perhaps I shall not see them—my friends, the gypsies. And they make music, such divine music!”
“Music—divine music,” Greta whispered with sudden shock. “Can one of these have been my phantom violinist?
“No,” she decided after a moment’s contemplation, “that was different. None of these could have played like that.”
“It is the call!” Jeanne cried, springing to her feet and stretching her arms toward the distant shore. Fainter, more indistinct now the music reached their ears. “The gypsies’ call! I have no boat. I cannot go.”
CHAPTER X
SILENT BATTLE
Ten minutes of running and dodging brought Florence, still gripping her rifle, squarely against a towering wall of rock.
“Did he see me?” she asked herself. “And if he did?”
Dropping back into the protecting branches of a black old fir tree, she stood breathing hard, listening.
Her mind was in a whirl. She had saved the moose. But what of herself?
“Probably a foolish thing to do,” she muttered low. “And yet—”
Her mind took another turn. Who was this man? Certainly he was breaking the law. No man had a right to kill a moose on Isle Royale.
“They are one of the great joys of the island,” she told herself. “Hundreds of people come just to see them. Nowhere else can one see them so easily and safely in their native haunts. If men begin to shoot them they will go to the heart of the island and no one will see them. What a pity!”
Again, who was this man? She thought of the black schooner that had come creeping up the bay in the dead of night and that other one Jeanne had seen by the wrecked ship. Were they the same? And did this man belong to that schooner? To none of these questions could she form a positive answer.
When she had rested there in the shadows until she was sure the man had not followed her, she went gliding along beneath the rocky ridge, then started, slipping and sliding downward, to the camping ground.
Like a patient steed her boat lay waiting on the beach.
“Should hurry back to the ship,” she told herself. But the waters of Duncan’s Bay, so peaceful, so undisturbed and deserted, seemed to call. She answered that call.
After rowing quietly for a half hour, she dropped her oars, took up her rod and began to cast. Her reel sang, the spoon gave off a silvery gleam as, cutting a narrow arc through the air, it sank from sight.
Without truly hoping to catch a fish, she reeled in slowly. She repeated this again and again. Her boat was drifting. She gave no attention to that. Each cast was straighter, longer than the last. Here was real sport.
But wait! Of a sudden the pole was fairly yanked from her hand. “A fish!” she exclaimed. “Oh! A fish.”
She reeled in rapidly. The fish came up from the deep.
“Only a poor little four pound pike,” she sighed as she shook him free.
The little pike had three brothers; at least she hooked that number and threw them back.
Then came a sudden shock. It was as if a powerful man had seized her lure and given it a terrific yank.
“That’s the big boy again, or his brother.” She was thinking of that other night with Jeanne. She set her shoulders for a tussle. “If it is—” She set her teeth tight. “Watch me land him!”
The “tussle” never rightly began. With a suddenness beyond power to describe, a voice in her very ear said:
“So! Now I have you!”
It was the man who meant to murder the aged moose. In his two gnarled hands he gripped a stout ashen oar. The oar was raised for a blow.
What had happened was this. Her mind fully occupied with the fishing adventure, the girl had allowed her boat to drift farther and farther into the bay. She had at last come within the stranger’s view. Still angry because of his interrupted piece of vandalism, he had pushed off from the shore and, by using an oar for a paddle, had stolen upon her unobserved.
That there would be a battle the strong girl did not doubt. How would it end? Who could say? Her pulse pounded madly as she reached for her own oar.
The two small boats were a full mile from the Narrows, through which one enters Duncan’s Bay. At that moment a white fishing boat, fully forty feet long and gay with all manner of flags and bunting, was entering the Narrows.
There were a number of men and women on board, all gayly dressed, and, until a few moments before, enjoying a grand fete of music and dancing. Now they were silent. Duncan’s Bay affects all in this same manner. Dark, mysterious, deserted, it seems to speak of the past. A hush falls upon all alike as they pass between the narrow, sloping walls that stand beside the entrance to this place of strange enchantment.
Conspicuous because of his size and apparent strength, one man stood out from the other voyagers. Garbed in green breeches and a gayly decorated vest, he stood at the prow, massive brown arms folded, silently directing the course of the boat by a slight swaying, this way and that, of his powerful body.
Florence was quick. Hours of work in a gymnasium each day for months on end had given her both the speed and strength of a tiger. Before the intruder could strike she had seized her oar and was prepared to parry the blo
w.
The oars came together with a solid thwack. Not a word was said as they drew back for a second sally. This was to be a silent battle.
The man tried a straight on, sword-like thrust. It became evident at once that he meant to plunge her into the icy water. What more?
Swinging her oar in a circle, she struck his weapon such a blow as all but knocked it from his hands.
Before he could regain his grip, she sent a flashing blow that barely missed his head, coming down with a thud upon his back.
Turning upon her a face livid with anger, he executed a crafty thrust to the right, leading her weapon astray. Before she could recover, her boat tipped. She fell upon one knee. At the same instant there came a crashing blow that all but downed her for a count of ten. The man smiled.
“I’m done!” her aching heart seemed to whisper.
But what was this? There came the sound of heavy feet dropping upon the bottom of the boat. This was followed by a wolf-like growl. Then came the panting breath of terrific struggle.
Florence regained full consciousness in time to see her adversary caught in the grip of a powerful man, and to witness the feat of strength that lifted him clear of the boat and sent him sprawling into black waters a full ten feet away.
At that her deliverer turned and smiled, showing all his fine white teeth.
“Bihari!” she exclaimed. “Bihari the gypsy!”
“Yes, Miss Florence.” The man bowed. “Here we meet again. And this one—” He glanced at the man struggling in the water. “What of him?”
“It’s not far to shore. Perhaps he can swim that far.”
“Ah, yes, I am sure of that.” Bihari’s grin broadened. “Come then, we will forget him. You will come aboard our fine little schooner. My good Mama will look you over and see if you are hurt.”
To her surprise Florence found the flag-bedecked boat close at hand. The villainous intruder had been outgeneraled by his own tactics. He had come upon Florence silently, unobserved. In this same manner Bihari, witnessing the struggle, had stolen upon him. Not, however, until he had won the battle had Bihari discovered he was defending a long-time friend.
“Florence!” his buxom wife cried as the girl climbed aboard. “It is indeed good to see you! And where is my Jeanne?”
“She—she’s not far away. You shall see her within an hour if you choose.”
“Choose?” Bihari laughed a great roaring laugh. “Have we not traveled half way round the world that we might see her? Have we not traded our vans for a boat that we might come to this place? Show us the way.”
“You saw the wreck as you came in?”
“Ah, yes.”
“That is the place.”
“The wreck?” Bihari stared.
“The wreck,” she repeated.
Without another word this strange skipper mounted the deck to begin that unusual directing of his craft.
Four words came back to Florence, as with her boat in tow, she rode in luxurious ease out of the bay. “We will forget him.” Bihari had said that. He had been speaking of the stranger. Could they safely forget him? Something seemed to tell her they could not.
CHAPTER XI
SONG OF THE PHANTOM
It is not difficult to imagine Jeanne’s wild joy when, after an hour of disappointment because she had no boat for rowing to Duncan’s Bay, she saw the gay gypsy boat slip from out the Narrows and head straight for the spot where she stood upon the sloping deck.
“Oh!” she cried to Greta. “They are coming! Florence has found them. She knows how I love gypsies who are good. She will bring them.” She sprang into a dance so wild that Greta thought she would spin quite off the deck and go flying through the air to meet the gay white boat.
“It can’t be Bihari!” she exclaimed at last, throwing herself down upon the deck. “It just cannot be!”
It was Bihari for all that. The schooner was still an arm’s length from the side of the wreck when with one wild leap Jeanne was in Madame Bihari’s strong arms.
“Jeanne! My Petite Jeanne!” the good woman cried. Tears stood in her eyes. “Jeanne, you are with us once more!”
There followed hours of great joy, of music and feasting; telling of stories, too.
“In France,” Bihari said to Jeanne, “all is beautiful. Every day grows longer without you. We said, ‘Well, we will return to America.’ And here we are.
“We came to Chicago. You were not there. We came to the shore of Lake Superior. You were not there. They said, ‘She is on an island, Isle Royale.’ We said, ‘Take our vans. We must have a boat.’ See! We have a boat. Is it not a jolly one? And we have you!
“And see!” he exclaimed, pointing at a brown mass of fur against the cabin. “See, we have found you a bear. He is almost as wise as your other one. And Mama here has taught him some of your dances.
“Come!” he exclaimed, poking the sleeping bear with his foot. “Come! Dance for us!”
Unrolling himself, the bear stood up. At first, still groggy with sleep, he looked more like an empty sack trying to play it was a man. When Bihari seized his violin and began to play, it was as if the bear were run by a motor and the current was suddenly turned on. He began hopping about in a most grotesque manner. Soon he and Jeanne were doing a wild, weird dance.
Florence, accustomed to all this from the past, sat looking on in silence. Greta too was silent. Yet how strange it all seemed to her!
“Bravo!” Bihari shouted when the dance was over. “We will visit the island. We will go to every place where there are people. They shall have music and dancing, such entertainment as they have never known before.”
The days that followed were one round of joy for the little French girl. The old wreck became once more a pleasure ship. Flags and bunting were hung on every brace and spar. The deserted cabins overflowed with life and echoed sounds of joy from dawn to dark.
Great flat boxes of clay were brought from the mainland. On these campfires were kindled. Their red and yellow gleam might be seen wavering upon the water far and near. Strange dishes were prepared in kettles hung over these fires. They feasted, danced, sang and told stories by the hour. Both Jeanne and Florence lived the life of the open as they had lived it in France with Bihari and his band.
As for the dark-eyed Greta, it was all so wild and strange she could only sit shyly smiling in a corner, both charmed and bewildered by the ways of these people of the open road.
At times she stole away to the prow. One night, when songs were loudest, she took her violin from beneath her arm and played to the rushing waves. Then again she would sit staring away toward the land where no light shone, dreaming strange dreams.
“Gold,” she would murmur, “a barrel of gold. Florence said there might be a barrel of gold buried on the camping ground.
“But that,” she would exclaim, “that is absurd!” In spite of all her denials, the conviction clung to her that somehow, somewhere a barrel of gold would play an important part in her life.
“Wonder how much that would be?” she murmured. “Enough for—for everything?” For a long time she had wished to study violin under a very great master, and had not been able.
“Money, money, money,” she whispered now. “Some have much more than they need, and some none at all. How strange life is!”
Finding in this no source of joy, she gazed away toward the shores of Isle Royale, to dream that she was once more listening to the magic music of the phantom violin.
In this mood she took up her own violin and was soon lost to all else in an attempt to reproduce the notes of the haunting melody that had come to her that night.
To her unspeakable joy, she found she could catch here and there a few scattered notes. With time it came to her more and more.
So engrossed was she in this joyous adventure into the unknown, she did not know that the gypsy songs had ceased, that soft padded footsteps approached, that a little circle of eager listeners had gathered about her.
“Ah!” som
eone sighed as her last note died away.
Then, in consternation she became conscious of their presence.
“Magnificent!” Bihari exclaimed. “We have artists of the violin in France. Few play more wonderfully. What piece is that?”
“It—” Greta stared. “Why, that is the song of the phantom.”
“Song of the phantom!”
Greta was obliged to tell her story.
“That is no phantom!” Bihari declared stoutly. “Some great artist is hidden away in those hills. Why? I wonder. I should like very much to hunt him out and sit at his feet. But tomorrow—no, the day after—we become water gypsies again. We must play and dance. Coins must jingle, for we must live.
“And you—” He turned eagerly to Jeanne. “You will go with us, round the island?”
“Yes! Yes! She will go, Jeanne will go!” The gypsy band, all old friends, swarmed about her. What more could she say but “Yes, I will go.”
“And you,” she cried, gathering Greta and Florence in her arms, “you will go also?”
“It would be a grand adventure,” Florence replied, “but Greta is here, in part to rest and grow strong. I think we must stay and keep the ship until your return.”
So in the end this was agreed upon. “And we,” Greta whispered to Florence, “we shall go over to Duncan’s Bay. We shall dig for a barrel of gold and hunt down the home of that phantom who plays so divinely.”
“Yes,” Florence agreed. “We will do just that.” But in her own mind’s eye was the face of a very ugly man. And that man was trying to cut off her head with an ashen oar.
Next day was Sunday. There was no wild and hilarious music on this day, for Bihari and his band were deeply religious. All day they sat about the ship, some in groups talking quietly, and some alone meditating on the ways of a great Creator who rules the waves and watches over His children in all their wanderings.
As darkness fell a bright fire was lighted. Bihari took down his violin and all joined in those sacred melodies that belong to all time, all lands and all people.
Next day, with many a shout of farewell, the gypsy bark sailed away. And in the prow, standing beside Bihari, was the little French girl.
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