A Mystery Story for Girls

GREEN EYES

By
ROY J. SNELL

The Reilly & Lee Co.
Chicago New York

COPYRIGHT 1930
BY
THE REILLY & LEE CO.
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE [I The Mysterious Islander] 11 [II The Lady of the Island] 22 [III A Gypsy Secret] 29 [IV Why?] 35 [V The Gypsy Child] 45 [VI Haunting Melody] 51 [VII Gypsy Moon] 57 [VIII Sun-Tan Tillie] 61 [IX Banging a Bear] 68 [X A Gasp in the Dark] 73 [XI A Secret Begun] 80 [XII Three Rubies] 87 [XIII Charmed Days] 100 [XIV The Dance of Death] 107 [XV Fishing and Fighting] 119 [XVI Ships That Pass in the Twilight] 128 [XVII Voices in the Forest] 132 [XVIII Reveries] 139 [XIX The Stolen Trunk] 147 [XX 13-13 And Other Signs] 157 [XXI “Fishin’”] 163 [XXII Kidnapped] 175 [XXIII Strange Deliverance] 181 [XXIV Outbound in the Night] 188 [XXV A Scream in the Night] 195 [XXVI “A Boat! A Boat!”] 204 [XXVII The “Spank Me Again”] 212 [XXVIII Glowing Waters] 219 [XXIX Fading Shore Lines] 227 [XXX Their Crowded Hour] 232 [XXXI Petite Jeanne’s Dark Hour] 238 [XXXII Petite Jeanne’s Triumph] 243 [XXXIII Fast Work] 251 [XXXIV The Treasure Chest] 257

GREEN EYES

CHAPTER I
THE MYSTERIOUS ISLANDER

It was night on Morton’s Bay. A bright half moon painted a path of silver over water as still as the night.

At the very center of this narrow bay some dark object cast a shadow. This was a rowboat. It was painted black. The anchor lay in its prow. The boat did not drift. There are times of perfect calm on the upper waters of Lake Huron.

One figure was noticeable in this boat. A slight girl, she sat bent over as if in sleep, or perhaps in deep meditation.

There was another person in the stern of the boat. A large girl, she lay in perfect repose against a pile of pillows. Was she asleep? Did she dream? She was thinking. One thinks best when at perfect repose. Where could be found more perfect repose? Perhaps nowhere. Yet this girl, who was none other than our old friend, Florence Huyler, was slightly disturbed.

The rowboat had but now ceased rocking. The moment before, a powerful speed boat, passing at a terrific rate, had stirred the waters and had sent deep ridges and furrows to lift and drop it, lift and drop it many times.

Florence did not like speed boats. They hurried too much. She was seldom in a hurry. She and this other girl had come to the little settlement to seek repose. More than once a speed boat had interrupted her meditations. Now it had happened again.

“They’re taking a wide circle,” she told herself. “More than likely they’ll come back. Why can’t they leave us in peace?”

The circle made by the speed boat widened. Perhaps they would not return after all. Her thoughts shifted to other matters.

The figure in the forward seat was that of the blonde French girl, Petite Jeanne. She had not moved for a quarter of an hour. What were her thoughts? Or did she think?

“Perhaps she is asleep,” Florence told herself. She had not stirred when the speed boat rocked them.

“Ought I to warn her if they return?” Florence asked herself. “Might topple over into the bay. She can’t swim.”

Yet, even as she thought this, Florence smiled at the idea of danger. What if the French girl could not swim? One swimmer was enough. And Florence could swim. Few better. Once she had swum the Ohio river, a mile wide, on a wager.

“Easy to rescue her,” she thought. “But then, why get wet?”

She shuddered at the thought of a plunge. It was August, but the season was late. These northern waters were still cold.

Once more her thoughts shifted. To her right she had caught the gleam of a light. This light suggested mystery. Where the light shone was an island; not much of an island, a pile of rocks overgrown with cedars, but an island all the same. And in the midst of the cedars, dark, mysterious, all but hidden, was a cottage. And in the cottage lived a lady who dressed in somber garments and rowed a black boat. She visited no one, was visited by no one, and was seldom seen save in early morning, or at night. This much Florence had learned by watching the cabin from a distance.

“Mystery!” she whispered. “Of all places, on these northern waters in a community where no man locks his doors. Mystery! Oh, well, probably nothing.”

For all her whispered words, she was convinced that there was something. She meant to find out what that something was.

But now her thoughts were rudely broken off. With a roar that was deafening, the racing speed boat was once more upon them.

Coming closer this time, it set a current of air fanning their cheeks and showered them with fine spray.

The little French girl, waking from her reverie, stared wildly about her, then clutched at the seat. Just in time. The rowboat, rocking violently, threatened to tumble them into the water.

“Selfish!” Florence muttered. “As if there wasn’t room enough for both of us in all Lake Huron!”

Just then a question entered her mind. Was there a purpose in all this? What purpose?

To these questions she could form no answer. She resolved to remain right there, all the same; at least until Petite Jeanne had finished her meditations and asked to be taken in.

“What can so completely fill the mind of little Jeanne?” she asked herself. “Perhaps it is her part in the play. Ah yes, that must be it.”

That wonderful play! At once her mind was filled with bright dreams for the little French girl.

Petite Jeanne, as you will remember if you have read our other book, The Gypsy Shawl, had once lived and traveled with the gypsies of France. Florence and her friend Betty had found her there in France. In her company they had passed through many thrilling adventures. When these were over, Florence had invited her to visit America. She had come.

More than that, a marvelous future had appeared like a bright, beckoning star before her. In France she had taken part in a great charity play, staged in the famous Paris Opera. There she had performed the ancient gypsy dance in the most divine manner. She had won the acclaim of the elite of Paris. Not alone this; she had caught the eye of a renowned producer of drama. Finding himself prepared to stage a drama in which the French gypsies had a part, he had sent to France for Petite Jeanne. A prolonged search had ended in America. He had found Petite Jeanne with her friend Florence Huyler in her own city, Chicago.

The director had laid his plans before her. Her most important part in the drama was to be exactly that of her feat in Paris, to dance the gypsy dance with a pet bear beneath a golden moon. There were, of course, minor parts to be played, but this was to be the crowning glory.

“Would Petite Jeanne do this?”

Would she? The little French girl had wept tears of joy. Since her success at the Paris Opera she had dreamed many dreams. This engagement promised to make these dreams come true.

Only one sorrow had come to her. There was no part in the drama for Florence.

To Florence this was no deprivation. Acting had never appealed to her. Life, to her, was more than acting on a stage. Life, vivid life, physical strength, the great out-of-doors, this was her world.

“But when you are rich and famous,” she had said to Petite Jeanne, “I will be your ‘mother.’ Every star, you know, must have a ‘mother’ to protect her from impudent and stage-struck people.”

“Yes, and well you are able to protect me!” laughed Petite Jeanne, squeezing her arm. “Parbleu! Your arm, it is hard and strong as a man’s!”

Florence had not waited until the French girl was rich and famous to become her guide and protector. She had entered upon the task at once.

“At least until she is safely launched upon her career, and well accustomed to America, I will stay by her side,” she had said to the great producer, Jeffry Farnsworth.

To this Farnsworth agreed. He at once made provisions for their immediate needs.

Rehearsals had begun. They proceeded in a satisfactory manner for three weeks. Then Farnsworth announced a four weeks’ breathing spell.

“Go north, where it is cool,” he had said to Florence. “Our French lily droops a little in this humid climate. The north waters and woods will be medicine to her body and religion to her soul.”

So here they were, drifting on a silent bay, with the moon and the stars above them and all the world, save one restless speed boat, at rest.

Far back in the bay, on a narrow point among the pines and cedars, was their temporary home. A log cabin it was, with a broad fireplace at its back, with heavily cushioned rustic chairs in every corner, and with such an air of freshness, brightness and peace hovering over it as is found only where sky, water and forest meet in the northland.

Thinking of all this, Florence, too, had fallen into a deep reverie when, with the suddenness of a world’s end, catastrophe befell them.

With a rush and a roar, a demon of speed sprang at them.

“The speed boat!” she screamed in Jeanne’s ear. “Jump!”

The words were not out of her mouth when, with a swirling swing, she was lost in a mountain of foam. Their rowboat toppled over, casting them into the chilling water of the bay.

At once Florence was on the surface, swimming strongly.

“But what of Jeanne? She does not swim. I must save her.” These were the thoughts uppermost in her mind when a blonde head bobbed up close beside her.

Her hand flew out. It grasped something, the girl’s cape. It was loose. It came away. Jeanne began to sink. One more desperate effort and Florence had her, first by the hair, then by an arm.

“Jeanne!” she panted. “Jeanne! Get hold of my blouse and cling tight!”

The frightened French girl obeyed.

When she had secured a firm hold, Florence swam slowly. She must have time to think. The boat was overturned, perhaps smashed. At any rate she could not right it. The speed boat had not paused. It was far away. The night and dark waters were all about them.

“They never slackened their pace!” she muttered bitterly. “And they laughed! I heard a laugh. It was a woman. How could they?”

What was to be done?

On the shore a single light gleamed.

“It’s the light of that mysterious islander,” she told herself. “That woman who goes out only at night. That is by far the nearest point. We must try for that. It is our only chance. She must let us in; make a fire; dry us out. Jeanne will perish of cold.”

With that she turned her face toward that light and, swimming strongly, glided silently through the dark water. The waters were not more silent than her fair burden, who floated after her like a ghost.

CHAPTER II
THE LADY OF THE ISLAND

They made a trail in the water, the two girls, one who swam and one who drifted after. The trail was short. It appeared to begin at nothing and end nowhere. The moon painted it with a touch of silver.

Florence swam steadily. She thought she knew her powers—had measured the distance well. She swam with the determination of one who prizes life as a precious gift, not lightly to be held, or carelessly put aside.

Such a girl will go far. But did she fully know her powers? True, she had gone a great distance in other waters. But this was night in the north. The water was chilling. A sudden cramp, a brief struggle, and their path of silver would vanish. Only the drifting boat would speak of the night’s tragedy.

Florence did not think of this. Possible tragedies which can in no way be averted are not worthy of consideration. She thought instead of the monstrous injustice that had been done them.

“Why did they do it?” she asked. “How could they? What if they are rich, we poor? They have no right to override us. What if their boat is a thing of beauty and power, our own an old rowboat? The water does not belong to them.

“And they laughed!” she said aloud.

Jeanne heard and answered, “Yes. They laughed. I wonder why.”

“There are three boats on the bay like that one,” Florence said. “I have seen that many. Perhaps there are more. Which one could it have been?”

The little French girl did not reply.

Then, because she needed her strength for swimming, Florence lapsed into silence.

To an onlooker the outcome of this adventure might have seemed questionable. The water was cold, the distance considerable. To Florence, endowed as she was with splendid strength and great faith, not alone in her own powers but in the Creator’s goodness as well, there was never a question.

Such superb endurance as she displayed! Hand over hand, arm over arm, she measured the yards without one faltering movement. Little wonder, this. Florence regarded her physical powers as a great gift. She thought of herself as the Roman maidens did of old. She was a child of the gods.

So she swam on while the moon looked down upon her and appeared to smile. And the graceful, swaying cedars beckoned. At last, with a sigh of pure joy, she felt her hand grasp the post of a tiny plank dock, and knew that her testing was over.

With one last, splendid effort she thrust her silent companion to a place on the plank surface. Then she followed.

Petite Jeanne was completely benumbed with cold. Her lips were blue. When she attempted to stand, her knees would not support her.

Gathering her in her arms as she might a child, Florence hurried toward the cottage not twenty yards away.

The place was completely dark. For all that, she did not hesitate to knock loudly at the door.

There came no answer. She knocked again, and yet again. Still no answer.

She had just placed her shoulder squarely against the door, preparatory to forcing it, when a voice demanded:

“Who’s there?”

“I,” Florence replied. “We’ve had an accident. Boat turned over. We are soaked, chilled, in danger. Let us in!”

There came a sound of movement from within. Then a heavy bar dropped back with a slam.

As the door swung open, Florence gasped. She had seen the occupant of this cottage at a distance. Since she always dressed in garments of somber hue and lived here alone, Florence had expected to find her old. Instead, there stood before her, holding a lamp high like a torch, a most dazzling creature. A young woman, certainly not past twenty-five, with tossing golden hair and penetrating blue eyes, she stood there garbed in a dressing gown of flaming red.

“Oh!” murmured Florence, for the time forgetting her urgent mission.

“Bring her right in,” said a strong voice in a steady, even tone. “There are some coals in the fireplace. I’ll soon have it roaring.”

The mysterious young lady was as good as her word. Five minutes had not elapsed ere a fire was laughing up the chimney. Stripped of their chilling garments and wrapped in blankets of the softest wool, the two girls sat before the fire while their strange hostess spent her time alternately chafing Petite Jeanne’s feet and hands and tending tea that was brewing.

Florence found time to examine the interior of the cottage. The bar had been replaced at the door. As her eyes swept the walls, she was startled to discover that this cabin was entirely devoid of windows. More startling still was her next discovery. At the head of a low bed, within easy reach of one who slept there, were two thin, blue steel automatic pistols.

The things fascinated her. She removed her gaze from them with difficulty.

At that moment it struck her suddenly that this cabin bore all the marks of a trap. Had they been dumped out before it by someone with a purpose? Were they prisoners here?

But why? To this question she could form but a single answer. And that one seemed absurd.

“Green Eyes!” she whispered.

There was a young lady, an actress, the star of Petite Jeanne’s cast, who appeared to be intensely jealous of Jeanne. They had called her Green Eyes because, in certain lights, her eyes seemed as green as the sea. Once Florence had fancied that she had seen her in a speed boat on these waters. She could not be sure. Would she stoop to such base plotting? It did not seem possible.

“Besides,” the girl reassured herself, “this cabin is old. It was built for some other purpose. That it should have its present occupant is more or less in the nature of an accident. This woman has a purpose in hiding here. A mystery!” A thrill of pleasant anticipation shot through her, dispelling fear as the morning sun dispels the fog.

“Mystery!” she whispered to herself. “That magic word, mystery!”

“The tea is served,” said a pleasant voice. “Do you take one lump, two, or none at all?”

“N-none at all,” Florence replied, bringing herself back to the present moment with a start.

CHAPTER III
A GYPSY SECRET

Hot tea and a blazing fire took the blue from Jeanne’s lips and restored the natural faint flush to her fair cheeks.

“You say your boat was overturned?” Their hostess abruptly broke the silence that had fallen upon them.

“Yes.”

“A rowboat?”

“Yes.”

“Was it broken?”

“I—I—” Florence hesitated. “I don’t think so.”

“Then we should go for it at once. The wind is rising. It is offshore. The boat will drift across the bay. I have a rowboat. Perhaps you would do well to come with me. It will be something of a task to right it.”

She had spoken to Florence. When Petite Jeanne understood that she was to be left alone in this windowless cabin, she shuddered ever so slightly, but said not a word.

“I will go,” replied Florence. She turned to Jeanne. “You will be more contented here. The night air is very cold.”

They departed. Jeanne was alone. When she had made sure they were out of hearing distance, she closed the door and dropped the massive oaken bar in place.

Scarcely had she done this than she found herself possessed of the idea that someone beside herself was in the cabin.

“There may be other rooms,” she told herself. She searched in vain for doors leading to them. She looked under the bed.

Convinced at last that she was alone, she looked with wide-eyed interest at her surroundings. The walls were made of oak paneling, very well executed and polished to the last degree. The fireplace was massive. It was built entirely of the strange honeycomb-like stone that is found in places along the upper bays of Lake Huron.

“But why does she live where there is no light?” she asked herself in amazement.

Hardly had she thought this than she became conscious for the first time of a faint flush of yellow light lying on the floor at her feet.

On looking up to discover its source, she found herself staring at a very broad double skylight some distance above her head.

“It’s like those one sees on the cabins of ships,” she told herself. “Only higher up.”

Satisfied with her inspection of the place, she dropped into a commodious chair and at once fell into a reverie which had to do with her past and the very near future.

How strange her life seemed to her as she reviewed it here in the dim lights of such unusual surroundings!

Petite Jeanne, as you well know from reading The Gypsy Shawl, was born in France. Her family, one of the country’s best, had been impoverished by the war. The war had left her an orphan. Possessed only of a pet bear, she had looked about for some means of support. A friendly and honorable gypsy, Bihari, had taken her into his family. She had learned to do the gypsy dances with her bear.

These she had performed so divinely that in a contest she had been chosen from many other dancers to represent the wanderers of France in a charity pageant to be given at the Paris Opera.

After many perils, brought upon her by the green-eyed jealousy of other gypsies, she had achieved a singular triumph on that great occasion.

As guests of this pageant, two Americans sat in a box that night. One was a playwright, the other a producer.

As the dance progressed, as Petite Jeanne, seeming fairly to fly through the air, passed from one movement to another in her bewitching dance, one of these men touched the other lightly on the arm to whisper: “She is the one.”

“The very one,” the other had whispered back.

“We must have her.”

“We will.”

That was all for the time. But now, after several months, Petite Jeanne, as she sat in this cabin by the side of a great lake, reveled in the dream of flitting through her gypsy dance with two thousand Americans swaying in unconscious rhythm to her every movement, and that not one night, but many nights on end.

“Nights and nights and nights,” she now murmured, as she clasped her hands before her.

But suddenly, as if a cloud had fallen over all, she became conscious once more of dim light and night. Not alone that. There came to her now a sense of approaching danger.

The gypsies are curious people. Who knows what uncanny power they possess? A gypsy, a very old woman, had in some way imparted to Petite Jeanne some of this power. It gave her the ability to divine the presence of those she knew, even when they were some distance away. Was it mental telepathy? Did these others think, and were their thoughts carried by who knows what power, as the radio message is carried over the ether, to this girl’s sensitive brain? Who knows? Enough that a message now came; that it caused her to shudder and glance hurriedly about her.

“Gypsies,” she said aloud. “There must be gypsies near, French gypsies, my enemies.”

Yet, even as she said this, the thing seemed absurd. She had inquired of the native population concerning gypsies. They did not so much as know that such people existed. This section of the country, where the greater part of all travel is done on water, and where the people are poor, has seldom been visited by a gypsy caravan.

“And yet,” she said with conviction, “they are near!”

CHAPTER IV
WHY?

There is that about the woods and water at night which casts upon one a spell of irresistible loneliness and sadness. It is as if all the generations of those who have lived and died in the vicinity, whose canoes have glided silently through rippling waters, whose axes have awakened echoes and whose campfires have brought dark shadows into being, return at this hour to mourn their loss of a beautiful world.

Florence felt something of this as the mystery lady donned a cloak of somber hue, then pushed a dark rowboat into the water.

A faint knock of oarlock was the only sound that disturbed the grave-like stillness.

Some dark bird, awakened from his sleep, rose in their path to go swooping away without a sound.

The lady of the island did not speak. From time to time she glanced over her shoulder to sweep the water with her eye. When some object a little darker than the water appeared in the distance, she pursued a course that led directly to it.

“There,” she said, as they bumped against the object, “is your boat. It doesn’t seem large, nor heavy. You are strong. Perhaps we can right it.”

Ten minutes of muscle testing struggle and the boat, half filled with water, lay alongside.

As Florence settled back to catch her breath before assisting in bailing out the boat, she exclaimed:

“How can rich people be so thoughtless, reckless and cruel?”

“Why!” said her hostess in a mild tone, “I haven’t found them so.”

“Didn’t they rush our boat, then laugh as it went over?”

“Did they? Tell me about it.” The young lady’s tone suddenly took on a note of lively interest.

Florence told her exactly what had happened.

“That is queer,” said the lady, as she finished. “Your boat is dark; your friend wore a dark cape. Until to-night I have spent every evening for a week in this bay, sitting just as your companion was sitting, in an attitude of meditation, you might say. Since you were lying stretched out in the stern, you would be practically hidden by darkness. One might easily conclude that I was the intended victim of this little joke, if it may be called that, and that you had stepped in the way of it.”

“But why should they run you down?” The question slipped unbidden from Florence’s lips.

It went unanswered.

They bailed out the boat, took it in tow, then rowed back as they had come, in silence.

“Why should anyone wish to run you down?” The lady of the island asked this question quite abruptly the moment they entered the cabin.

“Why I—I don’t know.” Florence remained silent for a moment before she added, “We have heard that there is an actress visiting the Eries, those rich people over on the far point. From the description, it might be Green Eyes.”

“Green Eyes? What a name!” The mystery lady opened her eyes wide.

“It’s not her real name,” Florence hastened to assure her. “She’s Jensie Jameson.”

“Oh! I have seen her. She is quite marvelous. But why do you call her Green Eyes?”

“Perhaps we’re not quite fair to her. She seems jealous of my friend here. Green-eyed, as we have a way of saying. Besides, in some lights her eyes are truly green.”

“Green Eyes.” The tone of the mystery lady became reflective. “How terrible! What can be worse than jealousy? Hatred is bad. But jealousy! How many beautiful friendships have been destroyed, how many happy homes wrecked by jealousy. If I were given to that terrible sin, I should fight it day and night.

“As for this affair—” She changed the subject abruptly. “I think you may feel at ease. Unless I miss my guess, this bit of misfortune was not meant for you at all.

“And now—” She swung about. “What of to-night? Your clothes are not dry. I can loan you some. But are you not afraid to return to camp at this late hour?”

“We have little to fear.” Florence smiled in a strange way. “We have a bear.”

“A bear?”

“A pet bear.”

“But you?” said Petite Jeanne. “Are you not afraid to stay here alone?”

“I have never been afraid.” The strange lady’s tone was quiet, full of assurance. “Besides, I trust God and keep my powder dry.” She glanced at the two guns hanging above her bed. “I have no right to be afraid. It is my business not to be.

“You may leave these on the little dock to-morrow,” she said, as she helped the girls into some loose fitting house dresses. “You will find your own there.”

A moment later Florence saw the door to the cabin close as she pushed away from the dock.

A dark bulk greeted them at their own door. This was Tico, Petite Jeanne’s bear, her companion in the gypsy dance which, they hoped, was to make her famous. They had brought him along in order that, alone and quite unmolested in natural surroundings, the heart of the north woods, Jeanne might practice her part in the forthcoming play.

Next morning Jeanne and Tico, the bear, wandered away into the forest.

Florence went fishing. There is a type of fishing for every mood. This day Florence wished to think. Since she was in no mood for silent meditation she fastened a large spoon-hook to her fifty yard line, dropped rod and reel in the bottom of the boat, wrapped the line about her right hand, then went trolling along the edge of a weed bed.

The water rippled slightly, the rushes nodded now and then to a gust of wind. Her oars made a low dip-dip as she glided across the water. She did not expect to get a bite. She was trolling more for thoughts than for fish.

Into her mind crowded many questions. Who was the lady of the island? Why did her blue eyes reflect so much of fearless daring? Why this strange retreat? Why the automatics above her bed? Why was she here at all? There was something about this young woman that suggested intrigue, crime, possible violence.

“And yet, in such surroundings!” She laughed out loud. “Could there be a more peaceful spot in all the world?”

And indeed, could there be? Half a mile down the bay a tiny village basked in the sun. A general store, a confectionery, a grocery, a post office, a few scattered cabins and cottages; this was Cedar Point. To right and left of her lay deep bays. Bays and points alike were dotted with summer cottages, where tired city people came to rest and fish. Across the bay, half a mile away, were islands. Four of these islands were small, one large. There, too, were cottages. Who lived in those cottages? To this question she could form only a vague answer. Two or three were owned by millionaires with speed boats and yachts.

“They can have them.” She gave her line a fling. “Gas driven things. Bah!” Her splendid muscles set her boat shooting forward. “What’s better than the good old oars and a boat that’s light and fast?”

“I wish, though,” she added with a scowl, “that they’d leave us alone.”

This sent her thoughts off on another tack. Once more her line was forgotten.

“Those people in that speed boat last night meant to run someone down,” she said with assurance. “Question is, who? And why? Were they after Petite Jeanne? Was it Green Eyes? Or were they after the lady of the island? She believes they were after her. But why were they after her? She didn’t tell me a thing. She—”

Of a sudden there came a great tug at her line.

“Wow!” she cried, dropping the oars and snatching at her pole. “Got a fish. Wonder what—

“Wow, what a yank!”

She gained possession of her rod in the nick of time. Not ten feet of line were on her reel when she seized the handle and held fast.

For a space of ten seconds it seemed the stout line would snap. Then it went slack.

“Dumb! Lost him. I—

“No.” She reeled in furiously. The fish was coming toward her. Then he whirled about. As the line went taut again the fish leaped high out of the water.

“A pike or a muskie!” she murmured. “I must have him!”

A battle royal followed. Now the fish, yielding stubbornly yard by yard, approached the boat. Then, catching sight of her, he leaped away, making the reel sing.

Again she had him under control. Not for long. A raging demon fighting for freedom he was.

For fully a quarter of an hour she fought him until, quite worn out, he yielded, and a twenty pound muskie shot head foremost into her landing net.

“To think,” she exclaimed, “that I could come out to mull things over and should catch such a fish!

“Ah well, life’s that way. I come to think. I catch a fish. We come here seeking absolute quiet, and what do we find? Mystery, intrigue, and all that promises to keep us up late nights figuring out the next move on the checkerboard of life.”

CHAPTER V
THE GYPSY CHILD

In the meantime, accompanied by the lumbering bear, Petite Jeanne had followed a narrow way that led to the heart of the forest. At first her way was along a grass-grown road that narrowed to a path used in autumn by hunters. This path at last became only a trail for wild animals. In a soft marshy spot she came upon the clean-cut prints of a wild deer’s hoofs and the smaller marks of her fawn. There, too, she measured the footprints of a bear.

“A small, black brother of yours,” she said to Tico. The bear appeared to understand, for he reared himself on two legs to sniff the air and show his teeth.

Leaving this path at last, she climbed a low hill. There she entered a narrow grass-grown spot devoid of trees.

Here, with only the fir and balsam trees standing in a circle at a respectful distance to witness, she robed herself in one of those filmy creations known to Paris alone.

Then, with all the native grace that the Creator had bestowed upon her, she went through the steps of that weird dance that was to be the climax of the drama in which she had been given a great part.

“It is now moonlight at the back of a battlefield,” she whispered softly to herself. “This is a dance to the dead, to the dead who live forevermore, to those beautiful brave souls who loved their land more than life.”

Should one have happened upon her there, dancing with the bear, he must surely have been tempted to believe in fairies. So light was her step, so lissom and free her slight form, so zephyr-like her flowing costume, so great the contrast between her and the cumbersome bear, that she seemed at this moment a creature of quite another world. Yet this fairy was capable of feeling fatigue. In time she wound her filmy gown about her and threw herself on a bed of moss, to lie there panting from exhaustion brought on by her wild gyrations.

* * * * * * * *

Florence, having thought out her problems as far as she was able to follow them, which was not far, and having conquered her muskie, had rowed home, docked her boat and entered the cabin. She remained for a few moments indoors; then she reappeared with a basket on her arm. She took the trail of Jeanne and the bear.

It was on this same trail that she experienced a severe shock.

As she trudged along over the moss padded path, her soft soled sneakers made no sound. Thus it happened that, as she rounded a clump of dark spruce trees, she came unobserved upon a little woodland fantasy played by a child and a chipmunk. The chipmunk was in the path, the child at one side. A nut was in the child’s hand, a gleam of desire in the chipmunk’s eye.

The little striped creature advanced a few steps, whisked his tail, retreated, then advanced again. The statuesque attitude of the child was remarkable. “Like a bronze statue,” Florence told herself.

The fingers that held the nut did not tremble. One would have said that the child did not so much as wink an eye.

For a space of ten minutes that bit of a play continued. The thing was remarkable in a child so young.

“Not a day over seven,” Florence told herself, as she studied the child’s every feature and the last touch of her unusual attire.

At last patience won. The chipmunk sprang forward to grasp the nut, then went flying away.

Did Florence utter an unconscious, but quite audible sigh? It would seem so. For suddenly, after one startled upward glance, the child, too, disappeared.

All uninvited, a startling conviction pressed itself upon Florence’s senses. The child was a gypsy.

There could be no questioning this. Her face might have been that of an Indian; her attire, never. Florence had seen too much of these strange people to make any mistake.

“Not alone that,” she told herself, as she once more took up the trail. “Her people have but recently come from Europe. There is not a trace of America in her costume.

“Perhaps—” She paused to ponder. “We are near the Canadian border. Perhaps they have entered without permission and are here in hiding.”

This thought was disturbing. The tribe of gypsies with which Petite Jeanne had traveled so long had many enemies. She had come to know this well enough when the terrible Panna had kidnapped Jeanne and all but brought her to her death. Panna was dead, but her numerous tribesmen were ready enough to inherit and pass on her dark secrets and black hatreds.

“If Petite Jeanne knew there were gypsies in this forest she would be greatly disturbed,” Florence said to herself with a sigh.

“After all, what’s the good of telling her?” was her conclusion of the matter. “Gypsies are ever on the move. We will see nothing more of them.” In this she was wrong.

She did not tell Jeanne. Together they reveled in a feast of blueberry muffins, wild honey and caramel buns.

After Jeanne had gone through her wild dance once more, they trudged back to camp through the sweet-smelling forest while the sunset turned the woodland trail to a path of gleaming gold.

CHAPTER VI
HAUNTING MELODY

That evening Florence received a shock. The night before they had, through no purpose of their own, been thrown for an hour or two into the company of the young recluse who lived in a windowless cabin on a shadowy island. Since this person very evidently wished to be alone, Florence had not expected to see her again. Imagine her surprise, therefore, when, on stepping to the cabin door for a good-night salute to the stars, she found the lady standing there, motionless and somber as any nocturnal shadow, on their own little dock.

“I—I beg your pardon,” the mysterious one spoke. “So this is where you live? How very nice!

“But I didn’t come to make a call. I came for a favor,” she hastened to assure the astonished Florence.

“You were very kind to us last night.” Florence tried to conceal her astonishment. “We will do what we can.”

“It is but a little thing. I wish to visit an island across the bay. It is not far. Half an hour’s row. I do not wish to go alone. Will you be so kind as to accompany me?”

“What a strange request!” Florence thought. “One would suppose that she feared something. And there is nothing to fear. The island channels are safe and the bay is calm.”

“I’d be delighted to go,” she said simply.

This did not express the exact truth. There was that about the simple request that frightened her. What made it worse, she had seen, as in a flash of thought, the two pistols hanging over the strange one’s bed.

“Very well,” said the mystery lady. “Get your coat. We will go at once.”

Since Florence knew that Petite Jeanne was not afraid to be alone as long as her bear was with her, she hurried to the cabin, told Jeanne of her intentions, drew on a warm sweater, and accompanied the strange visitor to her boat.

Without a word, the lady of the island pushed her slight craft off, then taking up her oars, headed toward the far side of the bay.

“What island?” Florence asked herself.

There were four islands; three small, one large. The nearest small one was not inhabited. She and Jeanne had gone there once to enjoy their evening meal. There was a camping place in a narrow clearing at the center. The remainder of the island was heavily forested with birch and cedar.

On another small island was a single summer cottage, a rather large and pretentious affair with a dock and boathouse.

The large one, stretching away for miles in either direction, was dotted with summer homes.

The course of their boat soon suggested to her that they were to visit the small island that held the summer cottage. Yet, even as she reached this conclusion, she was given reasons for doubting it. Their course altered slightly. They were now headed for the end where the growth of cedar and birch reached to the water’s edge and where there was no sign of life. The cottage was many hundred feet from this spot.

“When one visits a place by water at night, one goes to the dock,” she told herself. “Where can we be going now?”

A rocky shoal extended for some little distance out from the point of the island. The light craft skirted this, then turned abruptly toward shore. A moment later it came to rest on a narrow, sandy beach.

“If you will please remain here for a very few moments,” said the lady of the island, “I shall be very grateful to you. Probably nothing will happen. Still, one never can tell. Should you catch a sound of commotion, or perhaps a scream, row away as speedily as possible and notify Deputy Sheriff Osterman at Rainy Creek at once. If I fail to return within the next half hour, do the same.”

“Why—er—”

Florence’s answer died on her lips. The mysterious one was gone.

“Who is she? Why are we here? What does she wish to know?” These and a hundred other haunting questions sped through the girl’s mind as she stood there alone in the dark, waiting, alert, expectant, on tiptoe, listening to the tantalizing lap-lap of water on the sandy shore.

A moment passed into eternity, another, and yet another. From somewhere far out over the dim-lit waters there came the haunting, long drawn hoot of a freighter’s foghorn.

Something stirred in the bush. She jumped; then chided herself for her needless fear.

“Some chipmunk, or a prowling porcupine,” she told herself.

A full quarter of an hour had passed. Her nerves were all but at the breaking point, when of a sudden, without a sound, the lady of the island stood beside her.

“O. K.,” she said in a low tone. “Let’s go.”

They were some distance from the island when at last the lady spoke again.

“That,” she said in a very matter-of-fact tone, “is Gamblers’ Island. And I am a lady cop from Chicago.”

“A—a lady cop!” Florence stared at her as if she had never seen her before.

“A lady policeman,” the other replied quietly. “In other words, a detective. Women now take part in nearly every field of endeavor. Why not in this? They should. Men have found that there are certain branches of the detective service that naturally belong to women. We are answering the challenge.

“But listen!” She held up a hand for silence.

To their waiting ears came the sound of a haunting refrain. The sound came, not from the island they had just left, but from the other, the supposedly uninhabited one.

“They say—” into the lady’s voice there crept a whimsical note, “that this island was once owned by a miser. He disappeared years ago. His cabin burned long since. Perhaps he has returned from another world to thrum a harp, or it may be only a banjo. We must have a look!”

She turned the prow of her boat that way and rowed with strength and purpose in the direction from which the sound came.

CHAPTER VII
GYPSY MOON

As they neared the tiny island, the sound of banjo and singing grew louder. From time to time the music was punctuated by shouts and clapping of hands.

“Someone playing gypsy under the gypsy moon,” said the lady of the island, glancing at the golden orb that hung like a giant Chinese lantern in the sky.

Florence made no reply. She recalled the dark-skinned child she had surprised on the trail, but kept her thoughts to herself.

“There’s a tiny beach half way round to the left,” she suggested. “We were here not long ago.”

The boat swerved. Once more they moved on in silence.

To Florence there was something startling about this night’s happenings.

“Gamblers’ Island; a lady cop,” she whispered. “And now this.”

Once more their boat grounded silently. This time, instead of finding herself left behind, the girl felt a pull at her arm and saw a hand in the moonlight beckon her on.

From the spot where they had landed, a half trail, strewn with brush and overhung with bushes, led to the little clearing at the center of the island.

Florence and Jeanne had found this trail difficult in broad daylight. Yet her guide, with a sense of direction quite uncanny, led the way through the dark without a single audible swish of brush or crack of twig until, with breath coming quick and fast, Florence parted the branches of a low growing fir tree and found herself looking upon a scene of wild, bewitching beauty.

Round a glowing campfire were grouped a dozen people.

“Gypsies,” she told herself. “All French gypsies!” Her heart sank. Here was bad news indeed.

Or was it bad? “Perhaps,” she said to herself, “they are Jeanne’s friends.”

Whether the scene boded good or ill, it enthralled her. Two beautiful gypsies, garbed in scant attire, but waving colorful shawls about them as they whirled, were dancing before the fire. Two banjos and a mandolin kept time to the wild beating of their nimble feet.

Old men, women, and children hovered in the shadows. Florence had no difficulty in locating the child of the trail who had played with the chipmunk. She was now fast asleep in her mother’s arms.

Florence’s reaction to all this was definite, immediate. She disliked the immodest young dancers and the musicians. The children and the older ones appealed to her.

“They have hard faces, those dancers,” she told herself. “They would stop at nothing.”

Of a sudden a mad notion seized her. These were water gypsies who had deserted the caravan for a speed boat. They had seen Jeanne, had recognized her, and it had been their speed boat that had overturned the rowboat.

“But that,” she told herself instantly, “is impossible. Such a speed boat costs two or three thousand dollars. How can a band of gypsies hope to own one?”

Nevertheless, when her strange companion, after once more pulling at her arm, had led her back to the beach, she found the notion in full possession of her mind.

Florence offered to row back to the mainland but as if by mistake she rowed the long way round the island. This gave her a view of the entire shore.

“No speed boat, nor any other motor craft on those shores,” she assured herself after a quarter of an hour of anxious scanning. “Wonder how they travel, anyway.”

Thereupon she headed for the distant shore which was, for the time being, their home.

Once again her mind was troubled. Should she tell Petite Jeanne of this, her latest discovery, or should she remain silent?

CHAPTER VIII
SUN-TAN TILLIE

Next day Florence made a new friend. Petite Jeanne wished to spend the morning, which was damp and a trifle chilly, among the cushions before the fire. Florence went for a ramble in the forest.

She took a path she had not followed before. These strange trails fascinated her. Some of them, she had been told, led on and on and on into vast, trackless slashings where one might be lost for days, and perhaps never return.

She had no notion of getting herself lost. By watching every fork in the trail, and noting the direction she had taken, she made sure of finding her way back.

She had been following this trail for half an hour when of a sudden a voice shattered the silence of the forest.

“Now, Turkey, do be careful!” It was a girl’s light pitched voice. “We’ve got to get them. You know we have.”

“But what if they ain’t here?” grumbled a boy’s voice.

“What can they be after?” Florence asked herself. “And who can they be, way back here in the forest where no one lives?”

She hesitated for a moment. Then, deciding to investigate, she pushed on.

She was not long in discovering that she had been mistaken on one count. She was not in the heart of the forest. The trees thinned. She found herself on the edge of a bay where bullrushes were thick. She had crossed a point of land and had come to water again.

Near the beach, in shallow water, a boy of twelve and a girl of sixteen were struggling with a minnow net.

The net was long and hard to handle. Weeds in the water hampered their progress. They had not seen Florence. The girl labored with the determined look of one who must not pause until her task is completed.

The boy was a plain towhead. There are a thousand such on the shores of the Upper Peninsula. The girl caught Florence’s attention. She was plump, well formed, muscular. Her body was as brown as an Indian’s. She possessed a wealth of golden red hair. A single garment covered her, a bathing suit which had once been green, but was now nearly white.

“Natives,” thought Florence. “But what are they after?”

Just then the girl looked up. She took Florence in from head to toe at a glance.