The Second Girl Detective Megapack: 23 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls

by Julia K. Duncan

  Strange to say, Florence at this moment began losing her calm assurance. She reeled in when perhaps she should have given line. It was astonishing the way the wolf came in. He had not half the pull of the great fish.

  Before she knew it, his feet were on a sandbar. After that it was quite another story. He was not looking for a fight, that wolf. He was looking only for safety. With a mad dash he was down the sandbar, up the bank and into the forest.

  Completely unnerved at last, Florence lost all control of the reel. After spinning round and round like mad, it came to a jerking halt. For one split second there was a tremendous strain on the line, then it fell limp.

  “He—he’s gone!” Jeanne breathed. “Broke the line.”

  “Maybe he did. I’m going to see.” To her companions’ utter consternation, Florence followed the wolf into the dark forest.

  She returned some moments later. In her hand was the red and white spoon.

  “Went round a tree and tore the hook out of his tail,” she explained calmly. “See! Some gray hairs!” She held it out for inspection. “Gray hairs, that’s all I get. But the moose got his life back, for a time at least. Perhaps he’s learned his lesson and won’t try swimming bays again.

  “You see,” she explained, throwing some bits of birch bark on the fire and fanning them into a blaze, “a moose is practically powerless in deep water. If you catch up with him when you’re in a canoe, you may leap into the water, climb on his back, and have a ride. He can’t hurt you. But on land—that’s a different matter.”

  The little drama played through, a tragedy of the night averted, Jeanne and Greta crept back among the blankets beneath the boat and, like two squirrels in a nest of leaves, fell fast asleep.

  Florence remained outside. The wind had dropped, but still the rush of waves might be heard on the distant shore. This wild throbbing made her restless. She thought of the wreck. How was it standing the storm? Well enough, she was sure of that. But other more terrible storms? Her brow wrinkled.

  “Could camp here,” she told herself. “Get a tent or have some one build us a rough cabin. Stay all summer. But then—”

  Already she had begun to love their life on the wreck.

  “It’s different!” she exclaimed. “Different! And in this life that’s what one wants, things that are different, experiences that are different, a whole life that is different from any other.

  “Well,” she laughed a low laugh, “looks as if we were going to get just that, whether we stay on the wreck or on land.”

  Her thoughts were now on the mysterious black schooner that had visited the wreck the night before, and now on Greta’s phantom violin and the strange green light.

  “May never happen again,” she murmured. “For all that, Greta will go back again and again, when it is quite dark. People are like that.”

  She had turned about and was considering a return to her nest beneath the boat when, of a sudden, she dropped on her knees in the dark shadows of a wild cranberry bush.

  “Something moving,” she told herself, “moving out there in the channel.”

  At first she thought it a swimming moose, and laughed at her own sudden shock. Not for long, for as the thing came into clearer view she saw it was a power boat.

  Moving along, it glided past her, dark, silent, mysterious in the night.

  “The black schooner!” she whispered. “Wonder if it’s been to the wreck!” Her heart sank.

  “But no,” came as an afterthought. “It has been too stormy. They are putting in here for the rest of the night.”

  When the schooner had passed on quite out of sight, she made her way to the overturned boat, crept beneath it and had soon found herself a cozy spot among the blankets. She did not fall asleep at once. In time the silence lulled her to repose.

  When she awoke there was the odor of coffee and bacon in the air. Greta and Jeanne were getting breakfast.

  “Boats leave no trail,” she assured herself. “Unless they have seen the black schooner, I will not tell them it passed in the night.”

  A bright glitter was on the surface of the bay. Old Superior had put on a bland and smiling face. No trace now of last night’s boisterous roaring.

  “We’ll get back to the Pilgrim as soon as breakfast is over,” Florence decided.

  “But the barrel of gold?” Greta protested. “Aren’t we going to dig for that?”

  She was thinking of the talk they had had about the campfire, of the Indians, trappers and traders who had camped here for hundreds of years. In a flight of fancy she had dug a barrel of gold from beneath the sandy surface.

  “No gold digging today,” Florence laughed. “No spade. But you’ll see! There’s another day coming. We’ll find it, don’t you ever doubt it, a whole barrel of gold!”

  Florence was born to the wilds. High boots, corduroy knickers, a blue chambray shirt, a red necktie, these were her joy. She was as much at home in a boat as a cowboy is in a saddle. Breakfast over, she sent their light craft skimming through the narrows and out into the broad stretch of water lying between Blake’s Point and the reef that was the Pilgrim’s last resting place.

  “Look how he smiles!” she cried, throwing back her head. “Old Superior, the great deceiver! You can’t trust him!”

  And indeed you cannot. When a storm comes sweeping in over those miles of black waters and the fog horn on Passage Island adds its hoarse voice to the tumult of the waves, it is a terrible thing to hear those waves come roaring in.

  Florence had accepted the judgment of old time fishermen that for the time the wreck was a safe place to be. But this morning her brow wrinkled. “What if it should be carried out to sea!” she thought with a shudder. “And we, the last passengers, on board!” She said never a word to her companions who, reflecting the smile of Old Superior, were deliriously happy.

  CHAPTER VIII

  DIZZY’S WELCOME

  As they neared the wreck, from somewhere inside it came one wild scream, then the maddest laugh one might ever hope to hear. Just such a laugh as on that other night had completed the task of turning Jeanne into a ghost and frightening the mysterious men of the black schooner away.

  Had some stranger been present, he might have expected at this moment to see Florence drop her oars in surprise and consternation. Instead, she rowed calmly on, chuckling meanwhile.

  “Dizzy’s welcome!” she exclaimed.

  “Good old Dizzy!” Jeanne chimed in.

  Dizzy, as they had named him, had been aboardship when they arrived. At least they had found him swimming frantically about in the one-time dining room of the ship. He was a large loon. Crippled by some accident so he could not fly, he had somehow got into this place, but had failed to find his way out.

  Almost starved, he had appeared to welcome their arrival. They had bought fresh trout and fed him. From this time on, with no apparent desire to leave the place, he had become a devoted pet.

  “We’ll be joining you shortly,” Florence cried out to him as the boat bumped the side of the ship. This news was answered by one more delirious burst of mirth.

  “One could almost think he was human!” Greta shuddered in spite of herself. For her this old ship had a haunting appearance.

  Old Superior is ever ready enough to display his various moods. The girls had not been aboard an hour when a dense fog came sweeping in from the north.

  “Never find our way if we were out there now,” Florence said with a shrug of her stout shoulders.

  There came a slow, drizzling rain, followed by more and denser fog.

  Two hours later a wild storm came sweeping in. Sheets of water, seeming at times to leap from the very lake, dashed against narrow cabin windows. There was a ceaseless wash-wash of waves against the black hull of the wreck. What did this mean to the happy trio? Nothing at all. They were down in their private swimming pool with Dizzy. Such a strange and wonderful swimming pool as it was too! Once the dining saloon of the great ship, it now lacked both chairs and tables
, but the decorative railing leading to the floor above made a perfect diving board. A second rail ran slantwise into the water that at the far end must be twenty feet in depth.

  “Shoot the shoots!” Greta cried as, sitting astride the rail, she shot downward to hit the water with a splash and to go swimming away. How Dizzy beat the water with his wings and screamed! How they laughed and splashed him! How he dove and swam!

  “It—it’s wonderful!” Jeanne bubbled, her mouth half filled with water. “And to think,” she exclaimed as she dragged herself to a place beside Florence on the topmost step of the broad stairway, “to think that only a short time back all this was swarming with people off on a holiday! Some gay, some solemn, some rich, some poor, but all promenading the deck and all coming in here for their dinner. And now look! Here we are, only three. And it is all ours! And look at the cabins! Rows of them on either side, high and dry, half of them. People could sleep in them.”

  “But they never will,” Florence said soberly. “We are the old ship’s last passengers, no doubt about that. Next winter ice will form on the bay. It may be a foot thick. Then a storm will come roaring in and break it all up. The ice will come tearing at the old ship and cut her in pieces, if she lasts that long.” Florence had not meant to add this last bit; it just came out.

  “Of course the ship will last the summer through.” There was the slightest tremor in Jeanne’s voice. “Everyone says that. S-o-o-o!” she cried in her old merry way, “Let us enjoy it all while we may!” Once again she sat astride the rail to go sliding down and lose herself in a mass of foam.

  “Old ships,” Florence thought, “are like old houses. They have secrets to tell. What stories the doors to those cabins could relate!” Her eyes swept the long array of cabin doors.

  “Secrets they keep,” she whispered. “And treasures they sometimes hide, these old ships.” She was wondering what the secrets of this old ship were and whether after all there was some treasure hidden here.

  They had set up a small stove in the captain’s cabin. Five minutes later they were all three doing a wild Indian dance round the fire. This ended by a pow-wow in blankets, then a feast of smoked trout, hard crackers and some hot drink only Jeanne knew how to make. And still, outside, the wind drove rain against the windowpanes.

  “If she lasts that long,” Jeanne whispered under her breath. She was thinking of Florence’s words about the ship.

  For the time it appeared there was nothing to fear. The wind dropped at sunset. Clouds went scudding away and the moon, shining like a newly polished copper kettle, hung over all.

  After Greta and Jeanne had crept into their berths, Florence slipped into knickers and mackinaw to climb the steps leading to the bridge. There, while the moon sank lower and lower, she paced slowly back and forth.

  In common with all other girls, this big girl had her dreams. Strange dreams they were that night. For her the ship was not a wreck, but a living ship riding on an even keel, plowing its way through the dark night waters. She was the captain on the bridge. From time to time, as if for a word with the wheelman, she paused in her march; at times, too, appeared to jangle a bell. For the most part she paced slowly back and forth.

  “Why not?” she murmured at last. “Why should I not some day command a ship? I am strong as a man. There would be things to learn. I could master them as well as any man, I am sure.”

  She paused for a moment’s reflection. Had there been other lady captains? Yes, she had read stories of one who commanded a tugboat in Puget Sound.

  And there had been the lady of the “Christmas Tree Ship.” The husband of this Christmas tree lady had been lost on his craft while bringing thousands of Christmas trees to Chicago. She had chartered another ship and had carried on his work.

  “What a glorious task!” the girl murmured. “Bringing Christmas trees to the people of a great city!

  “She’s dead now,” she recollected, “that lady captain is dead. The Christmas tree ship sails no more. But it shall sail. Some day I shall be its captain. And Christmas trees shall be free to all those who are poor.”

  Laughing low, she once more resumed her walk on the bridge. This time her thoughts dwelt upon things very near at hand. “This wreck,” she was thinking, “this old Pilgrim—is it a safe place to be?

  “It—it just has to be!” she exclaimed after a moment’s reflection. “It’s such a grand place for the summer. Broad deck, sloping a little, but not too terribly much. Cabins without number, a swimming pool that once was a dining hall. Who could ask for more? And yet—” her brow wrinkled. The little breezes that blew across the water seemed to whisper to her of danger.

  At last, shaking herself free from all those thoughts, she went down to her cabin and was soon fast asleep.

  CHAPTER IX

  THE CALL OF THE GYPSIES

  The following day was bright and clear. The waters of Old Superior were as blue as the sky. Even the wreck took on a scrubbed and smiling appearance.

  “As if we were all prepared to shove off for one more voyage,” Jeanne said with a merry laugh.

  As soon as the sun had dried the deck, Jeanne and Greta spread blankets and, stretching themselves out like lazy cats, prepared for a glorious sun bath.

  It was a drowsy, dreamy day. In the distance a dark spot against the skyline was Passage Island where on stormy nights a search-light, a hoarse-hooting fog horn and a whispering radio warned ships of danger.

  All manner of ships pass between Isle Royale and Passage Island. They were passing now, slowly and, Jeanne thought, almost mournfully. First came a dark old freighter with cabins fore and aft, then a tugboat towing a flat scow with a tall derrick upon it, and after these, all painted white and with many flags flying, an excursion boat. And then, reared over on one side and scooting along before the wind, a sailboat.

  Just to lie in the sun and watch this procession was life enough for Jeanne and Greta. Not so Florence. She was for action. Dizzy needed fish. She would row over to the shoals by Blake’s Point. There she would troll for trout.

  The water about Blake’s Point is never still. It is as if some great green serpent of the sea lies stretched among the rocks and keeps it in perpetual motion by waving his tail. It was not still when Florence arrived.

  “Just right,” she whispered, as if afraid the fishes might hear. “Rough enough for a little excitement, and no real danger.”

  Casting a shining lure into the water, she watched the line play out as she rowed.

  A big wave lifted her high. Still the line played out. The boat sank low. She checked the line. Then, watching the rocks that she might not come too close and snag them, she rowed away.

  For some time she circled out along the shoals, then back again. She had begun to believe there were no fish, and was musing on other things, phantom violins, black schooners, gray wolves, Old Uncle Ned, when, with a suddenness that was startling, her reel began to sing.

  Dropping her oars, she seized the pole and began reeling in rapidly. Next moment she tossed a fine three pound trout into her boat. “You get ’em quick or not at all,” Swen had said to her. She had got this one “quick.”

  An hour later four fine trout lay in the stern of her boat. “Enough,” she breathed. “We eat tonight, and so does Dizzy.”

  The day was still young. She had not meant to visit Duncan’s Bay, but now the place called to her.

  Swen’s short, powerful rifle lay in the prow of her boat. Why had she brought it? Perhaps she could not tell. Now she was glad it was there.

  “Go ashore on Duncan’s Bay,” she told herself. “Go hunting phantoms and, perhaps, a gray wolf or two. Wouldn’t mind shooting them, the murderers, not a bit!”

  It was a strange wolf she was to come upon in the forest that day.

  With corduroy knickers tucked in high laced boots, a flannel shirt open wide at the neck, and a small hat crammed well down on her head, this stalwart girl might have been taken for a man as, rifle under arm, she trudged through the dee
p shadows of the evergreen forest covering the slope of Greenstone Ridge.

  That she was in her element was shown by the spring in her footstep, the glad, eager look in her eyes.

  “Life!” she breathed more than once. “Life! How marvelous it is!

  “‘I love life!’” She hummed the words of a song she had once heard.

  “Life! Life!” she whispered. Here indeed was life in its most primitive form. At times through a narrow opening she caught a glimpse of gray gulls soaring like phantom ships over the water. To her ears came the long, low whistle of some strange bird. She was not surprised when she found herself standing face to face with a magnificent broad-antlered moose. She stood quite still.

  Great eyed, the moose stared at her. A sound to her right caught her attention. She looked away for an instant. When her gaze returned to the spot where the monarch of the forest had stood, he had vanished.

  “Gone!” she exclaimed low. “Gone! He was taller than a man, yet he vanished without a sound! How strange! How sort of wonderful! But I wonder—”

  But there was that sound from below. Snapping of twigs and swishing of branches. No moose that. She would see what was down there.

  She did see, and that almost at once. A few silent steps, and she came upon him—a man. He was standing at a spot where a break in the evergreens left a view of Duncan’s Bay.

  He was looking straight ahead. On his face was a savage, hungry look. Only the night before the girl had seen that same look in the eyes of a wolf.

  She was not long in learning the reason. In plain view through that narrow gap was the patriarch of his tribe, the moose she had saved from the wolf.

  “But why that look?” She was puzzled, but not for long. In the hands of that man was a rifle. An ugly smile overspread his face. His teeth shone out like fangs as he lifted the rifle and took deliberate aim at the moose.

  She recalled Swen’s words: “Isle Royale is a game preserve. You will not be allowed to kill even a rabbit.”

  “This man is a poacher.” Her mind, always keen, worked quickly. “I can save the moose, and I will!”