Red Rodgers rolled half over, squirmed
about, then sat up. For a long time he
had felt the floor beneath him vibrate with the
throb of powerful motors. His eardrums,
beaten upon as they had been by the roar of
those motors, now seemed incapable of registering
sound.
Not the slightest murmur suggesting life
reached his ears. “Not the rustle of a leaf, nor
the lap of a tiny wave; not the whisper of a
village child asleep,” he told himself. “Can I
have gone stone deaf?” Cold perspiration
started out upon the tip of his nose.
[12]
And then, piercing the silence like a siren’s
scream in the night, came a wild, weird, mad,
hilarious laugh.
Startled by this sudden shock of sound, he
shuddered from head to foot. Then, at once,
he felt better.
“At least I am not deaf.”
“That laugh,” he mused a moment later, “it
was almost human, but not quite. What could
it have been?”
To this question he could form no answer.
The wild places, wilderness, forest, lakes, rivers,
were sealed books to Red. He had lived
his life in a city, lived strenuously and with
a purpose.
“Some wild thing,” he murmured. “But
where am I?” His brow wrinkled. “I’ve been
kidnaped, dragged from my berth in a sleeping
car, thrown into a speed boat, carried
miles down a river, bundled into this airplane,
whirled for hours through the air, and landed
here. But where is here? And why am I here
at all?”
[13]
“Hours,” he whispered slowly. A stray
moonbeam lighted a spot on his knee. He
placed his wrist there and read the dial of his
watch.
“Yes, hours. It’s five after midnight. And
to-morrow, hundreds of miles away, I was to
have made at least two touchdowns. The
crowd would expect at least one sixty-yard
dash by the Red Rover.”
“The Red Rover.” That was the name the
fans had given him. Well, the Red Rover
would not run. He smiled grimly. But, after
all, what did it matter? They were to play
Woodville. What was Woodville? A weak
team. Old Midway’s cubs could beat them.
It was a midweek game, mainly for practice.
He wasn’t needed for that. But Saturday’s
game! Ah, well, that was another story.
“But kidnaped!” He brought himself up
with a start. “I’ve been kidnaped! Dragged
from my berth. Whirled all the way to some
place where wild creatures laugh at midnight.”
[14]
Kidnaped. The whole affair seemed absurd
to him. He had read of kidnapings. There had
been many of late. It had always made his
blood boil when some innocent child, some
helpless woman had been carried away to a
dismal hole and held for ransom. “Low-lived
curs,” he had called the kidnapers.
“Ransom!” He laughed a low laugh. He
was a college student, a football player for two
months of the year, a night clerk in a hotel
the rest of the year, an orphan boy working
his way through the university. He thought
there were three dollars in his pocket, but he
could not be sure.
“Kidnaped! Must have got the wrong fellow
this time. Tell ’em who I am, and they’ll
turn me loose; hustle me back, like as not.”
He was wrong. They would neither turn
him loose nor hustle him back.
“All right, Red. You can get out.” These
words were spoken as the airplane door swung
open.
“Red!” the boy thought with a start. “So
they do know who I am. They did mean to
get me. I wonder why!
“Whew!” he whistled as a cold breeze struck
his cheek. “Cold up here.”
[15]
“Cold enough,” the other grumbled. “Come
on, shake a leg! This boat swings about.”
“Boat.” It’s strange how a single word tells
a long story. The whiff of cold air had told
him that they had flown north. Now he knew
that they had landed on water. But what
water? And where?
“There you are.” A hand in the moonlight
guided him to a seat in the stern of a small
boat.
Red opened his eyes wide at the scene that
lay before him, a broad, deep bay fringed by
a black ribbon of spruce and balsam. The
moonlight, forming a path of gold across the
water, fell upon some dark object. As the oars
of the boat creaked, the dark object made a
splashing sound; it moved.
As if reading the boy’s thoughts, the oarsman
ceased his labors to cast the circle of a
powerful flashlight in the direction of the moving
creature.
With a quick intake of breath Red stared
enchanted; for there, not twenty yards away,
standing at the end of the small island which
he had reached at this moment, was a moose.
[16]
Nowhere in all his life had the boy beheld
such complete majesty. Erect, silent, powerful,
the monarch of the forest stood there defiant
and unafraid.
“Where in all the earth could one find a spot
such as this?” Red breathed to himself. “A
spot so sheltered that even the shyest of the
forest’s great ones shows no fear.”
He had expected the oarsman to drag a
rifle from the prow and fire point-blank at this
moose. Instead, he sat there for a second, his
rough face disfigured by a semblance of a
smile; then, pocketing his flashlight, he once
again took up his oars.
For Red there was little enough time for
thought. The boat swung about. Before them
lay a point of land, perhaps the end of an
island. At its extreme end was a little half-clearing
where a score of girdled birches pointed
their barren trunks, like dead fingers, toward
the sky.
[17]
At the edge of this clearing was a small log
cabin. From this a pale light gleamed. Toward
this cabin the boat directed its course.
“‘This is the forest primeval.’” The words
sprang unbidden to the boy’s lips. “‘The murmuring
pines and the hemlocks, bearded with
moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the
twilight, stand like Druids of eld, with voices
sad and prophetic, stand like harpers hoar,
with beards that rest on their bosoms.’
“And to-morrow was to have been—”
As he closed his eyes he saw what it was to
have been: a wild, shouting throng; college
songs, college yells, bands, waving banners.
“Go, Midway! Go!” Two squads battling for
victory. Wild scrambles. Futile dashes. And,
with good fortune, a mad dash of fifty yards
to triumphal victory.
“Life,” he whispered, “is strange.”
The boat bumped. A narrow landing lay beside
him.
“We get off here.” There was something
impersonal in the tone of this strange pilot
of the night. “This’ll be home for you, son,
for quite some considerable time.”
“I hope you’re wrong,” Red thought.
[18]
The room he entered a moment later was
small and very narrow. In one corner was a
cot, in another a table and chair. Across from
the table was a curious affair of sheet iron
that, he guessed, might be a stove. The place
was agreeably warm. There must be a small
fire. On the table a candle burned.
Turning about to seek for an explanation of
all that had been happening and of his strange
surroundings, he was not a little startled to
find himself alone. The door had been silently
closed behind him. And locked? Well, perhaps.
What could it matter? He was, beyond
doubt, surrounded by water, the merciless
water of the north country—some north country
in November; surrounded, too, by determined
men, hostile men, perhaps, who had apparently
ordained that his stay in the cabin
should be a long one. Once again, as he
dropped into the chair, there came to his mind
that forceful interrogation:
“Why?”
As before, he could form no adequate answer.
[19]
His mind was busy with this problem when,
with startling suddenness, his attention was
caught and held by the low sound of voices.
“Have you signed?” It was a man who
spoke. The voice was not gruff; a low, smooth,
persuasive voice, too smooth, too persuasive.
Quite in contrast was the answer. Unmistakably
feminine, it came sharp and crisp as
the crash of icicles fallen from the eaves. “I
will never sign.”
“But consider.” The man’s voice was not
raised, still smooth, persuasive. “You are on
an island.”
“An island. I thought so,” Red whispered
to himself. “But who can this girl be?” That
the one beyond the partition was a girl he did
not doubt.
“I will never sign!” the girl broke in upon
the other’s oily speech. “My father owes you
nothing.”
[20]
“Consider,” the other persisted. “You are
on a narrow island within a bay. The water
of the bay is icy cold. You might swim it in
safety, though I doubt it. Should you succeed,
it would be but to find yourself upon a much
larger island. That island is fifteen miles from
the nearest mainland, a hundred from the farthest.
Can you swim that, or row it even if
you should find a boat? Ah, no. The waters
of this great lake are terrible in their fury.
And Superior never gives up her dead.”
There was something so sepulchral about
these last words that the listening boy shuddered
in spite of himself.
“On such an island there are people.” The
girl’s tone was stubborn, defiant.
“There is no one.” The tone of the speaker
carried conviction. “In summer, yes. In winter,
no. We are here alone.”
“Then,” said the girl, “I shall stay here until
summer comes. Winter will soon be here.
And ‘if winter comes,’” she quoted, “‘can
spring be far behind?’”
“Very far.”
There was a quiet cadence in the speaker’s
tone that sent chills coursing up Red Rodger’s
spine. At the same time he hardly suppressed
a desire to shout: “Bravo!” to the girl.
[21]
The closing of a door some seconds later
told him that this was a cabin of at least two
rooms and, strangely enough, between these
rooms was no connecting door.
[22]
