I
Unusual commotion below stairs awakened Josephine Stone at a very early hour the morning following the storm. She arose and opened the door to listen. Mrs. Johnson, fully dressed, came down the hall.
“Oh, are you getting up, Josephine?” she greeted. “We didn’t intend calling you for an hour or so.”
“It was the noise. What’s going on downstairs?”
“Didn’t you know? Why, I was wakened at an unearthly hour by your Indian maid, Mary. She’s back with us again. She said Mr. Smith told her you were leaving here to-day and it had been found necessary to make an early start. I saw Mr. Smith downstairs, and he said there was a boat waiting at the tunnel at the other end of the Cup to take us and our belongings back to Amethyst Island. I—I thought you knew all about it, Josephine?”
“Why, yes—I had forgotten. Mr. Smith called last night after you had gone to bed to notify me.”
“Did he tell you about that terrible-looking Indian chief?”
“Who—the Medicine Man? What has he done now?”
“He’s dead, poor man.”
“Dead?”
“Yes. Killed in the storm last night. Something terrible must have happened, for the Indians all looked so broken up this morning that I asked Mary what was the matter with them. She said Ogima Bush, their great Medicine Man, was gone up to the sky and they’d never see him again. All I could get out of her was that he was ‘making some big medicine’ whatever that is, and he was carried away by the storm-devils. They’re so queer, those people, I never can quite understand them.”
“Poor Ogima,” breathed Josephine Stone. “I don’t think there was anything so terrible about him as he painted himself up to look. Sometimes there seemed to be something terribly tragic in those wicked eyes of his.”
“Come now, Josie,” admonished Mrs. Johnson, “don’t you go getting dressed. Mr. Smith said it would be all right if you were called an hour from now.”
But Miss Stone had no intention of going back to bed. She dressed and went downstairs. The Indians were busy getting baggage ready on the verandah for transportation down to the boat.
As breakfast wasn’t quite ready, Miss Stone strolled down to the lake. There she was a few minutes later joined by Acey Smith. He was garbed in his bush clothes and the personality of the man had undergone one of those undefinable changes so characteristic of him. Where he had been buoyant, care-free and boyish the night before he was now politely formal, inscrutable—a self-contained Big Boss of the timberlands.
“I was sorry to have had to decide on an early start without having let you know last night, Miss Stone,” he opened. “But about four o’clock this morning I was awakened by a wireless call from the city, notifying me that some busy-body was having an airman sent over the Cup to-day, so I decided, if possible, we’d leave the Cup before the air-scout arrived.”
“More mystery?” Miss Stone had not exactly meant to be sarcastic.
Acey Smith gave vent to a low, harsh laugh. “No, the mystery stuff, so far as you are concerned is over,” he assured her. “And that brings me to the point I came down here to speak to you about. This morning after breakfast, if you feel equal to it, I would like you to take a walk with me up to the summit of Lookout Cliff yonder.” He pointed to a castle-like formation in the wall of rock to the east.
“But I thought we were leaving here this morning?”
“We are. But while the Indians are taking Mrs. Johnson and your belongings around to Amethyst Island, I thought you might let me take you up there to enjoy the wonderful view it affords while I tell you the story of the North Star and how you came to be woven into its history.”
“Couldn’t I hear it down at the Island?”
“You could, but there is an appropriate reason why you should be shown that view on this, your twenty-first birthday.”
“Very well,” acceded the girl, “I’ll go.”