Soon they had a roaring fire of driftwood. The lake level had risen three feet that spring. Great quantities of dead timber, to say nothing of logs and planks from docks, had been carried away. There was no scarcity of fuel.
The dance they did that night beneath the moon while their clothes were drying was a thing of wild witchery. But what of that? There was none to witness save the stars. The island was all their own.
When at last their clothes were dry, with a fire of hot coals before them, they packed themselves like two very large sardines into the fish shanty, which lay side down on the beach with its door open to the fire. In ten minutes they were both sound asleep.
CHAPTER XXV
A SCREAM IN THE NIGHT
The object that had caught Turkey Trot’s eye as he skirted the log-strewn beach was a rowboat that, bumping on the beach now and then as if in a futile attempt to drive itself ashore, lifted its prow in the air.
“It’s Tillie’s!” he breathed as they came close.
“It is.” Jeanne’s tone was low.
“The anchor’s gone. Painter cut.” The boy’s trained eye took in every detail. The oars, too, were gone. But within the boat, on a stout cord, mute testimony to Florence’s afternoon of perch fishing, lay a dozen or more dead perch.
“They fished,” said Turkey Trot.
“How long?”