“No, it doesn’t,” Florence had answered. “What an ideal spot! Wonderful beaches on every side. Fishing too, I guess. And far enough from land to enjoy a cool breeze on the hottest day of summer.”
Though they had constantly strained their eyes in an endeavor to discover other land in the distance, they had not succeeded.
“Probably belongs to someone who will not lease it,” said Florence at last.
So here she was trying to think things through. There was danger of a real catastrophe. The food in their pantry could not possibly last over ten days. Then what? As far as she knew, there was not a thing to be eaten on the island. It was possible that fish could be caught beneath the lake ice or in their stream. She meant to try that in the morning.
“What a plight to put one in!” she exclaimed. “Who could have done it and why did they do it?”
This question set her mind running over the mysterious incidents which, she could not but believe, had led up to this present moment.
There had been Lucile’s seeing of the blue face in the old Mission, her own affair with the stranger in the museum; the blue candlestick; the visit to Mr. Cole in the new museum; Lucile’s frightful adventure on the lake ice; the incident of the two men with the sled on the ice of the lagoon and the single man sitting on the ice; then the spot of blue ice discovered next day.
“Blue ice!” she exclaimed suddenly, stopping still in her tracks. “Blue! Blue ice!”
Florence frowned, as she considered it.
A new theory had come to her regarding that spot of blue ice on the lagoon, a theory which made her wish more than ever to get away from this island.