“Of course,” said Sandy, “it may be a mere coincidence. Yet I sort of feel that he might have been her father.”
“The D.X.123. June Travis,” Jeanne was thinking. “John Travis, D.X.123.” Her mind was in a whirl. Springing to her feet, she seized Vivian by the shoulders. “Come on,” she said in a strange tight little voice, “we’re going for a walk.”
Drawing on their heaviest wraps, the two girls went out into the night. The storm which had been raging all that day had passed. All about them as they walked was whiteness and silence. The stars were a million diamonds set in a cushion of midnight blue.
They took the trail that led across the narrow entrance to the frozen bay. From the shore a half mile away came a ceaseless roar. Lashed into foam by the fury of the storm, the lake’s waters were beating against the barrier of ice that lay before it.
They walked rapidly forward in silence. Jeanne felt that she would burst if she did not talk; yet she said never a word. What she wanted to say was, “Vivian, that girl June Travis is a friend of mine. Her father is dead. We must send a wireless message to her. I saw her father’s airplane at the bottom of that little lost lake. It must have been there for years. He must be dead.”
Strangely enough, she said never a word about the matter. An unseen presence seemed to hover over her, whispering, “Do not say it! Do not say it! It may not be true.”
Was it true? Jeanne could not tell.
At last they came to a spot where they might mount to an icy platform and witness the blind battling of mighty waters against an unbreakable barrier.
The moon came out from behind a cloud. Water was black with night and white with foam. A cavern of ice lay before them. Into this narrow cavern a giant wave rushed. Its black waters were churned into white foam. It rose to stretch out a white hand and to utter a hiss that was like the angry spit of a serpent. In sheer terror Jeanne shrank back.
“It can’t reach us!” Vivian threw back her strong young shoulders and laughed.