For a time she could make out nothing but rocks and deep shadows. Then the school of small fish circled back.
“Have to wait.” She heaved a sigh almost of relief.
But now something startled the perch. They went scurrying away. And there, just as it had been before, was the circle and that mysterious sign: D.X.123.
Ten seconds more it lingered. Then, as before, it vanished. Once again the bright light had faded. This time a large cloud was over the sun. It would take an hour, perhaps two, for it to pass.
“I must go back,” she sighed. Slipping on her snowshoes, she turned about to make her way laboriously up the ridge.
As she struggled on, climbing a rocky ridge here, battling her way through a thick cluster of balsams there, then out upon a level, barren space, a strange feeling came over her, a feeling she could not at all explain. It was as if someone were trying to whisper into her ear a startling and mysterious truth. She listened in vain for the whisper. It did not come. And yet, as she once more began the upward climb it was with a feeling, almost a conviction, that all she had done in the last few days—the flight to Isle Royale, her hours about the cabin stove, the climb up this ridge, her discovery of Lost Lake and that mysterious D.X.123—was somehow a part of that which she had left behind with Florence in Chicago.
“I can’t see how it could be,” she murmured, “yet somehow I feel this is true.”
That same evening in Miss Mabee’s studio an interesting experiment was in progress. Made desperate by her terrifying experiences in that tenth floor “retreat” of Madame Zaran and Professor Alcapar, and quite convinced that the beautiful June Travis was in great danger, Florence had resolved to use every possible means to discover the whereabouts of June’s father and bring him back.
“Gone ten years!” Doubt whispered to her, “He’s dead; he must be.” Yet faith would not allow her to believe this.
She had put herself in touch with June’s home and had secured permission to invite her to the studio. When June arrived, she found not only Florence, but the young psychologist, Rodney Angel, and Tum Morrow. Tum had his violin.