“Two can play at that.”
Red crept forward, placed his “shootin’ iron” across the stern, waited his time, then loosed a roar like the burst of a cannon.
The answer came singing over—too high.
Then, as if provoked by the unfairness of the battle, the “Unseen” took a hand. Sudden darkness settled upon the water. A cloud as black as ink came sweeping in from the north. A voice from the air, not a whisper, but a roar, told them that one of those sudden storms that sweep across Lake Superior in November was at hand.
The girl was up and in her place on the instant.
“And now may God have mercy on our souls!” she murmured, as Red seized his oars and they began to row.
Who can describe the fury of such a storm, the rushing of wind, waves mounting higher and higher, foam hissing to the right and left of you, darkness all about you, even the gleam of the light from Passage Island lost for long, desperate moments?
And yet you battle as never before. Heading your boat squarely into the teeth of the storm, you rise and fall, rise and fall like a cork in the center of the Atlantic. You battle. You pray. You hope until hope seems vain.
And then, just as all seems over, the storm passes with one long, whispering sigh.
As the moon came out and the rush of wind passed, the boy and girl looked upon a world of steel-blue waves flecked with foam. And on those waves some distance away there rode a boat. It was a white boat with an orange-colored bottom. A great deal of orange was showing; very little white. The boat was upside down.