“It is over,” Red whispered from the depths of a great spruce where they had found shelter.
“For now,” came the girl’s experienced reply. “For all that, we do not stir from this spot. Superior has moods all its own. And remember, Superior never gives up its dead.”
Leading the way out from their sheltered nook, she perched herself upon a high rock. Red took a place beside her. When she spoke again a dreamy look had overspread her countenance.
“This,” she said, spreading her arms wide, “this is Isle Royale. Forget the drifting leaves, the gray tossing branches. It is summer now. Night has come and a great golden moon paints a patch of silver down the bay. The rippling water seems alive. Every tiny wave bears a tinier craft upon its bosom—the silver schooner of a fairy.
“Listen! From far down the bay comes, wafted on by the breeze, the faintest suggestion of a song. What is it, the whisper of a bird talking to his mate?
“No. There comes the put-put of a motor, yet even this seems to keep time to the music that, gathering power and sweetness, floats on and on down the bay. A craft appears. All white in the moonlight, it seems as unreal as a fairy’s dream.
“Strange men who drift about our island in tiny gas boats. Like gypsies they are. They are here. Who are they? You do not care to know. Where did they come from? The mines, the forests, the pulp mills perhaps. This does not matter. They are here. They have a tune for you. They belong to the night.
“So, with the moon hanging high, they drift down that silver patch of moonlight to vanish into the night. And still, long after they are lost from sight, comes wafted in by the wind and waves faint, sweet music that one cannot forget. This,” she sighed, “is Isle Royale in summer. And you have not seen it, and have never heard it.”
“But all this—” Red smiled down at her. “All this is play. And I never play.”
“But you will! You must!” she exclaimed in a breath. “You will play with me here. See! A storm is rising, a three days’ storm.