“He—he’s gone!” Jeanne breathed. “Broke the line.”
“Maybe he did. I’m going to see.” To her companions’ utter consternation, Florence followed the wolf into the dark forest.
She returned some moments later. In her hand was the red and white spoon.
“Went round a tree and tore the hook out of his tail,” she explained calmly. “See! Some gray hairs!” She held it out for inspection. “Gray hairs, that’s all I get. But the moose got his life back, for a time at least. Perhaps he’s learned his lesson and won’t try swimming bays again.
“You see,” she explained, throwing some bits of birch bark on the fire and fanning them into a blaze, “a moose is practically powerless in deep water. If you catch up with him when you’re in a canoe, you may leap into the water, climb on his back, and have a ride. He can’t hurt you. But on land—that’s a different matter.”
The little drama played through, a tragedy of the night averted, Jeanne and Greta crept back among the blankets beneath the boat and, like two squirrels in a nest of leaves, fell fast asleep.
Florence remained outside. The wind had dropped, but still the rush of waves might be heard on the distant shore. This wild throbbing made her restless. She thought of the wreck. How was it standing the storm? Well enough, she was sure of that. But other more terrible storms? Her brow wrinkled.
“Could camp here,” she told herself. “Get a tent or have some one build us a rough cabin. Stay all summer. But then—”
Already she had begun to love their life on the wreck.
“It’s different!” she exclaimed. “Different! And in this life that’s what one wants, things that are different, experiences that are different, a whole life that is different from any other.