“Probably a foolish thing to do,” she muttered low. “And yet—”
Her mind took another turn. Who was this man? Certainly he was breaking the law. No man had a right to kill a moose on Isle Royale.
“They are one of the great joys of the island,” she told herself. “Hundreds of people come just to see them. Nowhere else can one see them so easily and safely in their native haunts. If men begin to shoot them they will go to the heart of the island and no one will see them. What a pity!”
Again, who was this man? She thought of the black schooner that had come creeping up the bay in the dead of night and that other one Jeanne had seen by the wrecked ship. Were they the same? And did this man belong to that schooner? To none of these questions could she form a positive answer.
When she had rested there in the shadows until she was sure the man had not followed her, she went gliding along beneath the rocky ridge, then started, slipping and sliding downward, to the camping ground.
Like a patient steed her boat lay waiting on the beach.
“Should hurry back to the ship,” she told herself. But the waters of Duncan’s Bay, so peaceful, so undisturbed and deserted, seemed to call. She answered that call.
After rowing quietly for a half hour, she dropped her oars, took up her rod and began to cast. Her reel sang, the spoon gave off a silvery gleam as, cutting a narrow arc through the air, it sank from sight.
Without truly hoping to catch a fish, she reeled in slowly. She repeated this again and again. Her boat was drifting. She gave no attention to that. Each cast was straighter, longer than the last. Here was real sport.
But wait! Of a sudden the pole was fairly yanked from her hand. “A fish!” she exclaimed. “Oh! A fish.”