Not for long. A chill wind came sweeping over the tops of the islands. Dark clouds scurried overhead.
“This is bad!” Bihari grumbled. “Our next stop is Chippewa Harbor. We must go out into the lake to get there. Lake Superior is bad when he is angry. He puts out hands and seizes small boats. He drags them down and they are never seen again.
“At Chippewa Harbor there are little cabins and just now a large party camping in tents. We will sing and dance for them.
“But tomorrow—” he laughed a large, good-natured laugh. “Tomorrow. We have with us always tomorrow. That will do.
“In this harbor we are safe. Tonight we will sing for ourselves.”
He was right. When at last they reached the narrow passage through which they were to glide into broad, open waters, they saw an endless field of black and white, a stormy sea.
Pulling in behind a small island where the wind could not reach them and the water was at rest, they dropped anchor and at once the gypsy band were engaged in a merry and quite innocent revel of wild music.
Jeanne did not join them. Had one asked her why, she perhaps could not have told. She thought of Florence and Greta, wondered if they were at the wreck or on land, wondered, too, how the wreck would stand the storm. She thought of friends in Chicago and her castle in France where her great-aunt saw to it that she lived up to her position as a great young lady.
“Life,” she whispered, “is strange. We long for the past. And when we find it again, we are not sure that we want it. Life, it seems, goes on and on, but never truly backward. We must go on and on with it to the end. And then—
“Oh, but life is truly wonderful!” she cried, springing to her feet and doing a wild fling across the deck. “Who would not love to live on and on and on forever!