The spot they had chosen for their night camp was down from the very crest of Greenstone Ridge but a dozen paces.
Greta was very weary. They had traveled farther that day than had been their intention. There were no fit camping places along the moose trail. At last, just as shadows were falling, they had decided to climb to the crest, a hard task for the day’s end. They had made it, for all that. And on the far side of that ridge they had discovered the very spot. A flat rock, some twenty feet across, offered support for an improvised hearth of stones. A mossy bed above this invited them to sleep.
“Plenty of wind. No rain tonight,” had been Florence’s prophecy. “We’ll just make our bed beneath the stars.”
And so, here they were, and here was Greta, sitting up, wide awake, dreaming in the night.
Florence had known Greta for only a short time. The true nature of this dark-eyed girl was for the most part as yet to her a veiled secret. She did not know that the nature of these slender, black-eyed ones often drives them unflinching into places of great peril, that roused by anger or intrigued by mystery they will dare all without one backward look.
The story Swen had told Florence could not have frightened Greta from taking a part in this great adventure. Truth was, she knew it all, and more. She treasured a secret all her own, did this dark-eyed girl. She was thinking of it now.
“He called them white flares,” she murmured low. “Said if we were in grave danger or needed help in any way, to light one of them. He would see the white light against the sky and come. Vincent Stearns said that.”
She had met Vincent Stearns, a sturdy, sun-tanned young man, a famous newspaper camera man, at Tobin’s Harbor only two days before. Swen had taken her to the Harbor in his fishing boat. On the way he had told her of the mysterious someone who, he was sure, lived on Greenstone Ridge. She had repeated the story to Vincent Stearns.
“Yes,” the photographer had said, “I’ve heard the story myself. So you are going up there on a camping trip—just two girls?” He had arched his brows.
“Oh, but you should see Florence!” Greta had exclaimed. “She’s big as a man and strong! You can’t know how strong she is.”