“But we have to live only today,” Dave said as he appeared on deck.
“Only today,” she smiled up at him, “and that—why that’s wonderful, isn’t it?”
Fifteen minutes later when Dave emerged from a little wireless cabin he had arranged on the afterdeck, he held two slips of paper in his hand. “Important messages,” he announced. There was a hint of mystery in his voice. He held out a paper on which she read: “Your passengers have been taken to Rock Harbor. Signed: Ve and Vi.”
This was from Vivian and Violet Carlson, daughters of a fisherman. It meant that the Wanderer could proceed at once to Rock Harbor, unload freight, swing around to Tobin’s Harbor and Belle Isle, then head back to the mainland.
“If only,” Florence thought. What question was in her mind? Perhaps she could not have told. She was for the moment oppressed by a feeling of impending catastrophy.
The second message, picked up by chance, was strange. “Important message,” it began. “To all lodgekeepers and to all captains of ships touching at Isle Royale: Be on the lookout for red-and-black boat powered by heavy outboard motor. Tall gray-haired man and girl of sixteen on board. They are believed to have left Port Arthur for Isle Royale two days ago. Nothing has been heard from them. Be on the lookout. Important. Be on the lookout.”
“From Port Arthur. Forty miles of Lake Superior,” Dave said thoughtfully. “Weather’s been pretty good. They should have made it. We’ll be on the lookout.”
An hour later Florence dropped down upon a box of life preservers to watch the stars come out. Far off, dim, indistinct, but suggesting all manner of strange mysteries, could be seen the rocky, all-but-uninhabited shores of Isle Royale. Here there might be a fisherman’s cabin and there an abandoned lighthouse; there the shack of a recluse who mended boats; and there, nestling along the shores of a snug little harbor, the cottages of a small lodge.
“Not three hundred people on the entire end of the island,” she said, as Dave passed.
“And not many coming,” said Dave. “Just think! They told us there would be thousands. And they never said,” he went on, “that the Iroquois, three times the length of our poor, little bouncing tub, would be coming here three times a week. We’re stuck all right.”