“Sometimes they meet again!” His voice was low. “Here’s hoping!”
At Tobin’s Harbor Florence experienced a new thrill. Though the hour was near midnight, the small dock was crowded. “What of the fire? What about the fire?” they demanded anxiously.
Close beside her, as she stood on the dock telling of the fire, was a slender woman—a fisherman’s wife—listening intently. In her arms she held a child. A second child tugged at her skirts. Her all, Florence knew well, was on Isle Royale. Across the narrow bay was her spotless cabin and before the cabin a neat fish house and many nets on reels. She and her husband had toiled hard to build their happy home, and now, if the fire came, all would be lost.
Standing on the other side of her, leaning on a cane, was a man well past eighty. Every summer for forty years he had made a pilgrimage to Isle Royale. His cabin stood overlooking the rocks on the Point.
“There are scores like him,” the girl thought. “Some young, some old. If the fire reaches their cabins, their joyous summers will be at an end.” Her gaze moved slowly across the placid waters of the long, narrow bay. Primeval forest, dark spruce and fir, beautiful white birch ghosts in the moonlight lined the shores. Suddenly something catching her eye caused her to start. Beyond the dark fringe of evergreen that lined the distant horizon was a long, thin line of red. From time to time, like a finger of fate, a pencil of this red glow shot skyward, then faded into the night.
“Dave, look!” she sought his attention. “The fire!”
“Beauty and a threat!” he murmured with feeling. “We must do what we can for these people and their island.”
CHAPTER V
NIGHT SIGNALS
Three days later the Wanderer was at Houghton on the mainland. Events had moved rapidly. A strong gale had driven the fire on the now flaming island beyond the control of the small band of camp workers who had volunteered anew to fight it. Rapidly formed plans for a battle on a large scale had already been laid. The Iroquois had been taken off the run to the island. It was to carry fire fighters and their supplies to hastily constructed camps on Isle Royale shores.
“That gives us a break,” Florence, a born optimist, exclaimed.