“We’ll save the island.”
“Oh, that. I always knew we would.” Dave laughed.
And yet, would they? After one long, sober thought, Florence was not so sure. There were rumors of a third fire, started several miles from the first two, near Tompsonite Bay, on the farther end of the island.
“Are these fires truly being set?” the girl asked herself. “And if they are, why?” For the moment she found no answer.
After unloading a few groceries at Rock Harbor, they went pop-popping round Schoville’s Point to Tobin’s Harbor Landing, then round to Belle Isle at the north side of the island. Everywhere there was talk of fire, but to Florence’s growing astonishment she caught no word suggesting that the fires might have been set. At last, she all but dismissed the thought from her mind. But not for long.
Isle Royale is forty miles long. The east end broken up into points is like the fingers on a man’s hand. Blake’s Point, which forms the long middle finger, extends far out into Lake Superior. It is here that sturdy fishermen mumble a prayer on nights of storm and fog, for the roar of breaking waves is like the roar of the sea, and great gray walls seem to reach out hands to drag them in.
Once, so we are told, a freighter, carried away by a terrible storm, crushed head on against this wall, and sank. She was loaded with canned salmon. For a long time after that the fishermen caught canned salmon in their nets.
On this day as the Wanderer rounded this point there was no storm. A lazy breeze pushed a thin, gray haze before it. A seagull soared high. A wild duck swimming before their boat, eyed them for a moment, then rose to go flapping away. Off to the left, perhaps a mile, some objects, a little grayer than the haze, appeared to glide back and forth across the water.
“What is it?” Jeanne asked in surprise.
“The Phantom Fisherman,” Florence said with a low laugh. “He is always there when there is a fog. When you come near him, he fades away into deeper fog.”