She did not sleep long. She was wakened by loud banging on the cabin door.
“Let us in!” a voice called huskily.
A light appeared, reflected on the roof above Jeanne’s head. She heard the fisherman say, “Who are you?”
She caught the answer clear and plain: “I am John Travis.”
Ten minutes later Jeanne was listening to the strange, all but unbelievable story of John Travis, who was, in very truth, the father of her friend June.
Relying upon the word of a dying veteran prospector, John Travis and a friend, who was an air pilot, had flown far into the north of Canada in quest of gold.
They had discovered gold, but had disabled their plane. The story of the years that followed was one of hardships, failure and final success.
“There we were,” the voice of John Travis went on, “with our plane wrecked in the heart of a frozen wilderness.” He stared at the glowing hearth as if he would see again that great white emptiness, hear again the wail of those rushing northern gales.
“We had food for a year. But where were we? We could not tell. We began exploring. Little by little, we widened our circle until one day I came upon a low falls where the water ran so swiftly that even in winter it was not frozen over. And at the edge of that falls, where a low eddy had deposited it, was a handful of sand.” He took a long breath. “In that sand there was a gleam of gold.
“He who has not felt it—” he spoke slowly. “He who has not lived in the North can tell nothing of what the call of the North is, nor the grip the search for gold gets upon your very soul.
“Why did we not come back sooner? How could one leave one’s own people so long, desert an only child? Gold!” He clenched his knotty hands tight. “Gold! We had found gold. At first it was only a little. As days, months passed, we found more and more. And always, always—” The gleam of a gambler shone in his eyes as he spread his hands wide. “Always, just before us, like a mirage on the desert, was the motherlode, the pocket of gold where nuggets were piled in one great heap. We would find it tomorrow—tomorrow.
“Gold,” he repeated softly. “Gold. It’s all there in the cabin of that plane at the bottom of that little lost lake. We’ll lift the plane and the gold when the spring thaw comes. And then, my child, my June shall be rich. And you, my friends—” his eyes swept the little circle, “you shall not go unrewarded.”
“But think of the peril to June,” Jeanne said in a low, serious tone.
“I left her in good hands.”
“But now she is a young lady, sixteen. Her birthday—is it the twenty-first? That must be very soon. Then she gets her money. And money means danger.”
“Money—danger?” The man brushed his hand before his eyes.
“But let me finish. Indians came, fine bronze-faced fellows we could trust. We gave them gold, bound them to secrecy by an oath known only to their tribe, and hired them to bring us food.
“So the years passed until, one day, a plane came zooming in from the south. And at the sight of men of our own race, somehow our blood got on fire. As they talked of cities, of bright lights and music, of pictures, dancing and song, of autos and airplanes and all our great country’s progress, my heart seemed ready to burst with the desire to become a part of it all again.
“Well,” he sighed once more, “they flew away to return a little later with parts for our plane. We paid them with our gold mine, what there is left of it. We sailed away into the blue with our gold. We were headed for Chicago and would have made it, too, if fog hadn’t caught us. It did catch us, as you know. We tried to land on ice. We were successful. We were saved. But the ice gave way, the plane sank!
“But now—” he sprang to his feet. “Now we are safe again. And soon, please God, I shall be with my child again. And this time I am ready to swear it on the open Bible, I shall never again leave her alone!
“Until now,” he ended, “we did not know where we were.”
“But now you know!” Jeanne exclaimed. “Soon all the world shall know. Vivian! Sandy! The radio! We are to be the bearers of good tidings, of great joy!”
CHAPTER XXVI
IN WHICH SOME THINGS ARE WELL FINISHED
“We’ll just get the janitor to go up with us,” said Patrick Moriarity as he and Florence arrived at the building in which Madame Zaran conducted her readings. “They’re gone, more than likely.”
And so they were. The room, as they approached it, was dark and appeared deserted.
As, under police orders, the janitor opened the door, Florence once again felt a thrill run up her spine. In her mind she felt again, as on that first day, the grip of those bony fingers on her shoulders. Once again she saw the shadow against those midnight blue draperies—the shadow of “Satan”—this time in imagination alone.
“Deserted as a tomb,” was Patrick’s conclusion. “We’ll just have a look.” Florence had told him of all the strange doings that had gone on here.
“What’s this?” he muttered as they came upon a narrow stairway hidden among the draperies.
Together they mounted the stairs to arrive at a still narrower platform. Here on a stand they discovered a small moving-picture projector.
“I thought maybe it would be that,” was Patrick’s only comment as he focused the machine, then turned on the motor.
To Florence’s vast surprise, the crystal ball, reposing on the table on the floor below, at once became alive. On its gleaming surface tiny human figures began to move.
“Quite simple,” was the young officer’s comment. “Moving pictures focused upon a small screen behind the ball—that’s all it was.”
“And they made the pictures especially for their—their clients!” Florence’s tone spoke her astonishment. “Posed people made up to look like them.”
“Rather costly, I’d say!” said Patrick. “But then, they were playing for big stakes. I have no doubt they’ve played their little game before, perhaps many times.
“Come!” he said a moment later, “We’ll go have a look on this black priestess of yours. We may find her at home.”
They did find the priestess, and many more besides. In fact, there had been quite an affair at her studio that very morning. Truth was, as Florence, leaning on Patrick’s arm, looked in upon the scene, she thought there had been nothing quite like it before.
“It—it’s like a scene on the stage,” she whispered.
“The cold gray dawn of the morning after,” Patrick murmured.
And indeed that was just what it looked to be. In the center of the room, her hands still clawing as if for unearned gold, Madame Zaran stood leaning on a table. She seemed dizzy. The reason was a rapidly swelling bruise on her forehead. At her feet lay her thick-necked guard, he who had entered the studio on the previous night. He was out for good. So, too, were two black men in one corner. As for the Professor and the voodoo priestess, they were seated upon the floor, staring at one another for all the world like two spent wrestlers pausing to regain their breath. As Florence and the young officer stood there looking on in stupefied silence, a black goat with golden horns appeared from somewhere. He let out a loud b-a-a, then charged the unfortunate Madame Zaran. He hit her behind the knees, and she collapsed like an empty sack.
“It looks to me,” Patrick drawled, “as if there had been a fight.”
“Sure does look that way,” said a strange voice.
Florence whirled about to find herself looking into a face that resembled a new moon—large thin nose, sharp protruding chin, eyes that bulged slightly. “The Devil,” she thought without saying it.
“You’ve seen me before.” The man favored her with a friendly smile.
“I—I guess I’ve seen your shadow more than once,” the girl managed to reply.
“Handy sort of shadow,” the man chuckled. “You see, I’m a city detective. I’ve been on this case for some time. Now it would seem that all that’s needed is an ambulance.”
“I’ll call one,” Patrick said, hurrying away.
Fifteen minutes later, the whole company, including the goat, were on their way to the police station. Shortly thereafter, the greater number of them were transferred to the hospital.
Of quite a different nature was the meeting in Miss Mabee’s studio two days later.
They were gathered there in the studio, Florence and June, Miss Mabee, Tum Morrow and Rodney Angel, when there came the sound of footsteps on the stairs, followed by a rattle at the bell. June started forward impulsively. Florence held her back. “Wait!” she whispered.
Miss Mabee pressed a button. The door opened slowly, and in walked Sandy, Jeanne and a short, stout man. They, the newcomers, all wore heavy airplane coats and carried airplane traveling bags in their hands.
“Well?” The man studied the waiting group. When his eyes fell upon June they lighted up as if by a touch of fire.
“June!” His voice was husky. “How big! How beautiful you are!” Next instant the girl was in his arms.
And after that, as always, there was a feast. At this feast John Travis made a brief speech. “There’s gold on Isle Royale.” He spoke with feeling. “More gold at the bottom of that little lake than any man can use wisely in a lifetime. When it’s been recovered, I shall charter the finest airplane in the country and take you all on a trip around the world. What do you say to that?”
Of course, they said “Yes,” and they said it with a shout of joy. But would they go? Only time could tell.
“This fortune telling,” Florence said to June as they lunched together next day, “It is all a fake and a fraud.”
“But what can we say of the little lady in gray?” June asked, as she opened her eyes wide.
“Yes,” Florence agreed, “that was strange!”
“I’d like to go and see her again and—and thank her.” The younger girl’s eyes shone.
“We will go this very afternoon.”
They did, and with the most astonishing results. They were met at the door by a very large lady. “Large enough,” Florence thought with a start, “to occupy that huge chair.”
“We—we’d like to see the little lady in gray,” June said timidly.
“You must have the wrong number.” The large lady looked at them in surprise. “There is no one here but me.”
“But there was!” June insisted.
“You are mistaken!” In the woman’s voice there was a positive note none would care to dispute. “I live here alone with my cat and canaries. There never has been anyone else.”
June opened her mouth to speak again, but Florence was pulling at her arm.
“We’re sorry,” said Florence. “This must be the wrong address.”
“But it isn’t!” June insisted when they were once more on the sidewalk. “I am sure of it.”
“So am I.” Florence smiled in a strange way. “But when some fairy godmother borrows a house for a morning just so she can give you some very good news, you don’t go right ahead and give her away, do you?”
“N—no, I suppose not.”
“Anyway,” said Florence, finally, “I am through with mysteries for a long, long time!”
Was she? If you wish to know, you must read A Ticket to Adventure.
Transcriber’s Notes
- Copyright notice provided as in the original printed text—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.
- Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.
- In the text versions, italic text is delimited by _underscores_.