Chapter XXII: On the “sleeping Lion”

That morning, in the ghostly hour just before dawn, Red Rodgers and Berley Todd crept out into the frosty air of Isle Royale.

“To-day,” the girl whispered, “we are to play.”

And yet, as she stood upon the rocks watching the waves that, now roaring as they rose, now whispering as they fell, broke upon those rugged shores, she seemed to see beneath their surface grim black hands stretching out to grasp her.

It was strange, those black waters in the eerie hour before dawn. Even the staunch young athlete felt it and was silent.

Once stout oars were in their hands, however, all was changed. To feel the rise and fall of the boat, to skim the crests of waves, to catch the rhythmic rowing that, like a song in the night, seemed to lift them and bear them down—this was life.

“How she can row!” Red told himself, as he felt the push of her oars send the boat along.

“When the time comes,” he said aloud, “we will make it.”

“Yes,” the girl replied, “but the time is not to-day.”

That she spoke the truth Red was soon enough to know. In the sheltered channel of Rock Harbor the waves were mere rushing ripples of foam. But once they came to a gap between two small islands that looked out into the open sea, great swells caught their frail craft and, tossing it back, flecked them with foam.

“The voice of many waters.” In the girl’s tone there was a touch of awe. “In that storm, on the open lake, no small boat could live. To-morrow we play.”

Surrendering himself to the will of the elements, Red Rodgers played. But even as they sent their boat gliding along to the time of a song, as they climbed some rocky ledge to stand breathless looking off at the storm-tossed waters, or fought their way forward through masses of tangled vegetation to some crag where they might find a broader view, he whispered to himself:

“I am keeping fit. Even this is training for the day that is to come.” And then, as his mind sobered, he wondered: “Will that day ever come?”

At noon they built a fire on a tiny beach and brewed coffee. They ate their lunch in silence. There was that about this day of storm which made silence seem a mood to prize.

Just as the sun was sinking in the west, they turned the prow of their boat into a narrow opening, then shot her squarely into the teeth of a storm. Throwing all the force of their perfect bodies into the business of rowing, they conquered one gigantic wave, another, another, and yet another.

Their boat was but a cork in the midst of a great ocean, yet they dared accept the wild waves’ challenge. Again, again, and yet again, they fought their way up and over, up and over until they were twenty boat-lengths out to sea.

Then, with a laugh that was good to hear, Red swung the boat about and they went riding the waves back to shelter and safety.

“That,” he breathed, “is life—life—life!”

Five minutes later they lay upon a bed of moss at the back of a tiny island known as “Sleeping Lion” because of the mane-like crest of bushes that crowns its ridge, watching the blue-black waters turn to the silvery gray of night.

Never had the boy witnessed such a sight. Starting at the rocks nearest them, the spray moved along the island shores. And every separate spray seemed a light that flashed with one white gleam, then faded into darkness.

“Old Father Superior is lighting his lamps,” the girl whispered. Once again there was awe in her tone.

So they lingered on the “Sleeping Lion” until the afterglow had faded and Father Superior’s lamps were lost in the shades of night.

It was the girl who at last broke the silence. “See!” She spoke in a voice that was mellow as the tones of a cello. “See! The light that beckons!”

As Red looked away across the surging sea he caught the gleam of a lamp that, winking and blinking, cast its beams from afar.

“The Passage Island light,” he murmured huskily. “The light that shall guide us safely when the time comes. But to-night—”

“To-night we dare not.”

Rising as if to break the spell that had been cast upon her, Berley Todd went whirling through a wild dance. A weird place for a dance. Sea gulls, wakened by this sudden commotion, circled aloft screaming. The very waves appeared to lapse into silence, a silence that was to be broken at once by such a mad onrush as threatened to seize her and drag her away into waters as black as night.

“Come!” she cried. “We must go!”

Shoving their boat off the rocks, they paddled silently back to the island shore where, after concealing their boat, they made their way cautiously through the spruce trees to Ed’s cabin, and one more steaming bowl of Mulligan stew.

The day, however, was not over. Wild adventures awaited them in the night.