Chapter XXVIII: The Light That Failed

“Red! Red! The light is gone!” Berley Todd’s voice rang with tragedy.

She had endured much that night, had this little daughter of the rich. She had rowed until she felt herself near to exhaustion when of a sudden she had discovered that they were pursued. Getting her second wind, she had rowed as she had never dreamed any one could row. She had dodged bullets and battled a storm. Now the light from Passage Island that had guided them all the way had failed. It was too much.

“Red! The light is gone!”

Somewhere in the dark, waves were dashing against rocks. The roar of it filled her ears. Still their boat, tossed about, moved forward.

“We must row.” Three words escaped Red’s tight set lips; no more.

The roar of waters sounded louder. The boy changed their course. They glided from danger. Now and then the girl caught the gleam of a white-cap when with the hiss of a sea serpent it broke close beside them.

Then of a sudden the boy put all the strength of his splendid arms into a dozen titanic strokes. They rose to the crest of a wave; another, yet another and then as if by magic they glided out upon a sea of glass.

The girl caught her breath. What was it? Had she fallen asleep? Was she dreaming?

No, no. As if by pre-arrangement, the moon came out to shine upon a scene of matchless beauty. A harbor, walled in on every side by steep, rocky cliffs, lay about them.

“This,” said Red Rodgers, with a touch of the dramatic in his voice, “is the harbor on Passage Island. We are safe!”

Sinking down to a place in the prow, the girl allowed her head to drop into her hands while she strove in vain to drive from her senses the ceaseless roar of the beating surf.

After a time she lifted her head to admit into her consciousness certain vital facts. Her feet were ankle deep in water, and had been for an hour; yet she had not known it. Her hands were blistered. Her arms ached. Red had found a flashlight and had switched it on. They were nearing a shore. On the shore was a narrow dock and a boathouse. All this came to her as if she were a very small child reading it from a book.

“This harbor,” Red spoke at last, “is about a mile from the lighthouse. There is no safe landing there for such a night. The light is not out. We were passing along close to a rocky wall that hid the light.

“There is a trail from this place to the lighthouse. And at the lighthouse there is a fire and blankets, food and good cheer.”

“Food and good cheer,” the girl repeated after him as in a dream. “Then we will go there.”

They did go there, though the girl will not recall the long stretch of pasture-like land over which they passed, nor the ridge they scaled to descend on the other side and to catch again the blinking rays of that cheering light. She will not recall all this because she walked as one in a dream.

At the lighthouse, besides two men, there was a woman, the head keeper’s sister. To her care Berley Todd was entrusted. When she had wrapped her in hot blankets and poured steaming broth down her throat, she bundled her off to bed where for long hours Berley dreamed of kidnapers, wild waves and cracking guns.

The Red Rover did not sleep. Never more awake in his life, he found himself in a position to act; and the Red Rover was born for action alone. For days his immediate future, the possibility of getting back to Old Midway in the great game, his very life itself, had hung in the balance. Now the balance had swung down. Fate had given him a break.

As he stood outside the lighthouse, his mind still in a whirl, a short chubby man with a beaming sort of smile approached him.

“I am Pierre Gagnon. And you,” he beamed afresh, “are the great Red Rover.”

“That’s what they call me,” Red said quietly. “But that doesn’t matter. Only one thing truly matters. How am I to get back to the city in time for that game?

“You see—” He was growing eager now; all the dull feeling of weariness had left him. He yearned for battle. “You see, a lot depends on that game. Not—not for me, but for others. There’s the school, great Old Midway! It gave me a chance. Took me out of the steel mill and taught me the things I needed most to know.

“Then there’s the Grand Old Man, our coach. The cleanest sportsman the world has ever known. And this is his last year, his last game. That game must be won!

“There’s the public, too. They’re hoping against hope. They suppose that I’ll be there. They bought tickets to help out a great cause. They should get a show for their money.

“So you see,” he smiled grimly, “it’s up to us, just you and me. To-morrow at two p. m. the team lines up. Seventy thousand people will be crying for victory. You should see it, Pierre, you really should! It’s inspiring!”

“You’ll go in an airplane,” said Pierre. “You must. There can be no other way. We have here a radio telephone. We can speak with Detroit, Chicago, any big city of the midwest. To-day there are airplanes everywhere. It will be easy. Come! We will send out the call.”

“The call. Wait!” Once again the boy’s mind was in a whirl. “The call.” It would be heard everywhere. Men would rush to newspaper offices to sell the story. “_The Red Rover found!_” would be flashed across the country. The radio, the press, and after that every man, woman and child would take up the cry: “_The Red Rover has been found!_” He thrilled at the thought, thrilled to the very center of his being. But did he want this? A voice deep within his very soul whispered: “No.”

“Wait!” His hand was on the arm of the genial lighthouse keeper. “Wait for a time, at least.”

He recalled the sound of drumming motors that had struck his ears out there while he and the girl still tossed upon the waters. “There may be some other way,” he told himself. “No brass bands for me. If only I can slip back to the city unheralded; if I could take my place behind the line when the great moment comes; if only I could do that without even the Grand Old Man knowing! Oh, boy!”

Once again he murmured, “Wait.”