Chapter IV: Plumdum

“But Jeanne!” Florence exclaimed a half-hour later. “You can’t come with us! You truly can’t!”

“Oh! Can I not?” Jeanne stood up slim and straight as a silver moonbeam.

“Of course not!” Florence tried to be firm. “We are going into a battle. The island is on fire. It will be a battle of storm, flame and smoke. But we must save our beautiful island.”

“And is it not my island?” Jeanne demanded. “Did I not live in a wrecked ship off its very shores? And were you not my very good companion?”

“Yes,” Florence agreed, “but now you belong to France.”

“France,” the little French girl’s voice dropped, “In my so beautiful France everyone is poor again. No rich American will rent my gloomy castle. So—” she breathed, “So here I am!”

“You have rich friends,” Florence suggested, nodding toward the yacht.

“Oh these!” Jeanne tossed her fair head. “Yes, these are friends. They are very kind indeed. They like me to dance so they bring me with them.

“Good people they are, too,” she added, more quietly. “Some are very famous. One writes books, one paints pictures of great rocks, one goes to cold, cold, countries to explore and one he is very rich.

“But you!” she exclaimed, “You are my friend of many, many days. It is in the lines of our hands, it is written in the stars, that we shall be together. Always and always!” Her voice rose.

“All—all right,” Florence surrendered. “Have you any clothes?”

“But yes!” the little French girl exclaimed, “I am prepared. In my locker are slacks of midnight blue. And my blouses, they are orange. Like a flame of fire are these.”

“Like a flame,” Florence laughed. “All too soon they will be like smoke. Look!” Springing to her feet, she pointed down the bay, “See! There is your flame!”

At that moment the red threat against the sky flared anew. Jeanne shuddered. As for Florence, she was thinking of the boys back there fighting the flames in the night, thinking, too, of the gay party on the rich man’s yacht, of young men in white flannels and girls in evening gowns. Then, down deep in her heart, a great wonder possessed her.

Of a sudden her thoughts were brought back to her immediate surroundings. Bobbing up and down in the low bushes beneath the rock some creature came racing toward them.

“Wha-what on earth is that?” Florence exclaimed.

“Oh! that’s Plumdum,” Jeanne cried. Sliding off the rocks, she gathered some wriggling, woolly creature in her arms.

“We don’t let him out when I dance. He wants to dance and doesn’t know how.”

“But Plumdum?” Florence exclaimed. “What is he?”

“Just my dog,” said Jeanne, holding him up to view. “My very good friend Plumdum.”

“Funny name,” said Florence. “How do you spell it?”

“Oh, that,” Jeanne giggled, “I didn’t give him the name. It was a redcap in a railroad station who gave it to him, though I guess he didn’t mean to. He’s the one who told me how to spell it too. But I guess he didn’t really know how, not really—”

“Jeanne,” Florence exploded, “What you’re saying doesn’t make sense!”

“I’m sorry,” Jeanne apologized, “I’ll tell you how it was. I had fallen in love with this dog; saw him in a pet store window. He—he sort of winked at me, so I just went in and bought him.”

“Of course,” Florence agreed.

“And then,” Jeanne heaved a sigh, “he didn’t have any name. Well I went into the railway station and the redcap took the beast and tried to steer him through the crowd. He kept dodging between people and under their feet. At last the redcap got disgusted and said, ‘Miss, that thar dorg is plumdum!’

“‘Is he?’ I asked. I was all excited. I thought that was his real name. Guess _I_ was dumb. But I said, ‘How do you spell it?’ He said, ‘What Miss?’ I said, ‘Plumdum.’ He said, ‘Miss, I ain’t never been no spellin’ champeen, but near as I can figger it’s P-l-u-m-d-u-m.’”

“He was trying to tell you your dog was plumb dumb,” Florence laughed.

“Yes, to be sure,” Jeanne answered. “All the same, that’s his name!”

“And does it fit?” asked Florence.

“Not always,” Jeanne replied slowly. “Sometimes he’s almost human.” This last Florence was to learn in the days that were to come. In the drama of one crowded hour Plumdum was to play an important role.

But now Florence sprang to her feet, “Come on!” she exclaimed. “If you’re going with us you’ll have to get your things together, dark blue slacks, orange blouses—everything. We’re going to Tobin’s Harbor.”

“Tonight?” Jeanne demanded.

“In an hour.”

“_Bon! Mon cher. Tout de suite!_” Jeanne was off the rocks and away.

Following slowly, Florence at last reached the docks. There among the shadows she came upon a young man, little more than a boy. He was standing there looking away at the midnight fire.

She had time to think, “Interesting profile,” then he turned around and saw her.

“Hello, sister,” he said in a friendly voice. “Where did you come from? What do you do here?”

“We take people from here to there and back again,” she laughed quietly. “And,” she added, “sometimes we fight fires. Today we had a terrific battle.”

“Fire? Where?” The young man seemed surprised.

“Look.” She led him to the opposite corner of the dock, “See that red spot?”

“Fire, all right,” the other agreed. “Will they get it out?”

“Who knows?” There was a sombre note in the girl’s voice. “Just think! All this beauty, and that fire!”

“I am thinking,” said the young man soberly. “Tell me about it.”

Florence did tell him, told of the day’s battle, told it with all the drama and feeling of her emotional nature.

“Say-e-e!” the young man exclaimed. “That will be a grand spot on my program! Will you come to New York?”

“New—New York!” she stammered, “On your program!”

“Sure,” he laughed, “I’m Tim O’Hara. I plan and prepare radio programs. Just now I’m working on one to be called ‘Adventurers’ Club of the Air.’ Many people who have had a real adventure will get a trip to New York, all expenses paid, and a grand chance to tell the story of their adventures to the nation, coast to coast, seventy-nine stations. You’ve had a real adventure, why not come?”

“Oh!” Florence gasped. Then, “No—no—I couldn’t. Not now. Perhaps not for months. There’s going to be a battle, a terrific battle. I’m sure of it, and we—we must do our part.”

“Say! That’s the spirit!” Tim voiced his approval in no uncertain tones. “But you’ll come, in the end—I know you will. New York. Ever dream of that great city?”

“Yes, yes, often.”

“And the radio? Coast to coast?”

“Yes, that too.”

“Then you’ll come and you’ll have much more to tell.”

“Will I?” The girl wondered and shuddered.

“Here’s my card.” He thrust a pasteboard square into her hand. “Guard it with care.”

“Next to my heart!” she laughed as she thrust it deep into her blouse pocket.

Then she caught Jeanne’s call, “Florence, where are you?”

“I’m off,” she breathed. “We sail at once—‘Ships that pass in the night.’”

“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.”