CHAPTER XXII

LITTLE LADY IN GRAY

“Read it! Read it aloud!” Vivian Carlson insisted as Jeanne still stood staring at the three magic words, SOME CONSIDERABLE TREASURE, that stood out at the center of the note they had found in the ancient churn.

“Al—alright, I will.” With considerable effort Jeanne pulled herself together. She was all atremble, as who would not be if he had succeeded in unscrewing the fastenings of an ancient churn, lost half a century, to find inside, as it seemed, a message from the dead?

“I, Josiah Grier,” she read in a low, tense voice, “am obliged to leave this cabin on the island. It is the dead of winter. I have but a small boat. However, because wild creatures have consumed my supplies, I must endeavor to reach the mainland. In this churn will be found a sample of such copper as abounds on this island. Be it known to any who open this churn that there is on the island _some considerable treasure_. It is to be found on the Greenstone Ridge at the far side, in a grotto which may be found by lining up the outstanding rocks off shore with the highest point of the ridge.”

“Some considerable treasure!” Violet breathed softly. “Jewels and gold hidden there by lake pirates perhaps.”

“Or old silver plate smuggled here from Canada,” Jeanne suggested. She loved ancient dishes and silver.

“Probably it’s nothing you’d ever dream of,” said practical Vivian. “A curious sort of treasure I’d guess, for this Josiah Grier, if I guess right, was a queer sort of chap. Think of hiding a piece of copper worth about two dollars and a half in an old churn!”

“What time do you suppose he could have belonged to?” Violet asked thoughtfully. “Was he a trader when the Indians owned the island, or a white copper miner of a later time?”

“Must have had a cow,” Vivian suggested. “Churns go with cows. There were cows here in the copper days. Plenty of grass was planted for them. There is timothy and clover growing wild today, everywhere.”

Needless to say the minds of the three girls were rife with speculation. There in the chilly seclusion of the museum they pledged one another to complete secrecy regarding the whole matter.

They screwed the churn’s top back and replaced everything, leaving the place just as Jeanne had found it that morning when she had gone in to work with kerosene on the rusty fastenings of the old churn.

“We’ll surprise ’em,” Violet whispered.

“Surprise them. Surprise them,” the others echoed.

It was in the midst of the evening conversation about the roaring fire that, for the time at least, all thoughts of treasure were driven from Jeanne’s mind.

“It’s strange about that airplane, D.X.123,” Sandy MacQueen, the reporter, drawled. “I had a sharp reminder of its disappearance only last month. Sad thing it was, and rather haunting. A girl with an appealing face, not sixteen yet I’d say, came into the big room of our newspaper office. Happened I wasn’t busy, so I asked her what she wanted. And what do you suppose it was she wanted?”

“What?” The moose-trapper sat up to listen.

“She said her father had gone way several years ago, when she was too small to remember much about him.”

“What did she have to do with the disappearance of the D.X.123?” the moose-trapper drawled.

“Perhaps nothing,” Sandy replied. “And yet, it is strange. The name of one man who went in that apparently ill-fated plane was John Travis.”

“John—John Travis!” Jeanne exclaimed.

“And you know—” Sandy turned to Jeanne. “That girl Florence got interested in—her name was Travis too.”

“June Travis,” Jeanne agreed.

“Of course,” said Sandy, “it may be a mere coincidence. Yet I sort of feel that he might have been her father.”

“The D.X.123. June Travis,” Jeanne was thinking. “John Travis, D.X.123.” Her mind was in a whirl. Springing to her feet, she seized Vivian by the shoulders. “Come on,” she said in a strange tight little voice, “we’re going for a walk.”

Drawing on their heaviest wraps, the two girls went out into the night. The storm which had been raging all that day had passed. All about them as they walked was whiteness and silence. The stars were a million diamonds set in a cushion of midnight blue.

They took the trail that led across the narrow entrance to the frozen bay. From the shore a half mile away came a ceaseless roar. Lashed into foam by the fury of the storm, the lake’s waters were beating against the barrier of ice that lay before it.

They walked rapidly forward in silence. Jeanne felt that she would burst if she did not talk; yet she said never a word. What she wanted to say was, “Vivian, that girl June Travis is a friend of mine. Her father is dead. We must send a wireless message to her. I saw her father’s airplane at the bottom of that little lost lake. It must have been there for years. He must be dead.”

Strangely enough, she said never a word about the matter. An unseen presence seemed to hover over her, whispering, “Do not say it! Do not say it! It may not be true.”

Was it true? Jeanne could not tell.

At last they came to a spot where they might mount to an icy platform and witness the blind battling of mighty waters against an unbreakable barrier.

The moon came out from behind a cloud. Water was black with night and white with foam. A cavern of ice lay before them. Into this narrow cavern a giant wave rushed. Its black waters were churned into white foam. It rose to stretch out a white hand and to utter a hiss that was like the angry spit of a serpent. In sheer terror Jeanne shrank back.

“It can’t reach us!” Vivian threw back her strong young shoulders and laughed.

“Vivian!” Jeanne suddenly gripped her companion’s arm. “Do you see that ridge?” She pointed away toward the island.

“Yes.”

“Vivian, tomorrow, whether it storms or not, you must go with me to the top of that ridge and down on the other side.”

“To find the treasure told about in the old churn?” Vivian asked.

“Oh, no! No!” Jeanne exclaimed in shocked surprise. “It is something more important than that—far, far more important.

“And yet—” her voice dropped. “I may not tell you about it now, for, after all, it may be just nothing.”

At that, with Vivian lost in a haze of stupefaction, she said with a shudder, “This is too grand—all this beauty of the night, all this surf line power. Come! We must go back.”

And they did go back to the cheery light, the cozy warmth of the fisherman’s home.

In the meantime, in the far-away city Florence was meeting with an experience well calculated to make her believe in witches, fairies, and all manner of fantastic fortune telling as well. She and June Travis had gone to visit the little lady in gray.

Florence had, after a considerable effort, contacted the little lady.

“Come to see me any time tomorrow,” had been the little lady’s invitation.

“Some time tomorrow,” Florence had agreed.

So, ten o’clock next morning found Florence and June Travis in the vicinity of the mysterious little lady’s home.

“It’s strange,” said Florence as they alighted from the car, “that anyone interested in telling fortunes should live in such a rich neighborhood.” She allowed her eyes to take in three magnificent apartment buildings and the smaller homes of pressed brick and rich gray stone that surrounded them.

“But then,” she added, “I suppose she gets a great many wealthy clients, and that’s what really pays. And, of course, she may not be a fortune teller after all.”

“It’s over this way,” June said, paying little heed to her companion’s talk. She was eager to reach the little old lady in gray. Some kind fairy seemed to be whispering in her ear, “This is the one. You have searched long. You have traveled far. You have met with many disappointments. But here at last you are, face to face with reality.”

“Here! Here it is!” she exclaimed in a low whisper. “Such a cute little cottage, all in gray stone.”

“And no sign on the door.” Florence was puzzled more and more.

June’s fingers trembled as she lifted a heavy knocker and let it down with a bang that was startling.

For a short time there was no sign of life in the place. Then, somewhere inside, a door opened and shut. The outer door opened, and there before them stood the Little Lady in Gray.

She was little—very small indeed, yet not really a midget. She was quite gray. And her dress was as gray as her hair.

“Won’t you come in?” she invited. “I have been expecting you for an hour.”

“That’s strange!” Florence thought with a sudden start. “We didn’t tell her when we’d come—just said sometime today.”

“So you are June Travis!” said the little lady. They had been led into the coziest sitting-room it had ever been Florence’s privilege to see. The little lady looked June up and down, as much as to say, “How you have grown! And how beautiful you are!” She did not say it.

Instead, she pointed to a chair, then to another as she suggested, “If you will kindly sit there, and you there, I shall take this large chair, then we can talk. It is a little large,” she looked at the chair that did indeed appear to have been made for a person three times her size, “but with cushions it can be made very comfortable indeed.”

Florence wondered in a dreamy sort of way why so small a person, who apparently could have anything she wanted, should have chosen so large a chair. She was destined to recall this wondering a long time after, and to wonder still more.

That the little lady _was_ very well off, Florence was bound to conclude. The curtains were of finest lace and the draperies of rich, heavy material. The rugs were oriental. The few objects of art—three vases, four oil paintings and a bronze statue in the corner—had cost a pretty penny; yet all this was so arranged that it appeared to harmonize perfectly with the two swinging cages where four yellow canaries swayed and sang, with the reddish-brown cat that dozed on the narrow hearth, and with the little lady in that big chair. It was strange.

“You have been wishing, my dear,” said the little lady, “to hear some news from your father—some good news, to be sure. I have it for you.”

“Yes, I—” June leaned forward eagerly.

“But wait!” said the little lady, “I have omitted something.” She touched a bell. A tiny maid in a white cap appeared.

“The tea, Martha.”

The little lady folded her hands.

Florence could see that June was tense with emotion. She herself was greatly excited. Not so the little old lady. She did everything, said everything in the spirit of absolute repose and peace.

“And why not?” the girl asked herself. “What’s the good of all this jumping about like a grasshopper, screaming like a seagull, and living all the time as if you were racing to a fire? Peace—that’s the thing to seek, peace and repose.”

“Ah, here is the tea.” The little lady’s eyes shone. “Do you have sugar or lemon? Lemon? Ah, yes. And you? Lemon also. That makes us three.

“And now—” she sipped the tea as if she were about to say, “I had muffins for breakfast. What did you have?”

What she did say was, “I heard from your father, my dear. It was only the day before yesterday. Oh, not by mail, nor by wire. Not even by radio. He is rather far away and, for the moment, shut off. But I heard. Oh, yes, my dear, I heard—” she smiled a roguish smile.

June was staring, eyes wide, ears straining, taking in every expression, drinking in every word.

“He has been out of my circle of influence for a long, long time,” said the little lady. “But now he is not so far. It is an island—that’s where he is.”

“Wha—what island?” June’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.

“That, my child, it is strange!” The little lady smiled a curious smile. “He does not know, nor do I. It is a very large island, this I know. He is well. He is not alone. He is very short of food, but hopes to find more presently. He will, in time, find his way off this island. He is convinced of that. And so am I. And then, my dear, then—”

“I shall see him!” This came from June as a cry of joy.

“Then you shall see him.”

“Wha—what is my father like?”

For a full moment the little lady looked at her without reply. Then she said, “He is short and rather stout. He is jolly.”

“See?” Florence whispered in June’s ear.

“He has always been well-to-do,” the little lady went on. “Now he may be rich. It is strange. His thoughts are clouded on that point. It is as if he had been rich, as if for the moment great wealth had escaped him, but that in a short time he hoped to regain it.

“And now—” her words appeared to fade away. “Now I must ask you to excuse me from further talk.”

At that moment Florence experienced a peculiar sensation. It seemed to her that with the fading of the little lady’s words she also faded. She seemed to all but vanish.

“Pure fancy!” Florence shook herself, and there was the little lady, bright and smiling as ever.

“No, no, my child!” she was saying to June, “Put up your purse. No money ever is passed in this room. This place is sacred to loyalty and friendship, beauty and truth.”

A moment later the two girls found themselves once again in the bright sunshine of a winter’s day.

“That,” said Florence, “is the strangest one of them all. Or is she one of them at all?”

“No,” said June, “she is not one of them.” She was thinking of Madame Zaran, of the voodoo priestess and all the rest. “She—” she hesitated, “she is the spirit of truth. All she said is true. But how—” her face was filled with sudden dismay. “How are we to find this large island?”

“Perhaps,” said Florence with a broad smile, “we shall not be obliged to find the island. It may find us, or at least your father may.”