The phantom violin

Petite Jeanne loved children. They need not be dressed in silks. In truth, she thought that Nelse and Freda, the tots who had come with Swen, dressed as they were in their quain...

“Nothing of importance has happened,” Greta said aloud to Vincent Stearns as he came toiling up the slope. “At least not to us. It was just an accident. Florence fell over a fla...

Late next afternoon the _Ship of Joy_ with Bihari and his band, including Jeanne and the bear, went gliding down the long, narrow stretch of water known as Rock Harbor. As Jeann...

Florence had scarcely concealed the newly discovered treasure before she knew, from the shape of the oncoming boat, that it was owned by a friend. In truth it was Swen with his...

In the meantime there were things to do. The boat must be dragged up and turned over, to afford them a shelter for the night. Balsam tips must be gathered. These are nature’s ma...

The little French girl, Petite Jeanne, sprang noiselessly through the cabin door. Then, as if to keep someone out, closed the door and propped herself against it. “They saw me!”...

Not until her courage had been strengthened by a steaming cup of coffee brewed over a fire before the tent was Greta ready to tell her companion of the mysterious sounds in the...

It was a drowsy, dreamy day. In the distance a dark spot against the skyline was Passage Island where on stormy nights a search-light, a hoarse-hooting fog horn and a whispering...

“So I see,” the newcomer grumbled. “There was one, though. Don’t try to deceive me! I saw him! He’s short, stoutly built, rather dark, with a week’s beard. Now then! Does that c...

The paper taken from the _Little Black Tramp_, as Florence had named the derelict, proved a disappointment. Though there was still some suggestion of writing remaining on its su...

That night the dark-eyed Greta found herself in the midst of a nature lover’s paradise. Yet she was not at that moment thinking of any paradise. She was listening with all her e...

To the slim girl who but the moment before had thought of this marvelous violinist as a phantom, the whole thing seemed unreal. “Have you never heard it before?” she asked with...

Duncan’s Bay is primeval. Not an abandoned shack marks its shores, not a tree has been cut down. When darkness “falls from the wings of night” this bottle-green bay, reflecting...

Greta had never found waiting easy. To wait now, with a hundred green eyes focussed upon her was all but impossible. And yet, what more was to be done? Florence, having fallen d...

“They are one of the great joys of the island,” she told herself. “Hundreds of people come just to see them. Nowhere else can one see them so easily and safely in their native h...

Florence had the wolf by the tail, there could be no doubt about that. The three-pronged hook of her trolling spoon was securely entangled in that bushy mat of hair. The line th...

A moment before she had been hearing only the goodnight song and twitter of birds. Strange sounds they were to her. Bird songs all the same. But now this. “It is celestial music...

Bihari and his gypsy band in their _Ship of Joy_ had scarcely passed from sight around Blake’s Point when the sun went under a cloud and a damp, chill wind came driving in from...

It is not difficult to imagine Jeanne’s wild joy when, after an hour of disappointment because she had no boat for rowing to Duncan’s Bay, she saw the gay gypsy boat slip from o...

Greta Clara Bronson was by nature a musician, an artist, a person of temperament. The dawn of another day found her in no mood for seeking adventure. The troubles of others, if...

Jeanne’s row from the _Ship of Joy_ to the small dock before the ancient lighthouse was a short one. Her boat tied up, she hurried along the dock, then over the winding path lea...

As they neared the wreck, from somewhere inside it came one wild scream, then the maddest laugh one might ever hope to hear. Just such a laugh as on that other night had complet...

After leaving her companion, she had wandered for two hours along Greenstone Ridge. Here she paused to examine the surface of a greenish wall of rock. There she drew a chisel an...

Vincent Stearns and Percy O’Hara bade their young friends farewell at dawn. With Swen they went gliding away toward Rock Harbor Lodge. They would wait the coming of a passing st...

It was evening of the following day. The fire on that big flat rock burned brightly. Florence and Greta sat sipping hot chocolate from paper cups. For a full half hour, while tw...

As Florence and Jeanne sat there in the dark, whispering and wondering about the strange black schooner and its purpose in these waters, wondering too whether they dared light a...

The music to which Greta listened was unfamiliar. “Is it a song?” she whispered, “or an evening prayer? Who can have written it? Perhaps no one. It may have come direct from hea...

“A Barrel of gold!” Florence cried as the music ceased and she sprang ashore. “Come on! A copper-bound barrel! A barrel of gold!” She was able to keep her secret no longer.