sepulchral about these last words that the listening boy shuddered in spite of himself.

“On such an island there are people.” The girl’s tone was stubborn, defiant.

“There is no one.” The tone of the speaker carried conviction. “In summer, yes. In winter, no. We are here alone.”

“Then,” said the girl, “I shall stay here until summer comes. Winter will soon be here. And ‘if winter comes,’” she quoted, “‘can spring be far behind?’”

“Very far.”

There was a quiet cadence in the speaker’s tone that sent chills coursing up Red Rodger’s spine. At the same time he hardly suppressed a desire to shout: “Bravo!” to the girl.

The closing of a door some seconds later told him that this was a cabin of at least two rooms and, strangely enough, between these rooms was no connecting door.

CHAPTER II
WHISPERS IN THE NIGHT

As Red Rodgers stretched his feet out before the tiny stove in his narrow room, his brow wrinkled. Here was a situation for you! A football game to be played to-morrow four or five hundred miles away. He laughed a silent, mirthless laugh.

“Football,” he whispered. He was surprised to find within his being a certain feeling of relief. He relaxed to the very tips of his toes. “Football.” He had seen a lot of it. Too much. This was his first year on the varsity. Almost without willing it, or even realizing it, he had become the central attraction of his team. He was the hub about which the offense circled. His had been the power and the glory, the power to dash and beat, weave and wind his way to many a touchdown, the glory of the victor.

“The power and the glory.” Little enough Red cared for glory. But power? Ah, yes! All his life he had striven for power, physical power for the most part. But he meant in the end to go forward, to succeed in life.

Born and raised in a city of mills, he had, from the age of fourteen, played his little part in the making of steel. For three summers and at every other available hour he had toiled at steel. Bare to the waist, brown, heat-burned, perspiring, he had dragged at long bars, raking away at steel bars, but recently formed by rushing, crashing rollers, that were still smoking hot. Other hours he had spent on the gridiron. The one helped the other. Struggling with steel, he had become like steel himself, hard, elastic, resisting. As he went down the field men were repelled from his Robot-like body as they might had he been a thing of white-hot metal.

And then had come his great opportunity. A quiet, solidly built man, with wrinkled face, bright eyes and tangled hair, had watched his high school football exploits from the sidelines. From time to time he had beckoned and had whispered: “Hold the ball closer to your body. Lean. Lean far over. Don’t run for the sidelines. Break your way through.”

There had been an air of authority and knowledge not to be questioned about this old man. Red had listened and had tried to follow the other’s teaching.

Then, one day during his senior year at Central High the old man had touched him on the arm and had pronounced magical words:

“The university will need you.”

Red had thrilled at these words. He knew now, on the instant, that this was the “Grand Old Man” of football, the fairest, squarest coach that ever lived.

It had been good to know that the university would need him, for long ago he had learned that in his upward climb he would need the university. The university had found him. He had found the university. In his freshman year, a cub, there had been bitter days and hours of triumph. But why think of all that?

With a restless motion he rose, took three steps, the extent of his cabin, retraced them and sat down. “Like a beast in a cage!” he muttered low. “I’ll not stand it!”

He thought soberly: “No, this is not to be endured. Better the hard grind of football.”

But this girl in that other log-walled prison cell? His mind did a sudden flip-flop.

“She’s rich,” he mused. “At least her father is. That crook said he was. She did not deny it.” Red did not approve of rich people. They had too much, others too little. He thought still less of their children. It mattered little to him that the sons and daughters of certain rich men had endeavored to make friends with him since his success at football. He could not understand them, was puzzled by their ways, and wished quite sincerely that they would leave him alone.

“Soft,” he had said to his roommate, “that’s what they are. No experiences worth having.”

“But this girl over there beyond the log wall,” he said to himself now, “she’s different. Got spunk. Stands up and defies them, she does, when she knows they are beasts, as all kidnapers are. Tells ’em she’ll freeze here all winter rather than do the thing they want her to do. Nerve, that’s what!”

He was conscious of an invisible bond that bound his life to that of the girl. “In the end we may fight it out together.”

The hour was late. Once again the drowsy warmth of this narrow cell settled down upon him.

“Football,” he mused. “A tough business. Thousands screaming their lungs out, ten, twenty, thirty, forty thousand people losing their heads while you must keep yours. Wish this were the end, wish it were all over. Wish—”

Once again, in the twinkling of an eye, his mood changed.

“For all that,” he muttered beneath his breath, “I’ve got to get away!” Leaping to his feet, he stood there, hard, straight, square, with purpose written in every line of his well formed body. “To-morrow’s game, that is nothing. But Saturday’s game, that is everything. It is the end. Final, that’s what it is. Defeat or victory, that’s what it means. The championship or nothing. And Prang, the Grand Old Man, says it depends on us!

“That means me!” There came a stoop to his shoulders as if a load had fallen upon them. “For the Grand Old Man, for the school that gave me a chance, for my mother, for clean sport all over the world, I must escape. I must play. I must win. I must! Must! Must!”

Yet, even as these words formed themselves into thought he seemed to hear others. “On a narrow island within a bay. Icy water. Another larger island. Fifteen, seventy-five, a hundred miles from shore. Superior never gives up her dead.” Of a sudden the boy cursed the school days when he had neglected his study of geography. He saw it all now. Geography was travel. And how could one find travel dull?

“But travel!” Again that silent, mirthless laugh. “Who expects to travel as I have?”

His thoughts were not finished. From somewhere had come a long, low, hissing sound. It was followed by a whisper:

“Over here! Come close to the wall.”

“Must be that girl.” His heart skipped a beat.

“What did they take you for?” the whisper demanded.

“I—I don’t know.”

“Don’t know?”

“Fact.”

After that a great silence settled over the place. This Red could not understand. Why had she started the conversation if she did not expect to finish it?

“Oh, well,” he told himself at last, “girls are queer anyway.” He settled back comfortably in his place.

Truth was, the girl suspected him of being a decoy placed there by the kidnapers. In the end she came to see that she had little to lose if she confided in a decoy.

Again came her