Probably nothing will happen. Still, one never can tell. Should you catch a sound of commotion, or perhaps a scream, row away as speedily as possible and notify Deputy Sheriff Osterman at Rainy Creek at once. If I fail to return within the next half hour, do the same.”

“Why—er—”

Florence’s answer died on her lips. The mysterious one was gone.

“Who is she? Why are we here? What does she wish to know?” These and a hundred other haunting questions sped through the girl’s mind as she stood there alone in the dark, waiting, alert, expectant, on tiptoe, listening to the tantalizing lap-lap of water on the sandy shore.

A moment passed into eternity, another, and yet another. From somewhere far out over the dim-lit waters there came the haunting, long drawn hoot of a freighter’s foghorn.

Something stirred in the bush. She jumped; then chided herself for her needless fear.

“Some chipmunk, or a prowling porcupine,” she told herself.

A full quarter of an hour had passed. Her nerves were all but at the breaking point, when of a sudden, without a sound, the lady of the island stood beside her.

“O. K.,” she said in a low tone. “Let’s go.”

They were some distance from the island when at last the lady spoke again.

“That,” she said in a very matter-of-fact tone, “is Gamblers’ Island. And I am a lady cop from Chicago.”

“A—a lady cop!” Florence stared at her as if she had never seen her before.

“A lady policeman,” the other replied quietly. “In other words, a detective. Women now take part in nearly every field of endeavor. Why not in this? They should. Men have found that there are certain branches of the detective service that naturally belong to women. We are answering the challenge.

“But listen!” She held up a hand for silence.

To their waiting ears came the sound of a haunting refrain. The sound came, not from the island they had just left, but from the other, the supposedly uninhabited one.

“They say—” into the lady’s voice there crept a whimsical note, “that this island was once owned by a miser. He disappeared years ago. His cabin burned long since. Perhaps he has returned from another world to thrum a harp, or it may be only a banjo. We must have a look!”

She turned the prow of her boat that way and rowed with strength and purpose in the direction from which the sound came.

CHAPTER VII
GYPSY MOON

As they neared the tiny island, the sound of banjo and singing grew louder. From time to time the music was punctuated by shouts and clapping of hands.

“Someone playing gypsy under the gypsy moon,” said the lady of the island, glancing at the golden orb that hung like a giant Chinese lantern in the sky.

Florence made no reply. She recalled the dark-skinned child she had surprised on the trail, but kept her thoughts to herself.

“There’s a tiny beach half way round to the left,” she suggested. “We were here not long ago.”

The boat swerved. Once more they moved on in silence.

To Florence there was something startling about this night’s happenings.

“Gamblers’ Island; a lady cop,” she whispered. “And now this.”

Once more their boat grounded silently. This time, instead of finding herself left behind, the girl felt a pull at her arm and saw a hand in the moonlight beckon her on.

From the spot where they had landed, a half trail, strewn with brush and overhung with bushes, led to the little clearing at the center of the island.

Florence and Jeanne had found this trail difficult in broad daylight. Yet her guide, with a sense of direction quite uncanny, led the way through the dark without a single audible swish of brush or crack of twig until, with breath coming quick and fast, Florence parted the branches of a low growing fir tree and found herself looking upon a scene of wild, bewitching beauty.

Round a glowing campfire were grouped a dozen people.

“Gypsies,” she told herself. “All French gypsies!” Her heart sank. Here was bad news indeed.

Or was it bad? “Perhaps,” she said to herself, “they are Jeanne’s friends.”

Whether the scene boded good or ill, it enthralled her. Two beautiful gypsies, garbed in scant attire, but waving colorful shawls about them as they whirled, were dancing before the fire. Two banjos and a mandolin kept time to the wild beating of their nimble feet.

Old men, women, and children hovered in the shadows. Florence had no difficulty in locating the child of the trail who had played with the chipmunk. She was now fast asleep in her mother’s arms.

Florence’s reaction to all this was definite, immediate. She disliked the immodest young dancers and the musicians. The children and the older ones appealed to her.

“They have hard faces, those dancers,” she told herself. “They would stop at nothing.”

Of a sudden a mad notion seized her. These were water gypsies who had deserted the caravan for a speed boat. They had seen Jeanne, had recognized her, and it had been their speed boat that had overturned the rowboat.

“But that,” she told herself instantly, “is impossible. Such a speed boat costs two or three thousand dollars. How can a band of gypsies hope to own one?”

Nevertheless, when her strange companion, after once more pulling at her arm, had led her back to the beach, she found the notion in full possession of her mind.

Florence offered to row back to the mainland but as if by mistake she rowed the long way round the island. This gave her a view of the entire shore.

“No speed boat, nor any other motor craft on those shores,” she assured herself after a quarter of an hour of anxious scanning. “Wonder how they travel, anyway.”

Thereupon she headed for the distant shore which was, for the time being, their home.

Once again her mind was troubled. Should she tell Petite Jeanne of this, her latest discovery, or should she remain silent?