The Phantom Violin / A Mystery Story for Girls

s of Old Superior were as blue as the sky. Even t

shove off for one more voyage,"

Greta spread blankets and, stretching themselves o

skyline was Passage Island where on stormy nights a search-light, a h

t came a dark old freighter with cabins fore and aft, then a tugboat towing a flat scow with a tall derrick upon it, and after these, all p

and Greta. Not so Florence. She was for action. Dizzy needed fish. She wou

en serpent of the sea lies stretched among the rocks and keeps it in per

the fishes might hear. "Rough enough for

the water, she watched the

at sank low. She checked the line. Then, watching the rocks t

there were no fish, and was musing on other things, phantom violins, black schooners, gray

t moment she tossed a fine three pound trout into her boat. "You get 'em

stern of her boat. "Enough," she breath

not meant to visit Duncan's Bay

f her boat. Why had she brought it? Perhaps sh

unting phantoms and, perhaps, a gray wolf or two. Wo

she was to come upon i

at crammed well down on her head, this stalwart girl might have been taken for a man as, rifle under ar

own by the spring in her footstep,

more than once. "Life

ummed the words of a s

impse of gray gulls soaring like phantom ships over the water. To her ears came the long, low whistle of some strange bird. She

attention. She looked away for an instant. When her gaze returned t

than a man, yet he vanished without a sound! H

ng of twigs and swishing of branches. No mo

and she came upon him-a man. He was standing at a spot w

savage, hungry look. Only the night before the gi

view through that narrow gap was the patriarch o

hat man was a rifle. An ugly smile overspread his face. His teeth shone o

yale is a game preserve. You will n

, always keen, worked quickly. "I

ired well over the heads of man and moose.

dodging and gliding back and forth among the evergreens. In her mind, r

* *

, Jeanne and Greta sat for a long time staring dreamily at the sea. Then Jeanne

egan a slow, gliding and weaving motion that, like some beautiful work evolved fr

d whirling over the little French girl's head, and now it lay soundless on the deck. Now the dancer whirled so fast she wa

eta. "That was marvelous

g upon the deck, Jeanne rolled h

are bad. That is not so. One of the very great prea

derful people! They took me when I had no home. They gave me shelter. I learned to dance wit

deck. Springing like a beautiful butterfly from a

e thing happened. Music came to them from

a space of seconds she stood there

e more to dance. And her dance, as Greta expres

rew herself panting on the deck, "that is gypsy music! No others can make m

It is a white boat. It is just about to ente

has the boat. I cannot go to them. Perhaps I shall not see them-

ed with sudden shock. "Can one of t

templation, "that was different. None

er arms toward the distant shore. Fainter, more indistinct now the mus