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 THIRD EDITION

CSS
The Definitive Guide

Eric A. Meyer

Beijing • Cambridge • Farnham • Köln • Sebastopol • Taipei • Tokyo

CSS: The Definitive Guide, Third Edition
by Eric A. Meyer

Copyright © 2007, 2004, 2000 O’Reilly Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
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ISBN: 978-0-596-52733-4
[C] [8/08]
 To my wife and daughter
and all the joys they bring me.
 Table of Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

1. CSS and Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

The Web’s Fall from Grace 1
CSS to the Rescue 3
Elements 8
Bringing CSS and XHTML Together 11

2. Selectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Basic Rules 23
Grouping 27
Class and ID Selectors 31
Attribute Selectors 38
Using Document Structure 44
Pseudo-Classes and Pseudo-Elements 51

3. Structure and the Cascade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Specificity 62
Inheritance 68
The Cascade 71

4. Values and Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Numbers 77
Percentages 77
Color 78
Length Units 83
URLs 90
CSS2 Units 92

vii
 5. Fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Font Families 95
Font Weights 100
Font Size 106
Styles and Variants 114
Stretching and Adjusting Fonts 117
The font Property 120
Font Matching 124

6. Text Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Indentation and Horizontal Alignment 128
Vertical Alignment 134
Word Spacing and Letter Spacing 143
Text Transformation 146
Text Decoration 148
Text Shadows 152

7. Basic Visual Formatting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

Basic Boxes 158
Block-Level Elements 161
Inline Elements 179
Altering Element Display 198

8. Padding, Borders, and Margins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

Basic Element Boxes 207
Margins 211
Borders 223
Padding 238

9. Colors and Backgrounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

Colors 246
Foreground Colors 248
Backgrounds 253

10. Floating and Positioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Floating 283
Positioning 302

viii | Table of Contents

 11. Table Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
Table Formatting 339
Table Cell Borders 352
Table Sizing 359

12. Lists and Generated Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370

Lists 370
Generated Content 378

13. User Interface Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395

System Fonts and Colors 395
Cursors 400
Outlines 404

14. Non-Screen Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411

Designating Medium-Specific Style Sheets 411
Paged Media 413
Aural Styles 429

A. Property Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449

B. Selector, Pseudo-Class, and

Pseudo-Element Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491

C. Sample HTML 4 Style Sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503

Table of Contents | ix
 Preface 1

If you are a web designer or document author interested in sophisticated page styl-
ing, improved accessibility, and saving time and effort, this book is for you. All you
really need before starting the book is a decent knowledge of HTML 4.0. The better
you know HTML, of course, the better prepared you’ll be. You will need to know
very little else to follow this book.
This third edition of CSS: The Definitive Guide covers CSS2 and CSS2.1 (up through
the 11 April 2006 Working Draft), the latter of which is, in many ways, a clarifica-
tion of the first. While some CSS3 modules have reached Candidate Recommenda-
tion status as of this writing, I have chosen not to cover them in this edition (with the
exception of some CSS3 selectors). I made this decision because implementation of
these modules is still incomplete or nonexistent. I feel it’s important to keep the
book focused on currently supported and well-understood levels of CSS, and to leave
any future capabilities for future editions.

Conventions Used in This Book

The following typographical conventions are used in this book:
Italic
Indicates new terms, URLs, variables in text, user-defined files and directories, com-
mands, file extensions, filenames, directory or folder names, and UNC pathnames.
Constant width
Indicates command-line computer output, code examples, Registry keys, and
keyboard accelerators.
Constant width bold
Indicates user input in examples.
Constant width italic
Indicates variables in examples and in Registry keys. It is also used to indicate vari-
ables or user-defined elements within italic text (such as pathnames or filenames).
For instance, in the path \Windows\username, replace username with your name.

xi
 This icon signifies a tip, suggestion, or general note.

This icon indicates a warning or caution.

Property Conventions
Throughout this book, there are boxes that break down a given CSS property. These
have been reproduced practically verbatim from the CSS specifications, but some
explanation of the syntax is in order.
Throughout, the allowed values for each property are listed with the following syntax:
Value: [ <length> | thick | thin ]{1,4}
Value: [ <family-name> , ]* <family-name>
Value: <url>? <color> [ / <color> ]?
Value: <url> || <color>
Any words between “<” and “>” give a type of value or a reference to another prop-
erty. For example, the property font will accept values that actually belong to the
property font-family. This is denoted by the text <font-family>. Any words pre-
sented in constant width are keywords that must appear literally, without quotes.
The forward slash (/) and the comma (,) must also be used literally.
Several keywords strung together means that all of them must occur in the given
order. For example, help me means that the property must use those keywords in
that exact order.
If a vertical bar separates alternatives (X | Y), then any one of them must occur. A
vertical double bar (X || Y) means that X, Y, or both must occur, but they may
appear in any order. Brackets ([...]) are for grouping things together. Juxtaposition is
stronger than the double bar, and the double bar is stronger than the bar. Thus “V
W | X || Y Z” is equivalent to “[ V W ] | [ X || [ Y Z ]]”.
Every word or bracketed group may be followed by one of the following modifiers:
• An asterisk (*) indicates that the preceding value or bracketed group is repeated
zero or more times. Thus, bucket* means that the word bucket can be used any
number of times, including zero. There is no upper limit defined on the number
of times it can be used.
• A plus (+) indicates that the preceding value or bracketed group is repeated one
or more times. Thus, mop+ means that the word mop must be used at least once,
and potentially many more times.

xii | Preface
 • A question mark (?) indicates that the preceding value or bracketed group is
optional. For example, [pine tree]? means that the words pine tree need not be
used (although they must appear in that exact order if they are used).
• A pair of numbers in curly braces ({M,N}) indicates that the preceding value or
bracketed group is repeated at least M and at most N times. For example, ha{1,3}
means that there can be one, two, or three instances of the word ha.
Some examples follow:
give || me || liberty
At least one of the three words must be used, and they can be used in any order. For
example, give liberty, give me, liberty me give, and give me liberty are all valid.
[ I | am ]? the || walrus
Either the word I or am may be used, but not both, and use of either is optional. In
addition, either the or walrus, or both, must follow in any order. Thus, you could
construct I the walrus, am walrus the, am the, I walrus, walrus the, and so forth.
koo+ ka-choo
One or more instances of koo must be followed by ka-choo. Therefore, koo koo
ka-choo, koo koo koo ka-choo, and koo ka-choo are all legal. The number of koos is
potentially infinite, although there are bound to be implementation-specific limits.
I really{1,4}? [love | hate] [Microsoft | Netscape | Opera | Safari]
This is the all-purpose web designer’s opinion expresser. This example can be
interpreted as I love Netscape, I really love Microsoft, and similar expressions.
Anywhere from zero to four reallys may be used. You also get to pick between
love and hate, even though only love was shown in this example.
[[Alpha || Baker || Cray],]{2,3} and Delphi
This is a potentially long and complicated expression. One possible result would
be Alpha, Cray, and Delphi. The comma is placed because of its position within
the nested bracket groups.

Using Code Examples

This book is here to help you get your job done. In general, you may use the code in
this book in your programs and documentation. You do not need to contact us for
permission unless you’re reproducing a significant portion of the code. For example,
writing a program that uses several chunks of code from this book does not require
permission. Selling or distributing a CD-ROM of examples from O’Reilly books does
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code does not require permission. Incorporating a significant amount of example
code from this book into your product’s documentation does require permission.
We appreciate, but do not require, attribution. An attribution usually includes the
title, author, publisher, and ISBN. For example: “CSS: The Definitive Guide, Third
Edition, by Eric A. Meyer. Copyright 2007 O’Reilly Media, Inc., 978-0-596-52733-4.”

Preface | xiii
If you feel your use of code examples falls outside fair use or the permission given
above, feel free to contact us at [email protected].

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Acknowledgments
I’d like to take a moment to thank the people who have backed me up during the
long process of getting this book to its readers.

xiv | Preface
First, I’d like to thank everyone at O’Reilly for all they’ve done over the years, giving
me my break into publishing and continuing to give me the opportunity to produce a
book that matters. For this third edition, I’d like to thank Tatiana Apandi for her
good humor, patience, and understanding as I played chicken with my deadlines.
I’d also like to thank most profoundly my technical reviewers. For the first edition,
that was David Baron and Ian Hickson, with additional input from Bert Bos and
Håkon Lie. The second edition was reviewed by Tantek Çelik and Ian Hickson. The
fine folks who performed technical review on the third edition, the one you hold in
your hands, were Darrell Austin, Liza Daly, and Neil Lee. All lent their considerable
expertise and insight, keeping me honest and up-to-date on the latest changes in CSS
as well as taking me to task for sloppy descriptions and muddled explanations. None
of the editions, least of all this one, could have been as good as it is without their col-
lective efforts, but of course whatever errors you find in the text are my fault, not
theirs. That’s kind of a cliché, I know, but it’s true nonetheless.
Similarly, I’d like to thank everyone who pointed out errata that needed to be
addressed. I may not have always been good about sending back email right away,
but I read all of your questions and concerns and, when needed, made corrections.
The continued feedback and constructive criticism will only help the book get bet-
ter, as it always has.
There are a few personal acknowledgments to make as well.
To the staff of WRUW, 91.1 FM Cleveland, thank you for nine years of support,
great music, and straight-out fun. Maybe one day I’ll bring Big Band back to your air-
waves, and maybe not; but either way, keep on keepin’ on.
To Jeffrey Zeldman, thanks for being a great colleague and partner; and to the whole
Zeldman family, thanks for being such wonderful friends.
To “Auntie” Molly, thanks for always being who you are.
To “Uncle” Jim, thanks for everything, both professionally and personally. It’s no
exaggeration to say I wouldn’t be where I am without your influence, and our lives
would be a good deal poorer without you around.
To the Bread and Soup Crew—Jim, Genevieve, Jim, Gini, Ferrett, Jen, Jenn, and
Molly—thanks for all your superb cooking and tasty conversation.
To my extended family, thank you as always for your love and support.
To anyone I should have thanked, but didn’t: my apologies. And my thanks.
And to my wife and daughter, more thanks than I can ever express for making my
days richer than I have any right to expect, and for showering me with more love
than I could ever hope to repay. Though I’ll keep trying, of course.
—Eric A. Meyer
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
1 August 2006

Preface | xv
Chapter 1 CHAPTER 1
CSS and Documents 1

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are a powerful way to affect the presentation of a docu-
ment or a collection of documents. Obviously, CSS is basically useless without a doc-
ument of some sort, since it would have no content to present. Of course, the
definition of “document” is extremely broad. For example, Mozilla and related
browsers use CSS to affect the presentation of the browser chrome itself. Still, with-
out the content of the chrome—buttons, address inputs, dialog boxes, windows, and
so on—there would be no need for CSS (or any other presentational information).

The Web’s Fall from Grace

Back in the dimly remembered, early years of the Web (1990–1993), HTML was a
fairly lean language. It was composed almost entirely of structural elements that were
useful for describing things like paragraphs, hyperlinks, lists, and headings. It had
nothing even remotely approaching tables, frames, or the complex markup we
assume is necessary to create web pages. HTML was originally intended to be a
structural markup language, used to describe the various parts of a document; very
little was said about how those parts should be displayed. The language wasn’t con-
cerned with appearance—it was just a clean little markup scheme.
Then came Mosaic.
Suddenly, the power of the World Wide Web was obvious to almost anyone who
spent more than 10 minutes playing with it. Jumping from one document to another
was no more difficult than pointing the cursor at a specially colored bit of text, or
even an image, and clicking the mouse. Even better, text and images could be dis-
played together, and all you needed to create a page was a plain-text editor. It was
free, it was open, and it was cool.
Web sites began to spring up everywhere. There were personal journals, university
sites, corporate sites, and more. As the number of sites increased, so did the demand
for new HTML elements that would each perform a specific function. Authors
started demanding that they be able to make text boldfaced or italicized.

1
At the time, HTML wasn’t equipped to handle those sorts of desires. You could
declare a bit of text to be emphasized, but that wasn’t necessarily the same as being
italicized—it could be boldfaced instead, or even normal text with a different color,
depending on the user’s browser and preferences. There was nothing to ensure that
what the author created was what the reader would see.
As a result of these pressures, markup elements like <FONT> and <BIG> started to creep
into the language. Suddenly, a structural language started to become presentational.

What a Mess
Years later, we have inherited the problems of this haphazard process. Large parts of
HTML 3.2 and HTML 4.0, for example, were devoted to presentational considerations.
The ability to color and size text through the font element, to apply background colors
and images to documents and tables, to use table attributes (such as cellspacing), and
to make text blink on and off are all the legacy of the original cries for “more control!”
For an example of the mess in action, take a quick glance at almost any corporate
web site’s markup. The sheer amount of markup in comparison to actual useful
information is astonishing. Even worse, for most sites, the markup is almost entirely
comprised of tables and font elements, neither of which conveys any real semantic
meaning as to what’s being presented. From a structural standpoint, these pages are
little better than random strings of letters.
For example, let’s assume that for page titles, an author uses font elements instead of
heading elements like h1:
<font size="+3" face="Helvetica" color="red">Page Title</font>

Structurally speaking, the font tag has no meaning. This makes the document far less
useful. What good is a font tag to a speech-synthesis browser, for example? If an
author uses heading elements instead of font elements, though, the speaking browser
can use a certain speaking style to read the text. With the font tag, the browser has
no way to know that the text is any different from other text.
Why do authors run roughshod over structure and meaning this way? Because they
want readers to see the page as they designed it. To use structural HTML markup is
to give up a lot of control over a page’s appearance, and it certainly doesn’t allow for
the kind of densely packed page designs that have become so popular over the years.
But consider the following problems with such an approach:
• Unstructured pages make content indexing inordinately difficult. A truly power-
ful search engine would allow users to search only page titles, or only section
headings within pages, or only paragraph text, or perhaps only those paragraphs
that are marked as important. To accomplish such a feat, however, the page con-
tents must be contained within some sort of structural markup—exactly the sort
of markup most pages lack. Google, for example, does pay attention to markup
structure when indexing pages, so a structural page will increase your Google rank.

2 | Chapter 1: CSS and Documents

 • Lack of structure reduces accessibility. Imagine that you are blind and rely on a
speech-synthesis browser to search the Web. Which would you prefer: a struc-
tured page that lets your browser read only section headings so that you can
choose which section you’d like to hear more about; or a page that is so lacking
in structure that your browser is forced to read the entire thing with no indica-
tion of what’s a heading, what’s a paragraph, and what’s important? Let’s return
to Google—the search engine is, in effect, the world’s most active blind user, with
millions of friends who accept its every suggestion about where to surf and shop.
• Advanced page presentation is possible only with some sort of document struc-
ture. Imagine a page in which only the section headings are shown, with an
arrow next to each. The user can decide which section heading applies to him
and click on it, thus revealing the text of that section.
• Structured markup is easier to maintain. How many times have you spent sev-
eral minutes hunting through someone else’s HTML (or even your own) in
search of the one little error that’s messing up your page in one browser or
another? How much time have you spent writing nested tables and font ele-
ments, only to get a sidebar with white hyperlinks in it? How many linebreak
elements have you inserted trying to get exactly the right separation between a
title and the following text? By using structural markup, you can clean up your
code and make it easier to find what you’re looking for.
Granted, a fully structured document is a little plain. Due to that one single fact, a
hundred arguments in favor of structural markup won’t sway a marketing depart-
ment from using the type of HTML that was so prevalent at the end of the 20th cen-
tury, and which persists even today. What we need is a way to combine structural
markup with attractive page presentation.

CSS to the Rescue

Of course, the problem of polluting HTML with presentational markup was not lost
on the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which began searching for a quick
solution. In 1995, the consortium started publicizing a work-in-progress called CSS.
By 1996, it had become a full Recommendation, with the same weight as HTML
itself. Here’s why.

Rich Styling
In the first place, CSS allows for much richer document appearances than HTML
ever allowed, even at the height of its presentational fervor. CSS lets you set colors on
text and in the background of any element; permits the creation of borders around
any element, as well as the increase or decrease of the space around them; lets you
change the way text is capitalized, decorated (e.g., underlining), spaced, and even
whether it is displayed at all; and allows you to accomplish many other effects.

CSS to the Rescue | 3

Take, for example, the first (and main) heading on a page, which is usually the title
of the page itself. The proper markup is:
<h1>Leaping Above The Water</h1>

Now, suppose you want this title to be dark red, use a certain font, be italicized and
underlined, and have a yellow background. To do all of that with HTML, you’d have
to put the h1 into a table and load it up with a ton of other elements like font and U.
With CSS, all you need is one rule:
h1 {color: maroon; font: italic 2em Times, serif; text-decoration: underline;
background: yellow;}

That’s it. As you can see, everything you did in HTML can be done in CSS. There’s
no need to confine yourself to only those things HTML can do, however:
h1 {color: maroon; font: italic 2em Times, serif; text-decoration: underline;
background: yellow url(titlebg.png) repeat-x;
border: 1px solid red; margin-bottom: 0; padding: 5px;}

You now have an image in the background of the h1 that is only repeated horizon-
tally, and a border around it, separated from the text by at least five pixels. You’ve
also removed the margin (blank space) from the bottom of the element. These are
feats that HTML can’t even come close to matching—and that’s just a taste of what
CSS can do.

Ease of Use
If the depth of CSS doesn’t convince you, then perhaps this will: style sheets can
drastically reduce a web author’s workload.
First, style sheets centralize the commands for certain visual effects in one handy
place, instead of scattering them throughout the document. As an example, let’s say
you want all of the h2 headings in a document to be purple. Using HTML, the way to
do this would be to put a font tag in every heading, like so:
<h2><font color="purple">This is purple!</font></h2>

This must be done for every heading of level two. If you have 40 headings in your
document, you have to insert 40 font elements throughout, one for each heading!
That’s a lot of work for one little effect.
Let’s assume that you’ve gone ahead and put in all those font elements. You’re done,
you’re happy—and then you decide (or your boss decides for you) that those h2
headings should really be dark green, not purple. Now you have to go back and fix
every single one of those font elements. Sure, you might be able to find-and-replace,
as long as headings are the only purple text in your document. If you’ve put other
purple font elements in your document, then you can’t find-and-replace because
you’d affect those, too.

4 | Chapter 1: CSS and Documents

It would be much better to have a single rule instead:
h2 {color: purple;}

Not only is this faster to type, but it’s easier to change. If you do switch from purple
to dark green, all you have to change is that one rule.
Let’s go back to the highly styled h1 element from the previous section:
h1 {color: maroon; font: italic 2em Times, serif; text-decoration: underline;
background: yellow;}

This may look like it’s worse to write than HTML, but consider a case where you
have a page with about a dozen h2 elements that should look the same as the h1.
How much markup will be required for those 12 h2 elements? A lot. On the other
hand, with CSS, all you need to do is this:
h1, h2 {color: maroon; font: italic 2em Times, serif; text-decoration: underline;
background: yellow;}

Now the styles apply to both h1 and h2 elements, with just three extra keystrokes.
If you want to change the way h1 and h2 elements look, the advantages of CSS are
even more striking. Consider how long it would take to change the HTML markup
for an h1 and 12 h2 elements, compared to changing the previous styles to this:
h1, h2 {color: navy; font: bold 2em Helvetica, sans-serif;
text-decoration: underline overline; background: silver;}

If the two approaches were timed on a stopwatch, I’m betting the CSS-savvy author
would easily beat the HTML jockey.
In addition, most CSS rules are collected into one location in the document. It is pos-
sible to scatter them throughout the document by grouping them into associated
styles or individual elements, but it’s usually far more efficient to place all of your
styles into a single style sheet. This lets you create (or change) the appearance of an
entire document in one place.

Using Your Styles on Multiple Pages

But wait—there’s more! Not only can you centralize all of the style information for a
page in one place, but you can also create a style sheet that can then be applied to
multiple pages. This is accomplished by a process in which a style sheet is saved to
its own document and then imported by any page for use with that document. Using
this capability, you can quickly create a consistent look for an entire web site. All you
have to do is link the single style sheet to all of the documents on your web site.
Then, if you ever want to change the look of your site’s pages, you need only edit a sin-
gle file and the change will be propagated throughout the entire server—automatically!
Consider a site where all of the headings are gray on a white background. They get
this color from a style sheet that says:
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {color: gray; background: white;}

CSS to the Rescue | 5

Now let’s say this site has 700 pages, each of which uses the style sheet that says the
headings should be gray. At some point, the site’s webmaster decides that the head-
ings should be white on a gray background. So she edits the style sheet to say:
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {color: white; background: gray;}

Then she saves the style sheet to disk and the change is made. That sure beats hav-
ing to edit 700 pages to enclose every heading in a table and a font tag, doesn’t it?

Cascading
That’s not all! CSS also makes provisions for conflicting rules; these provisions are
collectively referred to as the cascade. For instance, take the previous scenario in
which you import a single style sheet into several web pages. Now inject a set of
pages that share many of the same styles, but also include specialized rules that apply
only to them. You can create another style sheet that is imported into those pages, in
addition to the already existing style sheet, or you could just place the special styles
into the pages that need them.
For example, on one page out of the 700, you might want headings to be yellow on
dark blue instead of white on gray. In that single document, then, you could insert
this rule:
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {color: yellow; background: blue;}

Thanks to the cascade, this rule will override the imported rule for white-on-gray
headings. By understanding the cascade rules and using them to your advantage, you
can create highly sophisticated sheets that can be changed easily and come together
to give your pages a professional look.
The power of the cascade is not confined to the author. Web surfers (or readers) can,
in some browsers, create their own style sheets (called reader style sheets, obviously
enough) that will cascade with the author’s styles as well as the styles used by the
browser. Thus, a reader who is colorblind could create a style that makes hyperlinks
stand out:
a:link, a:visited {color: white; background: black;}

A reader style sheet can contain almost anything: a directive to make text large
enough to read if the user has impaired vision, rules to remove images for faster read-
ing and browsing, and even styles to place the user’s favorite picture in the back-
ground of every document. (This isn’t recommended, of course, but it is possible.)
This lets readers customize their web experience without having to turn off all of the
author’s styles.
Between importing, cascading, and its variety of effects, CSS is a wonderful tool for
any author or reader.

6 | Chapter 1: CSS and Documents

Compact File Size
Besides the visual power of CSS and its ability to empower both author and reader,
there is something else about it that your readers will like. It can help keep docu-
ment sizes as small as possible, thereby speeding download times. How? As I’ve
mentioned, a lot of pages have used tables and font elements to achieve nifty visual
effects. Unfortunately, both of these methods create additional HTML markup that
drives up the file sizes. By grouping visual style information into central areas and
representing those rules using a fairly compact syntax, you can remove the font ele-
ments and other bits of the usual tag soup. Thus, CSS can keep your load times low
and your reader satisfaction high.

Preparing for the Future

HTML, as I pointed out earlier, is a structural language, while CSS is its comple-
ment: a stylistic language. Recognizing this, the W3C, the body that debates and
approves standards for the Web, is beginning to remove stylistic elements from
HTML. The reasoning for this move is that style sheets can be used to create the
effects that certain HTML elements now provide, so who needs them?
Thus, the XHTML specification has a number of elements that are deprecated—that
is, they are in the process of being phased out of the language altogether. Eventually,
they will be marked as obsolete, which means that browsers will be neither required
nor encouraged to support them. Among the deprecated elements are <font>,
<basefont>, <u>, <strike>, <s>, and <center>. With the advent of style sheets, none of
these elements are necessary. And there may be more elements deprecated as time
goes by.
As if that weren’t enough, there is the possibility that HTML will be gradually
replaced by the Extensible Markup Language (XML). XML is much more compli-
cated than HTML, but it is also far more powerful and flexible. Despite this, XML
does not provide any way to declare style elements such as <i> or <center>. Instead,
it is quite probable that XML documents will rely on style sheets to determine their
appearance. While the style sheets used with XML may not be CSS, they will proba-
bly be whatever follows CSS and very closely resemble it. Therefore, learning CSS
now gives authors a big advantage when the time comes to make the jump to an
XML-based web.
So, to get started, it’s very important to understand how CSS and document struc-
tures relate to each other. It’s possible to use CSS to affect document presentation in
a very profound way, but there are also limits to what you can do. Let’s start by
exploring some basic terminology.

CSS to the Rescue | 7

Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
“Why not?” she murmured at last. “Why should I not
some day command a ship? I am strong as a man.
There would be things to learn. I could master them as
well as any man, I am sure.”

She paused for a moment’s reflection. Had there been [78]

other lady captains? Yes, she had read stories of one
who commanded a tugboat in Puget Sound.

And there had been the lady of the “Christmas Tree

Ship.” The husband of this Christmas tree lady had been
lost on his craft while bringing thousands of Christmas
trees to Chicago. She had chartered another ship and
had carried on his work.

“What a glorious task!” the girl murmured. “Bringing

Christmas trees to the people of a great city!

“She’s dead now,” she recollected, “that lady captain is

dead. The Christmas tree ship sails no more. But it shall
sail. Some day I shall be its captain. And Christmas
trees shall be free to all those who are poor.”

Laughing low, she once more resumed her walk on the

bridge. This time her thoughts dwelt upon things very
near at hand. “This wreck,” she was thinking, “this old
Pilgrim—is it a safe place to be?

“It—it just has to be!” she exclaimed after a moment’s [79]

reflection. “It’s such a grand place for the summer.
Broad deck, sloping a little, but not too terribly much.
Cabins without number, a swimming pool that once was
a dining hall. Who could ask for more? And yet—” her
brow wrinkled. The little breezes that blew across the
water seemed to whisper to her of danger.
At last, shaking herself free from all those thoughts, she
went down to her cabin and was soon fast asleep.

[80]
 CHAPTER IX
THE CALL OF THE GYPSIES

The following day was bright and clear. The waters of

Old Superior were as blue as the sky. Even the wreck
took on a scrubbed and smiling appearance.

“As if we were all prepared to shove off for one more

voyage,” Jeanne said with a merry laugh.

As soon as the sun had dried the deck, Jeanne and

Greta spread blankets and, stretching themselves out
like lazy cats, prepared for a glorious sun bath.

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 radio warned ships of danger.

All manner of ships pass between Isle Royale and [81]

Passage Island. They were passing now, slowly and,
Jeanne thought, almost mournfully. First 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 painted white and with many flags flying, an
excursion boat. And then, reared over on one side and
scooting along before the wind, a sailboat.
Just to lie in the sun and watch this procession was life
enough for Jeanne and Greta. Not so Florence. She was
for action. Dizzy needed fish. She would row over to the
shoals by Blake’s Point. There she would troll for trout.

The water about Blake’s Point is never still. It is as if

some great green serpent of the sea lies stretched
among the rocks and keeps it in perpetual motion by
waving his tail. It was not still when Florence arrived.

“Just right,” she whispered, as if afraid the fishes might

hear. “Rough enough for a little excitement, and no real
danger.”

Casting a shining lure into the water, she watched the

line play out as she rowed.

A big wave lifted her high. Still the line played out. The [82]
boat sank low. She checked the line. Then, watching the
rocks that she might not come too close and snag them,
she rowed away.

For some time she circled out along the shoals, then
back again. She had begun to believe there were no
fish, and was musing on other things, phantom violins,
black schooners, gray wolves, Old Uncle Ned, when,
with a suddenness that was startling, her reel began to
sing.

Dropping her oars, she seized the pole and began

reeling in rapidly. Next moment she tossed a fine three
pound trout into her boat. “You get ’em quick or not at
all,” Swen had said to her. She had got this one “quick.”

An hour later four fine trout lay in the stern of her boat.
“Enough,” she breathed. “We eat tonight, and so does
Dizzy.”
The day was still young. She had not meant to visit
Duncan’s Bay, but now the place called to her.

Swen’s short, powerful rifle lay in the prow of her boat. [83]
Why had she brought it? Perhaps she could not tell.
Now she was glad it was there.

“Go ashore on Duncan’s Bay,” she told herself. “Go

hunting phantoms and, perhaps, a gray wolf or two.
Wouldn’t mind shooting them, the murderers, not a bit!”

It was a strange wolf she was to come upon in the

forest that day.

With corduroy knickers tucked in high laced boots, a

flannel shirt open wide at the neck, and a small hat
crammed well down on her head, this stalwart girl might
have been taken for a man as, rifle under arm, she
trudged through the deep shadows of the evergreen
forest covering the slope of Greenstone Ridge.

That she was in her element was shown by the spring in

her footstep, the glad, eager look in her eyes.

“Life!” she breathed more than once. “Life! How

marvelous it is!

“‘I love life!’” She hummed the words of a song she had
once heard.

“Life! Life!” she whispered. Here indeed was life in its [84]
most primitive form. At times through a narrow opening
she caught a glimpse of gray gulls soaring like phantom
ships over the water. To her ears came the long, low
whistle of some strange bird. She was not surprised
when she found herself standing face to face with a
magnificent broad-antlered moose. She stood quite still.
Great eyed, the moose stared at her. A sound to her
right caught her attention. She looked away for an
instant. When her gaze returned to the spot where the
monarch of the forest had stood, he had vanished.

“Gone!” she exclaimed low. “Gone! He was taller than a

man, yet he vanished without a sound! How strange!
How sort of wonderful! But I wonder—”

But there was that sound from below. Snapping of twigs

and swishing of branches. No moose that. She would
see what was down there.

She did see, and that almost at once. A few silent steps, [85]
and she came upon him—a man. He was standing at a
spot where a break in the evergreens left a view of
Duncan’s Bay.

He was looking straight ahead. On his face was a

savage, hungry look. Only the night before the girl had
seen that same look in the eyes of a wolf.

She was not long in learning the reason. In plain view

through that narrow gap was the patriarch of his tribe,
the moose she had saved from the wolf.

“But why that look?” She was puzzled, but not for long.
In the hands of that man was a rifle. An ugly smile
overspread his face. His teeth shone out like fangs as he
lifted the rifle and took deliberate aim at the moose.

She recalled Swen’s words: “Isle Royale is a game

preserve. You will not be allowed to kill even a rabbit.”

“This man is a poacher.” Her mind, always keen, worked

quickly. “I can save the moose, and I will!”
Swinging her own rifle into position, she fired well over
the heads of man and moose. The shot rang out. The
startled moose fled.

And the man? She did not pause to see. Like a startled [86]
rabbit she went dodging and gliding back and forth
among the evergreens. In her mind, repeated over and
over, was the question, “Did he see me? Did he see
me?”

* * * * * * * *

After a long and glorious sun bath followed by a

delicious lunch served on deck, Jeanne and Greta sat for
a long time staring dreamily at the sea. Then Jeanne,
throwing off her velvet robe, stood up, slim and straight,
on the planked deck.

“Wonder if I can have forgotten,” she murmured. Then,

seizing a tambourine, she began a slow, gliding and
weaving motion that, like some beautiful work evolved
from nothing by the painter’s skillful hand, became a
fantastic and wonderful dance.

For a full quarter hour Greta sat spellbound. She had [87]
seen dancing, but none like this. Now the tambourine
was rattling and whirling over the little French girl’s
head, and now it lay soundless on the deck. Now the
dancer whirled so fast she was but a gleam of white and
gold. And now her arms moved so slowly, her body
turned so little, she might have seemed asleep.

“Bravo! Bravo!” cried Greta. “That was marvelous!

Where did you learn it?”

“The gypsies taught me.” Dropping upon the deck,

Jeanne rolled herself in a blanket like a mummy.
“People,” she said slowly, “believe that all gypsies are
bad. That is not so. One of the very great preachers
was a gypsy—not a converted gypsy—just a gypsy.

“Bihari and his wife were my godparents in France. They

were wandering gypsies, but such wonderful people!
They took me when I had no home. They gave me
shelter. I learned to dance with my bear, such a
wonderful bear. He is dead now, and Bihari is gone. I
wish they were here!”

Next moment she went rolling over and over on the

deck. Springing like a beautiful butterfly from a cocoon,
she whirled away in one more riotous dance.

It was in the midst of this that a strange thing [88]

happened. Music came to them from across the waters
—wild, delirious music.

Jeanne paused in her wild dance. For a space of

seconds she stood there drinking in that wild glory of
sound.

Then, as if caught by some spell, she began once more

to dance. And her dance, as Greta expressed it later,
was “like the dance of the angels.”

“Greta,” Jeanne whispered hoarsely when at last the

music ceased and she threw herself panting on the
deck, “that is gypsy music! No others can make music
like that. There is a boat load of gypsies out there by
Duncan’s Bay.”

“Yes, yes!” Greta sprang to her feet. “See! It is a white

boat. It is just about to enter the Narrows. Perhaps
Florence will see it.”
“Florence—” There was a note of pain in Jeanne’s voice.
“Florence has the boat. I cannot go to them. Perhaps I
shall not see them—my friends, the gypsies. And they
make music, such divine music!”

“Music—divine music,” Greta whispered with sudden [89]

shock. “Can one of these have been my phantom
violinist?

“No,” she decided after a moment’s contemplation, “that

was different. None of these could have played like
that.”

“It is the call!” Jeanne cried, springing to her feet and

stretching her arms toward the distant shore. Fainter,
more indistinct now the music reached their ears. “The
gypsies’ call! I have no boat. I cannot go.”

[90]
 CHAPTER X
SILENT BATTLE

Ten minutes of running and dodging brought Florence,

still gripping her rifle, squarely against a towering wall
of rock.

“Did he see me?” she asked herself. “And if he did?”

Dropping back into the protecting branches of a black

old fir tree, she stood breathing hard, listening.

Her mind was in a whirl. She had saved the moose. But
what of herself?

“Probably a foolish thing to do,” she muttered low. “And

yet—”

Her mind took another turn. Who was this man?

Certainly he was breaking the law. No man had a right
to kill a moose on Isle Royale.

“They are one of the great joys of the island,” she told [91]
herself. “Hundreds of people come just to see them.
Nowhere else can one see them so easily and safely in
their native haunts. If men begin to shoot them they
will go to the heart of the island and no one will see
them. What a pity!”
Again, who was this man? She thought of the black
schooner that had come creeping up the bay in the
dead of night and that other one Jeanne had seen by
the wrecked ship. Were they the same? And did this
man belong to that schooner? To none of these
questions could she form a positive answer.

When she had rested there in the shadows until she

was sure the man had not followed her, she went
gliding along beneath the rocky ridge, then started,
slipping and sliding downward, to the camping ground.

Like a patient steed her boat lay waiting on the beach.

“Should hurry back to the ship,” she told herself. But the
waters of Duncan’s Bay, so peaceful, so undisturbed and
deserted, seemed to call. She answered that call.

After rowing quietly for a half hour, she dropped her [92]
oars, took up her rod and began to cast. Her reel sang,
the spoon gave off a silvery gleam as, cutting a narrow
arc through the air, it sank from sight.

Without truly hoping to catch a fish, she reeled in

slowly. She repeated this again and again. Her boat was
drifting. She gave no attention to that. Each cast was
straighter, longer than the last. Here was real sport.

But wait! Of a sudden the pole was fairly yanked from

her hand. “A fish!” she exclaimed. “Oh! A fish.”

She reeled in rapidly. The fish came up from the deep.

“Only a poor little four pound pike,” she sighed as she

shook him free.
The little pike had three brothers; at least she hooked
that number and threw them back.

Then came a sudden shock. It was as if a powerful man

had seized her lure and given it a terrific yank.

“That’s the big boy again, or his brother.” She was [93]
thinking of that other night with Jeanne. She set her
shoulders for a tussle. “If it is—” She set her teeth tight.
“Watch me land him!”

The “tussle” never rightly began. With a suddenness

beyond power to describe, a voice in her very ear said:

“So! Now I have you!”

It was the man who meant to murder the aged moose.

In his two gnarled hands he gripped a stout ashen oar.
The oar was raised for a blow.

What had happened was this. Her mind fully occupied

with the fishing adventure, the girl had allowed her boat
to drift farther and farther into the bay. She had at last
come within the stranger’s view. Still angry because of
his interrupted piece of vandalism, he had pushed off
from the shore and, by using an oar for a paddle, had
stolen upon her unobserved.

That there would be a battle the strong girl did not

doubt. How would it end? Who could say? Her pulse
pounded madly as she reached for her own oar.

The two small boats were a full mile from the Narrows, [94]
through which one enters Duncan’s Bay. At that moment
a white fishing boat, fully forty feet long and gay with all
manner of flags and bunting, was entering the Narrows.
There were a number of men and women on board, all
gayly dressed, and, until a few moments before,
enjoying a grand fete of music and dancing. Now they
were silent. Duncan’s Bay affects all in this same
manner. Dark, mysterious, deserted, it seems to speak
of the past. A hush falls upon all alike as they pass
between the narrow, sloping walls that stand beside the
entrance to this place of strange enchantment.

Conspicuous because of his size and apparent strength,

one man stood out from the other voyagers. Garbed in
green breeches and a gayly decorated vest, he stood at
the prow, massive brown arms folded, silently directing
the course of the boat by a slight swaying, this way and
that, of his powerful body.

Florence was quick. Hours of work in a gymnasium each [95]

day for months on end had given her both the speed
and strength of a tiger. Before the intruder could strike
she had seized her oar and was prepared to parry the
blow.

The oars came together with a solid thwack. Not a word

was said as they drew back for a second sally. This was
to be a silent battle.

The man tried a straight on, sword-like thrust. It

became evident at once that he meant to plunge her
into the icy water. What more?

Swinging her oar in a circle, she struck his weapon such

a blow as all but knocked it from his hands.

Before he could regain his grip, she sent a flashing blow

that barely missed his head, coming down with a thud
upon his back.
Turning upon her a face livid with anger, he executed a
crafty thrust to the right, leading her weapon astray.
Before she could recover, her boat tipped. She fell upon
one knee. At the same instant there came a crashing
blow that all but downed her for a count of ten. The
man smiled.

“I’m done!” her aching heart seemed to whisper. [96]

But what was this? There came the sound of heavy feet
dropping upon the bottom of the boat. This was
followed by a wolf-like growl. Then came the panting
breath of terrific struggle.

Florence regained full consciousness in time to see her

adversary caught in the grip of a powerful man, and to
witness the feat of strength that lifted him clear of the
boat and sent him sprawling into black waters a full ten
feet away.

At that her deliverer turned and smiled, showing all his

fine white teeth.

“Bihari!” she exclaimed. “Bihari the gypsy!”

“Yes, Miss Florence.” The man bowed. “Here we meet

again. And this one—” He glanced at the man struggling
in the water. “What of him?”

“It’s not far to shore. Perhaps he can swim that far.”

“Ah, yes, I am sure of that.” Bihari’s grin broadened. [97]

“Come then, we will forget him. You will come aboard
our fine little schooner. My good Mama will look you
over and see if you are hurt.”
To her surprise Florence found the flag-bedecked boat
close at hand. The villainous intruder had been
outgeneraled by his own tactics. He had come upon
Florence silently, unobserved. In this same manner
Bihari, witnessing the struggle, had stolen upon him.
Not, however, until he had won the battle had Bihari
discovered he was defending a long-time friend.

“Florence!” his buxom wife cried as the girl climbed

aboard. “It is indeed good to see you! And where is my
Jeanne?”

“She—she’s not far away. You shall see her within an

hour if you choose.”

“Choose?” Bihari laughed a great roaring laugh. “Have

we not traveled half way round the world that we might
see her? Have we not traded our vans for a boat that
we might come to this place? Show us the way.”

“You saw the wreck as you came in?”

“Ah, yes.” [98]

“That is the place.”

“The wreck?” Bihari stared.

“The wreck,” she repeated.

Without another word this strange skipper mounted the

deck to begin that unusual directing of his craft.

Four words came back to Florence, as with her boat in

tow, she rode in luxurious ease out of the bay. “We will
forget him.” Bihari had said that. He had been speaking
of the stranger. Could they safely forget him? Something
seemed to tell her they could not.

[99]
 CHAPTER XI
SONG OF THE PHANTOM

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 out the Narrows and head straight for the
spot where she stood upon the sloping deck.

“Oh!” she cried to Greta. “They are coming! Florence

has found them. She knows how I love gypsies who are
good. She will bring them.” She sprang into a dance so
wild that Greta thought she would spin quite off the
deck and go flying through the air to meet the gay
white boat.

“It can’t be Bihari!” she exclaimed at last, throwing

herself down upon the deck. “It just cannot be!”

It was Bihari for all that. The schooner was still an arm’s [100]
length from the side of the wreck when with one wild
leap Jeanne was in Madame Bihari’s strong arms.

“Jeanne! My Petite Jeanne!” the good woman cried.

Tears stood in her eyes. “Jeanne, you are with us once
more!”
There followed hours of great joy, of music and
feasting; telling of stories, too.

“In France,” Bihari said to Jeanne, “all is beautiful. Every

day grows longer without you. We said, ‘Well, we will
return to America.’ And here we are.

“We came to Chicago. You were not there. We came to

the shore of Lake Superior. You were not there. They
said, ‘She is on an island, Isle Royale.’ We said, ‘Take
our vans. We must have a boat.’ See! We have a boat.
Is it not a jolly one? And we have you!

“And see!” he exclaimed, pointing at a brown mass of

fur against the cabin. “See, we have found you a bear.
He is almost as wise as your other one. And Mama here
has taught him some of your dances.

“Come!” he exclaimed, poking the sleeping bear with his [101]

foot. “Come! Dance for us!”

Unrolling himself, the bear stood up. At first, still groggy

with sleep, he looked more like an empty sack trying to
play it was a man. When Bihari seized his violin and
began to play, it was as if the bear were run by a motor
and the current was suddenly turned on. He began
hopping about in a most grotesque manner. Soon he
and Jeanne were doing a wild, weird dance.

Florence, accustomed to all this from the past, sat

looking on in silence. Greta too was silent. Yet how
strange it all seemed to her!

“Bravo!” Bihari shouted when the dance was over. “We

will visit the island. We will go to every place where
there are people. They shall have music and dancing,
such entertainment as they have never known before.”
The days that followed were one round of joy for the
little French girl. The old wreck became once more a
pleasure ship. Flags and bunting were hung on every
brace and spar. The deserted cabins overflowed with life
and echoed sounds of joy from dawn to dark.

Great flat boxes of clay were brought from the [102]

mainland. On these campfires were kindled. Their red
and yellow gleam might be seen wavering upon the
water far and near. Strange dishes were prepared in
kettles hung over these fires. They feasted, danced,
sang and told stories by the hour. Both Jeanne and
Florence lived the life of the open as they had lived it in
France with Bihari and his band.

As for the dark-eyed Greta, it was all so wild and

strange she could only sit shyly smiling in a corner, both
charmed and bewildered by the ways of these people of
the open road.

At times she stole away to the prow. One night, when

songs were loudest, she took her violin from beneath
her arm and played to the rushing waves. Then again
she would sit staring away toward the land where no
light shone, dreaming strange dreams.

“Gold,” she would murmur, “a barrel of gold. Florence

said there might be a barrel of gold buried on the
camping ground.

“But that,” she would exclaim, “that is absurd!” In spite [103]

of all her denials, the conviction clung to her that
somehow, somewhere a barrel of gold would play an
important part in her life.

“Wonder how much that would be?” she murmured.

“Enough for—for everything?” For a long time she had
wished to study violin under a very great master, and
had not been able.

“Money, money, money,” she whispered now. “Some

have much more than they need, and some none at all.
How strange life is!”

Finding in this no source of joy, she gazed away toward

the shores of Isle Royale, to dream that she was once
more listening to the magic music of the phantom violin.

In this mood she took up her own violin and was soon
lost to all else in an attempt to reproduce the notes of
the haunting melody that had come to her that night.

To her unspeakable joy, she found she could catch here

and there a few scattered notes. With time it came to
her more and more.

So engrossed was she in this joyous adventure into the [104]

unknown, she did not know that the gypsy songs had
ceased, that soft padded footsteps approached, that a
little circle of eager listeners had gathered about her.

“Ah!” someone sighed as her last note died away.

Then, in consternation she became conscious of their

presence.

“Magnificent!” Bihari exclaimed. “We have artists of the

violin in France. Few play more wonderfully. What piece
is that?”

“It—” Greta stared. “Why, that is the song of the

phantom.”

“Song of the phantom!”

Greta was obliged to tell her story.

“That is no phantom!” Bihari declared stoutly. “Some

great artist is hidden away in those hills. Why? I
wonder. I should like very much to hunt him out and sit
at his feet. But tomorrow—no, the day after—we
become water gypsies again. We must play and dance.
Coins must jingle, for we must live.

“And you—” He turned eagerly to Jeanne. “You will go

with us, round the island?”

“Yes! Yes! She will go, Jeanne will go!” The gypsy band, [105]
all old friends, swarmed about her. What more could she
say but “Yes, I will go.”

“And you,” she cried, gathering Greta and Florence in

her arms, “you will go also?”

“It would be a grand adventure,” Florence replied, “but

Greta is here, in part to rest and grow strong. I think we
must stay and keep the ship until your return.”

So in the end this was agreed upon. “And we,” Greta

whispered to Florence, “we shall go over to Duncan’s
Bay. We shall dig for a barrel of gold and hunt down the
home of that phantom who plays so divinely.”

“Yes,” Florence agreed. “We will do just that.” But in her

own mind’s eye was the face of a very ugly man. And
that man was trying to cut off her head with an ashen
oar.

Next day was Sunday. There was no wild and hilarious

music on this day, for Bihari and his band were deeply
religious. All day they sat about the ship, some in
groups talking quietly, and some alone meditating on
the ways of a great Creator who rules the waves and
watches over His children in all their wanderings.

As darkness fell a bright fire was lighted. Bihari took [106]

down his violin and all joined in those sacred melodies
that belong to all time, all lands and all people.

Next day, with many a shout of farewell, the gypsy bark

sailed away. And in the prow, standing beside Bihari,
was the little French girl.

“I’ll be back in ten days,” she shouted back as the wreck

began to grow small in the distance.

“Will she?” Florence whispered. “I wonder.”

[107]
 CHAPTER XII
GOLD

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 the north.

“Boo! How cold!” Greta wrapped her sweater tight about

her.

With the gay flags down, the hilarious music stilled, the
wreck seemed a cold, dull and lifeless place. “Something
sinister and threatening about it,” Florence thought.

To Greta she said, “Pack up the things you’ll need for

ten days, plenty of warm stockings and the like. We’re
going camping on the island. We’ll tramp all over
Greenstone Ridge and sleep where night overtakes us.”

“That,” Greta cried, “will be grand! Shall I take my

violin?”

“Surely. You might be able to take a few lessons from [108]

your mysterious phantom,” Florence laughed as she
began packing away eatables that were both light and
nourishing.
“There are streams and small lakes,” she murmured half
to herself. “We shall have fish to fry, and some berries
are ripe, blueberries, raspberries and a sort I have never
seen before.

“Here,” she said to Greta as her feet touched the shores

of the camping ground on Duncan’s Bay, “here we shall
camp for the night. Tomorrow we will go on. I mean to
do a little digging.”

“For gold?” Greta stared.

“For a barrel of gold.” Florence smiled. “Well, anyway,

for something.”

Dragging a small trench spade from her pack, she

studied the lay of the land.

“Now where would one make camp?” she said

thoughtfully as her keen eyes surveyed the narrow
patch of ground. “Not too far back. Campfire might be
blown into the forest and set the hillside blazing. Not
too close to the shore either. Wind might come up and
drive the waves over you while you slept.

“About here.” She set her spade at the very center of [109]
the level stretch of ground that in all is not larger than
one city lot.

“You know, Greta,” she said thoughtfully as she began

to dig, “it really doesn’t matter whether we find a barrel
of gold. Very often people are harmed by having too
much money. It’s good for us to work. There are ways
of getting things we need—good stout clothes, plain
food, and all the education that’s good for us, if we are
wise and really work hard.
“We may find gold. No one could be sure we will not.
We may find charcoal and scorched bones. If we study
these carefully we can say, ‘This fire was kindled two
hundred years ago, before ever white men set foot on
these shores.’ We will be adding a sentence or two to
Isle Royale’s strange history. That’s something.

“And we might—” she was digging now, cutting away [110]

the thin sod, then tossing out shovelfuls of sandy soil.
“We might possibly find some copper instruments
crudely made by the Indians.

“That—” she stood erect for a moment. “That would be

a great deal. Any museum would pay well for those.
Some may have been found on the island, but I doubt
it. But it is known that the Indians came here from the
mainland to take chunks of solid copper from the rocks.

“They had to heat the rock, build great fires upon it,
then drag the fire away and crack the brittle hot rock.

“Copper!” She breathed a deep breath. “That’s why we

have the island instead of Canada. History, Greta, is
truly fascinating if you study it as we are doing now,
right on the ground. We—what’s that!” she broke short
off. Some metal object had clinked on her spade.

“Its a coin!” she exclaimed a moment later. “A very old

coin, I am sure!” She was all excitement. “Money! I told
you, Greta! Gold!”

It was indeed a golden coin, very thin and quite small [111]
for all that. By careful scouring they managed to make
out that the words stamped on its face were French.
They could not read the date.
“Gold!” Greta seized the spade to begin digging
vigorously. “Gold! There was a barrel of gold! The barrel
rotted long ago. But the gold, it is still there. We will
find it!”

In a very short time the slender girl found her breath

coming in deep pants. Blisters were rising on her hands.
She might soon have exhausted herself had not
Florence shoved her gently to one side and taken the
spade from her.

Strangely enough, the big girl had thrown out but three
shovelfuls of sand when again her blade rang.

This time the earth yielded a greater treasure—not gold,

but copper. A small knife with a thin blade and round
handle of copper, it showed the marks of the crude
native smithy who fashioned it.

“From the past!” Florence’s eyes gleamed. “The very

distant past! How Doctor Cole of the museum will
exclaim over that!”

So engrossed were the two girls in their study of this [112]

new treasure, they failed to note three facts. Darkness
was falling. A stealthy figure was creeping upon them in
the shadows of the forest. A short, powerful motor boat
had entered the Narrows and was headed for the
camping grounds.

In the meantime Jeanne had made an important

discovery. The Ship of Joy had gone cruising round
Blake’s Point to turn in at a narrow circular bay known
as Snug Harbor.

Jeanne thought this one of the most beautiful spots she

had ever known. White lodge building, more than half
hidden by fir and balsam, little cottages tucked away at
the edge of the forest, and about it all an air of quiet
and peace. They were at the door of Rock Harbor
Lodge.

“We will disturb their quiet,” Jeanne thought to herself,

“but not their peace, I am sure.”

While Bihari was talking with the owner of the lodge [113]
regarding a night of music and dancing, she stole away
over a path shadowed by mountain ash and fir. At the
end of the path she came to a long, low, private
cottage, boarded up and closed. Before this house a
long narrow dock ran out into the bay. Tied to this dock
was a schooner.

“The black schooner!” Jeanne shuddered.

Yet drawn toward it as a bird is drawn to a snake, she

walked slowly down the dock to find herself at last
peering inside the long, low cabin.

At once she sprang back as if she had seen someone.

She had seen no one. The schooner was for the
moment deserted. What she had seen, hanging against
the wall, was a diver’s helmet.

“The black schooner!” she murmured once more as she [114]

hurried away, losing herself from sight in the shadow of
the forest.

* * * * * * * *

Back on the camping ground, the first intimation

Florence and Greta had that there was anyone about
was when, with a startling suddenness, a bright
searchlight flashed into their eyes. The light came from
the water. At the same time there came the sound of
movement in the dry leaves of the forest at their backs.
Instinctively Florence whirled about. Her bright eyes
searched the forest. No one was there.

* * * * * * * *

When Jeanne once more reached the lodge dock where

the Ship of Joy was tied, a crowd of people from the
cottages had gathered about Bihari and his band. She
grasped the sleeve of a tall young man to say in a low,
agitated tone, “Do you know what schooner that is?”

“Schooner?” He smiled down at her.

“Yes, the one by that other dock. Over—why!” she

exclaimed, “it is gone! It was a black schooner. But now
it is not there.”

The tall young man looked at her in a manner that

seemed to say, “You’ve been seeing things.” This
embarrassed her, so she lost herself in the crowd.

But not for long. One moment, and a pleasing voice was [115]
saying in her ear, “And are you the golden-haired gypsy
who will dance with the bear tonight?”

[116]
 CHAPTER XIII
THE HEAD HUNTER

When the searchlight from the water had been switched

off, Florence saw the dark gray power boat approaching
the camping ground.

“Greta,” she groaned, “we should have gone up the

ridge at once! There’s no peace or privacy anywhere!”

As the boat came nearer they read in large letters

across the prow one word, “CONSERVATION.”

This brought momentary relief to the startled girls.

Conservation men are government men and these,
Florence believed, could be trusted.

Pulling in close to shore, the boat dropped anchor. A

sturdy, sun-tanned man leaped into the small boat they
had in tow, and rowed rapidly toward land.

“Who’s the man who went into the bush just now?” he [117]
demanded the instant his feet touched land.

“M—man?” Florence stammered. “There is no man.”

“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 convince you?”

“Yes.” Florence found her knees trembling. “Perhaps,”

she thought, “these Conservation men have saved us
from trouble without knowing it.”

“Yes,” she repeated, “I believe you are telling the truth.

You did see a man. But—but he doesn’t belong to us.
Truly he does not! Wait! I’ll tell you about him.”

“Tell me about yourself first. What are you doing here?”

The man did not smile.

“Why—we—we—we—” Florence was greatly disturbed.

“We came over here from the wreck. We—”

“Oh!” her inquisitor broke in as a smile overspread his [118]

face. “You’re the girls living out there on the wreck.
That—er—I owe you an apology. We’ve heard of you.
You’re O. K. You see, we’re the Conservation men on
the island, Dick and I. Got to see that no game is killed,
no trees cut, no fires started, all that.

“But tell me now—” His voice took on an eager note.

“Tell me about that man.”

Florence told him all she knew. He was, she felt quite
certain, the man who had intended murdering Old Uncle
Ned, the veteran moose, and the man who had fought
with her that battle of oars. She trembled now as she
thought what might have happened had not these
Conservation men happened along.

“God seems to be keeping an eye on us,” she was to say

to Jeanne some time later. And Jeanne was to reply
reverently, “He notes the sparrow’s fall.”
“Excuse me,” the Conservation man said when the story
was done. “My name is Mell. As man to man, I’d like to
shake your hand. The way you saved the old moose
was keen. You’re the right sort. I—I’ll get you a job on
our force.” He shook her hand warmly.

“But this fellow—” his brow wrinkled. “We’ll have to look [119]
after him. He’s a head hunter, beyond a doubt. Fellow
can get good money for a fine pair of moose antlers.
These rascals come over here and kill our best friends of
the wildwood, just for a few sordid dollars. Watch us go
after him!”

Leaping into his boat, he was away.

“He’s—he’s all right.” Florence was enthusiastic.

“Question is, shall we camp here or try a return trip to
the ship?” For a moment all thoughts of the treasure
hunt were forgotten.

“Moon will be out by ten o’clock,” she said after a

moment’s thought. “Be safer on the water then. We’ll
make a fire and have something to eat.”

Their evening lunch over, the girls curled up side by side [120]
with the wall of their small tent at their back and the
glowing fire before them. All about them was blackness.
Not a gleam came from the surface of dark waters. Not
a break appeared in the wall of bottle-green that was
the forest at their back. For all this, they were not
afraid. Swen’s rifle lay across Florence’s knees. Their
ears were keen. No intruder could slip upon them
unannounced.

“Gold!” Greta whispered. “We found a tiny bit. I wonder

if there can be much more.”
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