CHAPTER IX
THE BEACON LIGHT
The lighthouse was a massive structure, over a hundred feet in height.It had been built in obedience to a general demand, owing to the numberof vessels that had been wrecked in the vicinity. There were treacherouscurrents and swiftly running tides due to the peculiar conformation ofthe Maine coast at that point, and if a ship once grounded on the shoalswhile a storm was raging its hours were numbered.
In the distance, with the sun playing on it and the sea gulls swoopingabout its top, it seemed something slender and ethereal. It was onlywhen one was close at hand that its real strength and solidity could beappreciated.
It was built on a solid rock foundation that sloped down into the seamany feet distant from its base. The tower was circular in form so as tooffer as little surface as possible to the wind from whatever quarter itmight blow. The walls at the bottom, where the force of the waves spentitself, were many feet thick, but they grew thinner as the tower rose inthe air. At the top was the enormous light of many thousand candlepower. It was the alternating kind, and every fifteen seconds it threwout a ray that could be seen by mariners for many miles.
The lighthouse stood about a mile from the mainland, and all thehousehold supplies had to be brought over by Lester or his father fromthe little village of Bartanet. Whatever was needed for the light itselfcame at stated intervals on the government cutters that cruised alongthat section of the coast.
The boys, under Lester's guidance, had long before this explored everyportion of the lighthouse and wondered at the marvels of the machinerythat set the light in motion and kept it going automatically through thenight. Brought up in inland towns, all this was new to them, and theircuriosity and interest were insatiable.
Now as they watched it growing larger as they drew nearer, they sharedthe delight and pride of Lester in the noble structure of which hisfather was the guardian.
"Isn't it glorious?" demanded Fred.
"Think of the lives that have been saved by it," said Teddy.
"And will be saved by it during the next hundred years," added Bill.
"I wonder if poor Mr. Montgomery saw it on that last cruise of his,"pondered Fred.
"He must have, if the smugglers really came this way," answered Lester."That was only about nine years ago, you remember Ross said, and thelighthouse has stood for twenty years."
"Has your father had charge of it all that time?" asked Bill.
"No, he was appointed about twelve years ago."
"Then he must have been here at the time the gold was stolen," saidTeddy eagerly. "I wonder if he heard anything about the matter."
"I never heard him speak about it, but I shouldn't be a bit surprised ifhe had. There are so many old salts that run over to spin yarns withhim, that there's very little sea gossip going around that he doesn'thear at one time or another."
"Let's ask him," suggested Bill.
"Surely we will. He may be able to tell us something that Ross himselfdoesn't know."
"In that case, the next time we meet Ross it will be our turn to lookwise and mysterious," laughed Fred.
"Or we can bargain with him. We'll tell him what we know in return forwhat he was going to tell us but didn't," added his brother.
"We'll have to come to something like that sooner or later," said Lesterdecidedly. "It's all nonsense our going round blindly, when each mightbe able to help the other. A sick man ought to tell everything to hisdoctor, and a prisoner oughtn't to keep anything back from his lawyer.When he does, he has no one to blame but himself if things don't goright. I'm going to put it up to Ross, full and plain, the next time Isee him."
"I wonder when that will be," murmured Teddy.
"Before long I hope. If he doesn't come over to see us, we'll go up toOakland to see him."
"How far is Oakland from here?" asked Bill.
"Not more than thirty miles. With a good wind we can make it in a fewhours. But I think I see father standing on the platform of the tower.Take a look, Bill, and tell me if it is. My eyes are pretty good, butyours are better."
"That's who it is," pronounced Bill, after a minute's scrutiny. "He hasa pair of glasses in his hands. There, he's waving to us."
"Dear old dad!" exclaimed Lester. "I suppose he's worried himself halfsick, wondering what had become of us. But he knows now that we aresafe, and with this wind we'll not be more than twenty minutes or halfan hour in getting in."
They flew along over the waves, cunningly coaxing every inch of speedout of the _Ariel_, and in less time than Lester had predicted theyrounded to at the little dock on the leeward side of the lighthouserock. A bronzed, elderly man, of medium height, came hurriedly down tomeet them.
"Thank God, you are safe!" he exclaimed, as he grasped Lester's hand,then that of each of the boys in turn. "I haven't been able to think ofanything but you all night long. What happened to you?"
"It's a long story, Dad," said Lester, beaming affectionately on hisfather, as, after fastening the _Ariel_, they all walked up to thelighthouse. "We picked up a fellow that had been carried overboard fromhis motor boat, and by that time the storm had grown so bad that we hadto run for it to the nearest place that offered us shelter."
"And where was that?"
"Up in Sentinel Cove. You know, where those two big rocks stand at theentrance."
"Do you mean to say that you took the boat through that entrance whilethat storm was raging?" asked his father, in a tone in which surpriseand pride were equally blended.
"There wasn't anything else to do," answered Lester.
"You ought to have seen the way he shot through there, Mr. Lee," put inFred. "It was a fine bit of seamanship. He's your own son when it comesto sailing."
"I'm glad I didn't see him," was the answer. "It would have made my hairgrayer than it is, and that's gray enough. But all's well that endswell, and I needn't tell you how thankful I am to have you turn up safeand sound. It wasn't only my own boy, but I feel that I'm responsiblefor you young chaps, too, while you're visiting here."
The boys had grown very fond of this kindly, hearty man who was theirfriend's father. He had made them instantly welcome and given them therun of the place. His means were limited but his heart was big, and fromthe outset he had spared no pains to make them feel at home and to givethem a good time.
There were no women on the little island, as Lester's mother had diedten years before. Because of this, the father and son, having no one buteach other, were bound together by the strongest affection.
Their housekeeping was of the simplest kind, but both of them were primecooks and they set such an abundant table that even the boys with theirravenous appetites were completely satisfied. They even found a certainpleasure in the lack of some of the "trimmings," as Teddy called them,that had surrounded them in their more elaborate homes. It gave them asense of freedom, and the whole adventure became a sort of exaltedcamping out.
Bill's life and Fred's and Teddy's recent experiences in the West hadhardened and toughened them and also made them more self-reliant. Thebreezy outdoor life had become almost a necessity to them. So theyentered heartily into the domestic arrangements at Bartanet Shoals,making their own beds and helping to prepare the meals. It is probablethat some of their women relatives would have sniffed contemptuously atsome of the results they reached, but this bothered them not at all.They ate like wolves, slept like logs and were content.
Mr. Lee had followed the sea for many years. When scarcely out of histeens, he had entered the navy. Later, he had shipped as a whaler, andthe boys listened breathlessly to the thrilling stories he had to tellof his adventures in that perilous calling. After his wife's death, hefelt that the interests of his son required that he should stay at home;so he had applied for the position of lighthouse keeper at BartanetShoals, and had received it.
"You boys must be half starved," he said, as they entered the livingroom of the lighthouse. "As I remember, you didn't have anything whenyou started out except a few slices of bacon,
and those wouldn't go farwith such a hungry crew as you are."
"Guess again, Dad," laughed Lester. "We didn't exactly starve last nightand this morning, did we, boys?"
"Um-yum," assented Fred, "I should say not! Clam soup and fried baconand broiled bluefish and hot coffee! Nothing more than that. And wedidn't do a thing to them, eh, fellows?"
"Not a thing!" chorused Bill and Teddy fervently.
Mr. Lee's eyes twinkled.
"I'm afraid I've made an awful mistake then," he said soberly. "Ithought you'd be nearly famished, and so I spread myself in getting upan extra good dinner. But of course, if you've had so many good things,you won't want anything more and I'll have to eat all alone."
He threw open the dining-room door and savory odors issued forth.
"Lead me to it!" shouted Bill. The next moment there was a regularfootball rush, as the four laughing boys tried to beat each other to thetable.
The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove; Or, The Missing Chest of Gold Page 9