CHAPTER XIV
THE LIGHT ON LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND
Laura looked faintly excited for a minute, then she leaned back wearilyin her seat again.
"I'm just as sure as you are, Billie, that there's something funny aboutit," she said. "But if we really had wanted to solve the mystery, weshould have stayed at Three Towers. The first thing they do in detectivestories is to shadow the people they suspect. And how can we do that, I'dlike to know, when we're running straight away from them?"
This was very good reasoning. Even Billie and Connie had to admit that,and they began to look worried.
"Perhaps I shouldn't have asked you girls to visit me. Then you mighthave stayed at Three Towers for the summer and solved the mystery. NowI've spoiled all the fun----"
"Connie! don't be such an absolute goose," cried Billie, putting a handover Connie's mouth. "Do you suppose we'd have missed this for anything?"
"Anyway," added Vi hopefully, "we may find some more mysteries onLighthouse Island."
"Humph," grumbled Laura, who was feeling tired and cross, "you talk as ifmysteries were just hanging around loose begging to be found."
"Well, I think maybe we'll manage to enjoy ourselves, even withoutmysteries," said Billie gayly. Nevertheless, she could not help thinkingto herself: "Oh, dear, I do wish there was some way I could find outabout Miss Arbuckle and those lovely children and poor lonely, sad HugoBillings. I should like to help if I only knew how!"
"Billie, wake up! Wake up--it's time to get off!"
She must have been very sound asleep because it was several secondsbefore she fought her way through a sea of unconsciousness and openedheavy eyes upon a scene of confusion.
"What's the matter?" she asked sleepily, but some one, she thought it wasLaura, shook her impatiently, and some one else--she was wide awakeenough now to be sure this was Vi--put a hat on her head and pushed it sofar over her eyes that she temporarily went blind again.
"For goodness sake, can't you put it on straight?" she demandedindignantly, pushing the hat back where it belonged. "What do you thinkyou're doing anyway?"
A little anger was the best thing that could have come to Billie. It wasabout the only thing in the world that would have gotten her wide awakejust then. And it was very necessary that she should be wide awake, forthe train was just drawing into the station where they were to get off totake the boat to Lighthouse Island.
She took the bag thrust into her hands by Laura, and the girls hurriedout into the aisle that was crowded with people. A minute more, and theyfound themselves on a platform down which people hurried and portersrolled their baggage trucks and where every one seemed intent upon makingas much noise as possible.
Billie and Laura and Vi felt very much bewildered, for they had neverdone any traveling except in the company of some older person; but with aconfidence that surprised them, Connie took command of the situation. ForConnie had traveled this route several times, and everything about it wasfamiliar to her.
"Give me your trunk checks," she ordered, adding, as the girls obedientlyfumbled in their pocketbooks: "We'll have to hustle if we want to get ourtrunks straightened out and get on board ourselves before the boatstarts. What's the matter, Vi, you haven't lost your check, have you?"
For one terrible minute Vi had been afraid she had done just this, butnow, with a sigh of relief, she produced the check and handed it over toConnie.
"My, but that was a narrow escape," she murmured, as they hurried downthe crowded platform.
The boat that plied from the mainland to Lighthouse Island and one or twomore small islands scattered about near the coast was a small but tidylittle vessel that was really capable of better speed than most peoplegave her credit for. She was painted a sort of dingy white, and largeblack letters along her bow proclaimed her to be none other than the_Mary Ann_.
And now as the girls, with several other passengers, stepped on board andfelt the cool breeze upon their faces they breathed deep of the salty airand gazed wonderingly out over the majestic ocean rolling on and on inunbroken swells toward the distant horizon.
Gone was all the fatigue of the long train ride. They forgot that theirlungs were full of soft coal dirt, that their hands were grimy, and theirfaces, too. They were completely under the spell of that great,mysterious tyrant--the ocean.
"Isn't this grand!"
"Just smell the salt air!"
"Makes you feel braced up already," came from Billie, who had beenfilling her lungs to the utmost. "Oh, girls! I'm just crazy to jump inand have a swim."
"I'm with you on that," broke out Vi. "Oh, I'm sure we're going to havejust the best times ever!"
There was a fair-sized crowd to get aboard, made up partly of natives andpartly of city folks. The passengers were followed by a number of trunksand a small amount of freight.
"Evidently we're not the only ones to take this trip," remarked Billie,as she noted the people coming on board the _Mary Ann_.
"A number of these people must live on the islands the year around," saidLaura.
"My, how lonely it must be on this coast during the winter months," saidBillie. "Think of being out on one of those islands in a howlingsnowstorm!"
"I wonder how they get anything to eat during those times?" questionedVi.
"I presume they keep stuff on hand," answered Billie.
With a sharp toot of her whistle the boat moved out from the dock, madeher way carefully among the numerous other craft in the harbor, andfinally nosed her way out into the water of the channel.
"O--oh," breathed Vi, softly. "It's even more wonderful than I thought itwould be. I'd like to go sailing on and on like this forever."
"Well, I wouldn't," said Laura practically. "Not without any supper. I'mgetting a perfectly awful appetite."
"It will be worse than that after you've been here a little while,"laughed Connie. "Mother says that it seems as if she never can give meenough to eat when we come out to the seashore, so she has given uptrying."
"Your poor mother!" said Billie dolefully. "And now she has four of us!"
"I know," chuckled Connie. "Mother was worrying a little about that--asto how she could keep four famished wolves fed at one time. But Uncle Tomsaid he'd help her out."
"Your Uncle Tom," Vi repeated wonderingly. "Can he cook?"
"Of course," said Connie, looking at her as if she had asked if the worldwas square. "Didn't I tell you about his clam chowder?"
"Oh," said Vi thoughtfully, while something within her began to cry outfor a sample of that clam chowder. "Oh yes, I remember."
"Connie, you're cruel," moaned Laura. "Can't you talk of somethingbesides clam chowder when you know I'm starving to death? Goodness, I canalmost smell it."
"That's the clams you smell," chuckled Connie. "They always have some onboard the _Mary Ann_ to sell to the islanders--if they haven't the senseto catch them themselves. We never need to buy any," she added, proudly."Uncle Tom keeps us supplied with all we want. Look!" she cried suddenly,pointing to a small island which loomed directly ahead of them, lookingin the grey mist of evening like only a darker shadow against theshifting background. "That's our island--see? And there's the light," sheadded, as a sudden beacon flashed out at them, sending a ruddy light outover the dark water.
"Oh, isn't it beautiful!" cried Billie rapturously. "Just think what itmust mean to the ships out at sea--that friendly light, beckoning tothem----"
"No, it doesn't--beckon, I mean," said Connie decidedly. "That's justwhat it isn't for. It's to warn them to keep away or they'll be sorry."
"Is there so much danger?" asked Laura eagerly.
"I should say there is," Connie answered gravely. "In a storm especially.You see, the water is very shallow around here and if a big ship runs intoo close to shore she's apt to get on a shoal. That isn't so bad inclear weather--although a ship did get stuck on the shoal here not sovery long ago and she was pretty much damaged when they got her off. Butin a storm
----"
"Yes," cried Billie impatiently.
"Why, Uncle Tom says," Connie was very serious, "that if a ship weredriven upon the shoal in a gale--and we have terrible storms aroundhere--it would probably come with such force that its bottom would bepretty nearly crushed in and the people on board might die before any onecould get out there to rescue them."
"Oh, Connie, how dreadful!" cried Vi. Laura and Billie only stared at thelighthouse tower as though fascinated, while the little boat camesteadily nearer to it.
"Has anything like that ever happened here, Connie?" asked Laura in anawed voice.
"No," said Connie. "There was a terrible wreck here a long timeago--before they built the lighthouse. But Uncle Tom says no one willever know just how many lives have been saved because of the good oldlight. To hear him talk to it you would think it was alive."
"It is!" cried Billie, pointing excitedly as the great white globe thatheld the light swung slowly around toward them. "Didn't you see that? Itwinked at us!"
Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island; Or, The Mystery of the Wreck Page 14