.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 40104
   :PG.Title: Tobias o' the Light
   :PG.Released: 2012-06-28
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: James \A. Cooper
   :MARCREL.ill: Joseph Wykoff
   :DC.Title: Tobias o' the Light
              A Story of Cape Cod
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1920
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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TOBIAS O' THE LIGHT
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   .. _`Cover`:

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      Cover

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   .. _`The wallowing motor-boat was still right side up.  There seemed to be but one person in it.`:

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      :alt: The wallowing motor-boat was still right side up.  There seemed to be but one person in it.

      The wallowing motor-boat was still right side up.  There seemed to be but one person in it.  (*See Page 67*)

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   TOBIAS O' THE LIGHT

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   *A STORY OF CAPE COD*

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      BY

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      JAMES \A. COOPER

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      AUTHOR OF "CAP'N ABE, STOREKEEPER" AND
      "CAP'N JONAH'S FORTUNE"

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      ILLUSTRATED BY
      JOSEPH WYKOFF

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      NEW YORK
      GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY

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      COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
      GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY

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      *All rights reserved*

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      PRINTED IN U. S. A.

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      BOOKS BY
      JAMES A. COOPER

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      CAP'N ABE, STOREKEEPER
      CAP'N JONAH'S FORTUNE
      TOBIAS O' THE LIGHT

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      CONTENTS

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      CHAPTER

      I.  `A Cry in the Night`_
      II.  `Confidences`_
      III.  `The Apex of the Storm`_
      IV.  `Prophecies`_
      V.  `The Unexpected`_
      VI.  `Dead Men's Shoes`_
      VII.  `A Newcomer`_
      VIII.  `Philosophy and Other Things`_
      IX.  `The Drop of Wormwood`_
      X.  `Starting Something`_
      XI.  `The Black Squall`_
      XII.  `Troubled Waters`_
      XIII.  `Cross Purposes`_
      XIV.  `A Variety of Happenings`_
      XV.  `Decisive Action`_
      XVI.  `Poison`_
      XVII.  `Real Trouble`_
      XVIII.  `A Clue`_
      XIX.  `Suspicions`_
      XX.  `Put to the Question`_
      XXI.  `The Rising Tide of Doubt`_
      XXII.  `What Frets Lorna`_
      XXIII.  `More than Weather Indications`_
      XXIV.  `Understanding`_
      XXV.  `Across the Years`_
      XXVI.  `High Tide`_
      XXVII.  `What the Night Brought`_
      XXVIII.  `Desperation`_
      XXIX.  `Daybreak`_
      XXX.  `A Silver-Banded Pipe`_

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      ILLUSTRATIONS

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      `The wallowing motor-boat was still right side up.  There seemed to be but one person in it.`_  (See Page `67`_) . . . . . . *Frontispiece*

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      `"I'll run up to the light to dress," she said`_

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      `"Oh, sugar, Heppy! What's the matter o' ye?"`_

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      `"We must do something!" she cried. "Tobias!  We *must*!"`_

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.. _`A CRY IN THE NIGHT`:

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   TOBIAS O' THE LIGHT

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   CHAPTER I

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   A CRY IN THE NIGHT

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Old Winter wrapped in his grave clothes stalked
the flats and sand dunes about the Twin Rocks Light.
Spring had smiled at the grim old fellow only the
day before.  She would flutter back again anon to
dry the longshore wastes and warm to life the scant
herbage that tries its best to clothe the Cape Cod
barrens.

But now the wind blew and the sleet charged
against the staff of the lighthouse, masking thickly
the glass that defended the huge Argand lamp.  Its
steady ray filtered through this curtain with difficulty.

Tobias Bassett pulled on his oilskins and
buckled down the sou'wester over his ears preparatory
to venturing upon the high gallery to scrape
the clinging snow from the glass.

"You have a care what you're doing up there,
slipping around outside the light," advised his
sister Hephzibah, who should have been named
"Martha," being cumbered by so many cares.  "You
ain't so young as you used to be, Tobias."

"And you don't have to throw it up to me.  I
know my age well enough without looking into the
family Bible, Heppy," chuckled the lightkeeper.
"I'm sure you ain't changed *it*.  I ain't cal'latin'
to be like old Miz' Toomey that when she went to
vote for the first time told the poll clerk she was
thirty-six years old but had lived in this district
fifty-four years.  I ain't goin' to let go all holts yet.
Leastways, not while I'm climbing about that gallery!"

"You'd ought to have an assistant, Tobias,"
sighed his sister, who was preparing supper,
always served at an early hour in winter on the Cape.
"A young fellow to do the hard work.  The
Government ought to give you one."

"They think one man to a stationary lamp like this
is enough.  But I can have a helper if I want one,"
her brother announced.

"Then, why don't ye?"

"'Cause I'd have to pay his wages out o' my own
pay check, and feed him in the bargain," chuckled
the lightkeeper.  "I figger we can't afford that."

"Oh, dear!" croaked the lachrymose Heppy, "if
Uncle Jethro Potts would only leave us some of his
money when he dies.  The good Lord knows we
need it as much as ary rel'tive he's got."

"Wal," commented Tobias, picking up his lighted
lantern, "Jethro Potts has got to slip his cable pretty
soon to do us much good, Heppy.  We're getting
kind o' along in years to enjoy wealth."

"Speak for yourself, Tobias Bassett!" said his
sister, more energetically.  "I ain't too old to know
what to do with money—if I had it."

"Ho, ho!" ejaculated her brother.  "Slipper's on
t'other foot, ain't it?  I wonder what age you give
the poll clerk?" and he went out of the kitchen
chuckling.

He mounted the spiral stairway leading up
through the lighthouse.  After passing the level of
the second story, where were the family bedrooms,
at intervals there were narrow windows—mere slits
in the masonry.  These were blocked with glass and
only on the leeward side could Tobias see through them.

"Winter's dying hard," was his comment, climbing
steadily to the lamp room.  "This squall come
as sudden and as savage as ary storm we've had this
winter.  And the sleet sticks to the glass like all kildee!"

He stepped into the lamp room, closing the door
at the top of the stairway.  It was warm in here,
with a strong and sickish smell of burning oil.  He
shaded his eyes with the sharp of his hand to look
into the lamp, the wick of which he had ignited
half an hour before.

It was burning evenly and with a white clear
light.  But warm as the lamp room was and strong
as was the reflection of the light upon the outer
panes, the sleet had frozen to the glass, making a
lacework curtain which the warning ray of the
lamp could pierce only with difficulty.

Tobias took a steel scraper and an old broom,
opened a door at the back, and went out upon the
leeward gallery of the light.  The snow wraiths
swept past the staff on either hand, whipping away
over the sand dunes and disappearing in the pall of
darkness that hovered over the land.

When he ventured around to the front gallery he
found a pallid radiance on the sea superinduced by
the muffled ray of the lamp.  The snow, driven by
the gale, plastered the light tower on this side from
its cap ten feet above the lamp to that point twenty
feet above its base to which the spray from the
wavecaps was thrown.  There was a drift of snow,
too, on the railed balcony, through which the
lightkeeper waded.

"Whew!" he gasped, turned his back to the blast,
and began using the scraper vigorously.  "I can see
I've got an all night's job at this off an' on if this
sleet holds to it.  Ain't going to be heat enough
from that old lamp to melt the ice as fast as it makes."

He muttered this into the throat-latch of his storm
coat while using the scraper.  The frozen sleet
rattled down in long ribbons.  He dropped the scraper
finally and seized his broom.  It was then that he
first heard that cry which was the tocsin of the
unexpected series of events which marched into Tobias
Bassett's life out of this late winter storm.

He dropped the broom and strained his ears for
a repetition of the cry.  Was it the voice of some
lost seafowl swept landward on the breast of the
storm?  A gale out of the northeast brought many
such to be dashed lifeless at the foot of the lamp
tower.

There was a human quality to this sound he had
heard that startled Tobias.  If from the sea, then
the craft on which the owner of the voice was borne,
was doomed.

There had not been a wreck on the Twin Rocks
within the present lightkeeper's experience.  He
shuddered to think of the horror of such a catastrophe.

A vessel driven upon the grim jaws of the reef
that here were out-thrust from the sands, would be
wracked to mere culch within the hour.  The life
savers from Lower Trillion could never put off a
boat or shoot a line into the teeth of such a gale
as this.

Tobias stooped for the broom again.  Then he
heard the cry repeated.  If it came on the wings of
the wind——

He scrambled around to the leeward side of the
tower.  Here the savage pæan of the storm was
muffled.  The drumming of the waves on the rocks,
the eerie shriek of the wind, the clash of the snow
and sleet as they swept by, left the lightkeeper in a
sort of unquiet eddy.

Against the gale came a repetition of the cry—a
faint "Ahoy!"

Tobias struggled with the latch of the lamp room
door, and finally got inside the tower.  He hurried
to the stairway and descended to the warm and
odorous kitchen where Heppy was heaping the
brown and flaky fishcakes upon the platter on the
stove-shelf.

"What is the matter with you to-night, Tobias
Bassett?" she demanded.  "You're as uneasy as a
hen on a hot brick.  Where are you going now?" as
he started for the outer door.

"There's somebody out in this storm," he told her.
"I heard 'em shouting."

"For love's sake!  In a boat?"

"No.  From the land side.  Somebody on the road."

Tobias banged the door behind him.  In clear
weather there was not much to be seen from the
entrance of the lighthouse in this landward
direction, save sand.  Now about all Tobias could see
was snow.

"Ahoy!  Aho-o-oy the light!"

The cry was shattered against the singing gale.
But the lightkeeper made out the direction from
which it came and started down the road toward
Lower Trillion.  In the other direction were the
summer residences of certain wealthy citizens on the
Clay Head.  While beyond lay Clinkerport at the
head of the bay, the entrance to which the
lighthouse guarded.

Tobias announced his coming by a hearty hail.
He saw a muffled glow in the snow pall ahead.  Then
the outlines of a low-hung motor car that was quite
evidently stalled in a drift.

"Hey!" he demanded.  "What you doing in that
contraption out in this storm?  Ain't you got no
sense?"

"Now don't *you* begin!" rejoined a complaining
voice, and a rather stalky figure appeared in the
half-shrouded radiance of the headlights.  "I've
been told already what I am and where I get off.  It
isn't my fault that blame thing got stalled."

"It is your fault that we came this way from
Harbor Bar," interposed a very sweet but at present
very sharp voice.  ("Jest like cranberry sarse,"
Tobias secretly commented.)  "We should not have
taken the shore road."

"You didn't say so when we started," declared
the tall young man, indignantly.

"I was not driving the car.  You insisted on
doing that," chimed the tart voice instantly.

"One would think you expected me to be omniscient."

"Well, you appear to be omnipresent—you are
always in the way," and a much shorter figure,
muffled in furs, and quite evidently that of a young
woman, appeared beside the taller individual from
the stalled car.

"And I cal'late, Heppy," Tobias explained,
relating the event later to his sister, "that them two
socdologers of words would have brought on a fist
fight if I hadn't stepped into the breach, so to say,
*and* the smaller of them castaways hadn't been a
gal!  Some day when I get time I'm going to look up
'omniscient' and 'omnipresent' in the dictionary.
They sound like mighty mean words."

It was the lightkeeper's interference that saved
further and more bitter words between the two
stranded voyagers.  Tobias got another look at the
taller figure's face, and in spite of the pulled-down
peak of his cap and the goggles he wore, recognized it.

"If 'tain't Ralph Endicott!" exclaimed the
lightkeeper.  "And who is that with you?  *Not* Miss
Lorna?"

"Oh, Mr. Bassett!" cried the young woman,
stumbling toward him.  "Take me to the light.  I
shall be *so* glad of its shelter.  Is Miss Hephzibah
at home?"

"She was when I left," said Tobias.  "An' I
cal'late she won't go gaddin' endurin' this gale.  It
don't show right good sense for anybody to be out
such a night."

"That's what I tell him," the girl cried.  "Anybody
with sense——"

"You wanted to come over here and see what
shape the house was in, Lorna Nicholet!" stormed
Ralph Endicott.  "I was only doing you a favor."

"Do you call this a favor?" demanded the girl.

"Anybody would think I brought this storm on
purposely."

"You certainly tried to get through a road that
you should have known would be drifted when it
*did* begin to snow.  Bah!  Give me your arm,
Mr. Bassett.  He's the most useless——"

"Ain't no good *you* staying out here, Ralphie,"
advised the old lightkeeper.  "Nobody will run off
with that little buzz-cart of yourn.  Heppy's got
fish balls for supper—a whole raft of 'em."

The young man followed through the snow,
grumbling.  The prospect of a good meal, as Tobias
later acknowledged, did not seem to influence a
college man as it once might the long-legged
harum-scarum boy who had raced these beaches for so
many summers.

Endicott and Lorna Nicholet were of the sandpiper
class.  So Tobias usually referred to the
summer visitors who fluttered about the sands for
several months of each year.  These young folks
had been coming to Clay Head each season since
they were in rompers.  Lorna's aunt, Miss Ida
Nicholet of Harbor Bar, and head of the family,
owned the rambling old house overlooking the
mouth of the bay.  The Endicotts—"the Endicotts
of Amperly," to distinguish them from numerous
other groups of the same name whose habitat dot
the sea-coast of Massachusetts—usually occupied
one of the bungalows on Clay Head during the
summer.

"See what the gale blowed in, Heppy," was the
lightkeeper's announcement as he banged open the
outer door.

His sister turned, frying-fork in hand, and peered
through her spectacles at the snow-covered figures
of the visitors.  She was a comfortably built
person, was Hephzibah Bassett, with rosy-brown,
unwrinkled face, despite her unacknowledged age of
fifty-odd.  Her iron-gray hair was parted in the
center and crinkled over her ears in tiny plaits, being
caught in a small "bob" low on her plump neck
behind.  She never went to bed at night without braiding
her hair on the side in several "pigtails" (to use
her brother's unsavory expression) to be combed
out into this wavy effect when she changed her
house gown in the afternoon.  It was a style of
hair-dressing which, if old-fashioned, became her well.

There was something very wholesome and kindly
appearing about Hephzibah Bassett.  She might
not possess the shrewdness of her brother, the
lightkeeper, and she did nag a good bit.  Yet
spinsterhood had not withered her smile nor squeezed dry
her fount of human kindness.

"For love's sake!" she cried now, when she had
identified the petite figure shaking its furs free of
the sticky snow.  "If 'tain't Lorny Nicholet!  Do
come and give me a kiss, Lorny.  I can't leave these
fishballs or they'd scorch."

The girl wriggled out of her coat and let it
drop to the braided mat.  She was just such a
looking girl as one might expect from her name.  There
was French blood in the Nicholets.  Lorna was
distinctly of the brunette type, small limbed, as lithe as
a feline.  Perhaps that was why she could scratch!
There were little short curls framing her broad, low
forehead.  The gloss of a crow's wing accentuated
the blackness of her hair.

Her face glowed now from facing the storm—or
was it from indignation?  Her eyes sparkled so
luminously that one could not be sure whether they
were black or brown.  She was one of those girls
who seem all alive, all of the time.  She had the
alert appearance of a wild bird on the twig—ready
for instant flight.

"Oh, how good it smells in here, Miss Heppy!"  She
fluttered across the big kitchen and imprinted
upon the woman's cheek a warm kiss.  She hugged,
too, the ample arm that Heppy did not use in
turning the fishballs in the deep frying kettle.

"You certain sure give us a surprise, Lorny,"
said the lightkeeper's sister.

"Of course I intended giving you a call as we
passed," the girl said.  "But I started for the special
purpose of looking over the house for Aunt Ida and
listing such new things as we shall need for the
summer.  *This* doesn't look much like summer, does it?"

"Oh, it's the last quintal of winter, I cal'late,"
said the woman, spearing a brown cake.  "Lucky I
made a mess of these.  I didn't really expect any
visitors to-night."

"That's just it, Miss Heppy!  How will I ever
get back to Harbor Bar to-night?"

"You won't.  Why should you?  Your aunt will
know you are safe—with him."

Miss Heppy glanced slyly around at Ralph Endicott,
whom she had but briefly greeted.  The girl,
seeing her glance, pouted.

"I wish you wouldn't!" she said in a low voice.
"It fairly gets on my nerves.  Everybody does it."

"Does what, child?" asked Miss Heppy, with surprise.

"Takes it for granted that Ralph Endicott and I
are engaged."

"Wal—you be sort o' young, I suppose——"

"If I was forty I wouldn't be engaged to him!"
flared up Lorna.

"For love's sake!" exclaimed the woman.  "Don't
say that.  Though at forty you ought to've been
married to him a good many years," and she broke
into an unctuous chuckle that shook her ample bosom
like jelly.

"I'll never marry him!" cried the girl, but under
her breath.

"Now, now!" urged Miss Heppy.  "You always
be quarreling with Ralphie.  But you know they're
jest love spats.  He's a good fellow——"

"You don't know what it means, Miss Heppy, to
a girl to have a man just forced on her.  Everybody
trying to make her take him, willy-nilly."

"Um-m.  None warn't never forced on me,"
admitted the woman, dividing her attention between
the frying fishballs and Lorna's affair of the heart.
"But I reckon, Lorna, they couldn't force a better
boy on you."

"That is one of the worst phases of it," declared
the girl seriously.  "There is not one single, solitary
thing to be said against Ralph's character.
Unless—well, there was a girl when he went to college.
At least, so they say.  But I suppose all boys must
have their foolish puppy-love affairs," concluded
Lorna, with an owllike appearance of wisdom that
revealed the quite unsophisticated girl who believes
she "knows it all."

Miss Heppy merely stared.  In her secluded life
love was *love*.  There were no gradations known
either as "puppy-love" or by other terms of rating.

"It isn't that Ralph isn't good enough, Miss
Heppy," whispered the girl.  "But he's been thrown
at me all my life long!"  She was not yet twenty-one.
"I just *won't* marry him."

She stamped her foot on the hearth.  Tobias, who
had been leisurely taking off his storm coat and
unbuckling the strap of his sou'wester as he talked
cheerfully to the rather glum looking Ralph, now
turned to the women.

"I feel some like stomping in my stall, too," was
his comment upon Lorna's emphatic punctuation of
her whispered defiance.  "Bear a hand with the
supper, Heppy.  I've got to go up to the gallery
again and clear the snow off the lamp.  It surely
does stick to-night.  I was just getting the glass
clear when I heard you young folks shouting for
rescue.

"Come, Miss Lorna!  Come, Ralph!  Pull up
cheers for yourselves.  Supper's ready, I cal'late,
ain't it, Heppy?"





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.. _`CONFIDENCES`:

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   CHAPTER II


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   CONFIDENCES

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The blast struck the light tower so heavily that
Ralph Endicott felt the whole structure vibrate as
he followed Tobias up the spiral stairway after
supper.  In spite of the lightkeeper's jollity and Miss
Heppy's kindness, the supper had seemed to hearten
but little the spirits of the young man.

He had offered to attend Tobias in his duty at
the top of the tower more for the purpose of getting
away from the women than for any other reason.
He seized the broom and followed Tobias with the
scraper out upon the open gallery.  If the storm
had seemed furious before supper, it had risen to a
top gale now.  The two men could scarcely face it
on the windward side.

The gale came in blasts that slapped their burden
of snow against the lighthouse with great force.
Ralph was barely able to keep his feet.  But the
sturdy lightkeeper went about the task with a
certain phlegm.

They managed to free the glass of its curtain of
snow.  Then Ralph staggered around to the sheltered
gallery, on the heels of Tobias.  The younger
man's was a gloomy face when they once more
entered the lamp room.

"Cheer up," said Tobias, getting his breath and
eyeing Ralph aslant.  "They tell me the worst is
yet to come.  Though I tell you fair, Ralphie, if the
last end o' my life is anywhere as hard as what
happened me when I shipped cabin boy on the old
*Sarah Drinkwater*, the good Lord help me to bear it!

"Why, Ralphie, from the time she was warped
out o' the dock at Provincetown till we unloaded
them box shocks at Santiago I didn't git to git my
clothes off—no, sir!

"We *did* have bad weather, I cal'late, though I
never got out on deck often enough the whole
endurin' v'y'ge to observe the sea and sky.  I was
washing dishes, making up berths, cleaning pots and
pans, peeling 'taters and turmits, and seeding raisins
for the skipper's plum duff most o' the time.

"Seeding raisins!  Oh, sugar, I got to thinkin'
that if that was all going to sea meant, I might
better have got a job in a scullery and kept on an even
footing.  And I purty nigh got my lips in such a
pucker whistling while I seeded them raisins (cookie
wouldn't trust me otherwise) that I never did get
'em straight since.

"Say, lemme tell you!" proceeded Tobias, his
weather-stained face beaming in the glow of the
great Argand light.  "Cap'n Drinkwater demanded
his plum duff for supper ev'ry endurin' day of the
v'y'ge, no matter what the weather was.  He had
an old black cook, Sam Snowball, that had got so's
he could make that pudding to the queen's taste.

"Lemme tell you!  The skipper was that stingy
that he fed the crew rusty pork and weevilly beans,
and a grade of salt horse that would make a crew
of Skowegians mutiny.  But the *Sarah Drinkwater*
never made long enough v'y'ges for her crew to
mutiny—no, sir!

"But that plum duff—oh, sugar!  Bein' the boy,
I never got more'n the lickin's of the dish.  If I got
enough 'taters and salt horse to fill my belly so's to
keep my pants up, I was lucky.  The skipper and
the mate divided the duff between 'em.

"Ahem!" he added critically, "you don't look as
though there was any plums at all in your duff,
Ralph."

"There isn't," returned the young man shortly.

"Oh, sugar!" ejaculated the lightkeeper, drawing
forth a short clay pipe and a sack of cut tobacco.
"I cal'late that you folks with money have more real
troubles than what we poor folks do."

"Huh!  *Money!*" scoffed Endicott.

"Yep.  It's mighty poor bait for fish, I cal'late.
You can't even chum with it."

"Money isn't everything," said the young man
shrugging his shoulders.

"True.  True as preaching," cried Tobias.  "But
'twill buy most everything you're likely to need in
this world.  And you've got enough, Ralph, to keep
you from getting gray-headed before your time
worrying about where your three meals a day are
coming from.  I don't see what can be wrong with you.
And that purty gal——"

"Now stop, Tobias Bassett!" exclaimed Endicott.
"Don't keep reminding me of Lorna.  I get
enough of that at home."

"Wal!" gasped the lightkeeper.  "For you to
speak so of Lorna!  Why, that's the main-skys'l-pole
of the whole suit of spars—only needs the
main-truck to cap it.  What do you mean?"

"Now, mind you," Endicott said earnestly.  "I
haven't a thing to say against Lorna.  She's a nice
girl—for some other fellow.  But I declare to you,
Tobias, *I won't marry her*."

"Oh, sugar!"

"Just because my Uncle Henry and her Aunt Ida
have planned for us to do so since we were little
tads running about the beaches here, is no reason
why I should be tied up to Lorna forever and ever,
Amen!"

"That's a mighty hard sayin'——"

"You think, like everybody else, that Lorna and
I were made for each other.  We weren't!  We'd
fight all the time.  We always do fight.  Look at
to-night.  The first little thing that goes wrong she
jumps at me.  I'm sick of playing dog and rolling
over every time Lorna orders me to.

"And look at the mess we're in to-night!"

"What's the matter with you, boy?" demanded
the lighthouse keeper.  "You're under shelter.
There's grub enough in the light to stave off
starvation for a spell.  Nothing can't happen to your
buzz-cart worse than its being drifted under with snow."

"Oh, you don't understand, Tobias!" said the
exasperated Ralph.  "Our going off in my car the
way we did, and not getting back to-night—why! it'll
be all over Harbor Bar that we've eloped."

"I see," said the lightkeeper between puffs of his
short pipe.  Then: "You don't cal'late to marry
Lorna?"

"I won't have her thrown at me."

"I never had no gal throwed at me," Tobias
reflected.  "I dunno how 'twould feel.  But I will say
that if I had to catch such a throw as Lorna
Nicholet, I surely wouldn't make a muff of it!"

"That's all right," observed Endicott.  "I'm not
saying she isn't a nice enough girl.  But I don't
believe she really wants me any more than I want
her.  In fact, I know there was another fellow last
year that she was interested in.  A chap named
Conny Degger.  He was in my class at college.
Kind of a sport, but I guess he's all right, at that.
But Lorna's Aunt Ida broke it up.  Wouldn't let
Conny shine around Lorna any more when she
learned about it.

"They've got us both thrown and tied, Tobias!
That's the way Uncle Henry, and Aunt Ida, and all
the rest of my family and Lorna's people have got
us fixed.  They act as though we'd just got to marry
each other.  And after this mischance—breaking
down here in the snow—they'll all say we're
disgraced forever if we don't announce the engagement."

"Oh, sugar!" said the lightkeeper again, puffing
away placidly.

In the kitchen Lorna Nicholet was making a
confidante of Miss Heppy quite as Ralph had trusted
Tobias.  Nor was the girl less determined to thwart
the intention of her family in this matrimonial
affair, than was Ralph in his attitude toward his
relatives.

"For love's sake!" murmured the lightkeeper's
sister, realizing at last how much in earnest the girl
was, "Miss Ida'll near about have a conniption.
She's set her heart on you an' Ralph marrying, for
years."

"And his Uncle Henry is just as foolish," sighed
Lorna, wiping her eyes.  "Why will old people
never have sense enough to let young people's
affairs alone?"

"Well, now, as you might say," Miss Heppy
observed, "Miss Ida and Henry Endicott ain't re'lly
old.  Forty-odd ain't what ye might call aged—not
in a way of speaking.  But I cal'late they are some
sot in their ways."

"'Some sot' is right, Miss Heppy," repeated
Lorna, suddenly giggling and her vivid face a-smile
once more.  "In her own case Aunt Ida is a
misogamist; yet she urges marriage on me.  And Ralph's
Uncle Henry is a misogynist in any case.  Why he
is so anxious to force Ralph into the wedded state
I do not see."

"Seems to me them air purty hard names to call
your aunt and Henry Endicott," murmured Miss Heppy.

"Oh!"  Lorna laughed again.  "They just mean
that Aunt Ida hates marriage and Uncle Henry
hates women."

Miss Heppy waggled a doubtful head.

"They wasn't like that when I first remember
them, Lorny," she said.  "Miss Ida Nicholet is a
fine looking woman now.  She was a pretty sight
for anybody's eyes when she was your age, or thereabout."

"I know she was quite a belle when she was
young," Lorna agreed, rather carelessly.

"And Henry Endicott wasn't any—what did you
call him jest now?"

"A misogynist—a hater of women."

"He didn't hate 'em none when he come here that
first summer," said Miss Heppy, with a reflective
smile.  "He was a young professor at some college
then.  I expect he didn't know as much about
inventing things then as what he does now.  But he
knowed more how to please women.  He pleased
your Aunt Ida right well, I cal'late."

"Never!  You don't mean it, Miss Heppy!"
exclaimed Lorna, sensing a romance.

"Yes, I thought then Miss Ida and Henry Endicott
would make a match of it.  But somehow—well,
such things don't always go the way you
expect them to.  Both your aunt and Professor
Endicott were high-strung—same's you and Ralph be,
Lorny."

"Why," cried the girl smiling again, "I'd never
fight with Ralph at all if they didn't try to make us
marry.  I wonder if it is so, that Aunt Ida and
Ralph's uncle were once fond of each other!  If
they could not make a match of it, why are they so
determined to force Ralph and me into a marriage?"

"Mebbe because they see their mistake," Miss
Heppy said judiciously.  "I don't believe your aunt
and Henry Endicott have been any too happy
endurin' these past twenty-odd years."

"Tell me!" urged the girl, her cheeks aglow and
her eyes dancing.  "Is remaining single all your life
such a *great* cross, Miss Heppy?  Are there not
some compensations?"

The woman looked up from darning the big blue
wool sock that could have fitted none but her
brother's foot.  The smile with which she favored the
girl had much tenderness as well as retrospection
in it.

"I don't believe that any woman over thirty is
ever single from choice, Lorny.  She may never find
the man she wants to marry.  Or something separates
her from the one she is sure-'nough fitted to
mate with.  So, she must make the best of it."

"But *you*, Miss Heppy?" asked Lorna, boldly.
"Why didn't you ever marry?"

"Why—I *was* cal'lating on doing so, when I was
a gal," said the woman gently.  "Listen!"

The girl, startled, looked all about the room and
then back into Miss Heppy's softly smiling face.

"Do you hear it, Lorny?  The sea a-roaring over
the reef and the wind wailing about the light?
That's my answer to your question.  I seen so many
women in my young days left lone and lorn
because of that sea.  Ah, my deary, 'tain't the men
that go down to the sea in ships that suffer most.
'Tis their wives and mothers, and the little children
they leave behind.

"When I was a young gal I never had a chance to
meet ary men but them that airned their bread on
the deep waters.  My father was drowned off
Hatteras, two brothers older than Tobias were of the
crew of the windjammer, *Seahawk*.  She never got
around the Horn on her last v'y'ge.  In seventeen
homes about Clinkerport and Twin Rocks, the
women mourned their dead on the *Seahawk*.

"No, no.  I didn't stay single from choice.  But
I shut my ears and eyes to ary man that heard the
call of the sea.  And I never met no other, Lorny."

The uproar of the storm was an accompaniment
to Miss Heppy's story.  The solemnity of it quenched
any further expression of what Lorna Nicholet
considered her troubles.  Within the kitchen there was
silence for a space.





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.. _`THE APEX OF THE STORM`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER III


.. class:: center medium

   THE APEX OF THE STORM

.. vspace:: 2

Bedtime came, and Miss Heppy led Lorna, with
the little whale oil hand lamp, up one flight of the
spiral stairway and ushered her into the best
bedroom.  It was the whitewashed cell facing the ocean.

The waves boomed with sullen roar upon the
rocks, breaking, it seemed, almost at the base of the
lighthouse.  Spray, as well as the sleet, dashed
against the single unshuttered window.  It was
sheeted with white.  But Miss Heppy drew the curtains close.

"You won't be afraid to sleep here alone, will
you, child?" asked the lightkeeper's sister.  "Tobias
and I are only just across the landing.  Though I
guess Tobias will be up most o' the night watchin'
the lamp, and he'll likely put your young man in his bed."

"I wish you wouldn't!" sighed Lorna.  "He's not
my young man, whatever else he may be.  I here
and now disown all part and parcel in Ralph Endicott."

"I dunno what Miss Ida will say," the woman
observed mournfully.  "It'll be a shock to her.  Wal,
try to sleep, deary, if the wintry winds do blow.
I guess 'twill clear, come morning.  These late
winter storms never last."

She had shaken out a voluminous canton-flannel
nightgown which she laid over the foot of the bed.
Now she pricked up the two round wicks of the
lamp with a pin, and after kissing the visitor left
her to seek repose.

She heard a heavy step on the stair as she reached
the foot of it, so held the kitchen door open for her
brother.  Tobias had left Ralph to watch the lamp
while he came down on some small errand.  Finding
his sister alone, the lightkeeper lingered.

"I give it as my opinion, Heppy," he said, slowly
puffing on his clay pipe, "that it was lucky we was
born handsome instead o' rich."

"You speak for yourself, Tobias," rejoined his
sister, with good-natured irony.  "My beauty never
struck in, so's to be chronic, as ye might say.  And
I could do right now with lots more money than
we've got."

"You'd only put it in the Clinkerport Bank—you
know you would," chuckled Tobias.  "And the
most useless dollar in the world—to the owner I
mean—is a dollar in the bank."

"You never did properly appreciate money."

"No, thanks be!  Not according to your standard
of appreciation, Heppy.  Money is only good
for what you spend it for.  A dollar in the bank that
airns ye three cents a year ain't even worth thinkin'
of—let alone talking about.  You might just as well
hide it under the hearthstone.  It would be less worry."

"We ain't got enough in the Clinkerport Bank to
worry you none," scoffed his sister.

"I dunno.  Arad Thompson, the president of the
bank *might* run off with the funds.  Such things do
happen."

"And he confined to a wheel chair for ten years
now!" ejaculated Miss Heppy.  "I shall never worry
over our little tad of money—save that it is so
little."

"I give it as my opinion that money don't seem
to do folks all the good in the world that it oughter.
Look at these two young ones, now, Lorna and
Ralph.  Their folks has got more wealth than
enough.  And yet Ralph croaks as though he saw
no chance at all ahead of him but trouble."

"I do allow," admitted Miss Heppy, "that Lorna
thinks as little of Ralph's money as she seems to of
the boy himself.  And he's a nice boy."

"And she's just the nicest gal that ever stepped in
shoe-leather," rejoined the lightkeeper stoutly.

"They don't 'preciate each other," sighed Miss Heppy.

"Ain't it so?  I give it as my opinion that if they
was poor—re'l poor—they would fall in love with
each other quick enough."

"I dunno——"

"*I do,*" declared the confident lightkeeper.  "It's
a case o' money being no good at all to them young
ones.  If Ralph had to dig clams or clerk it in a
bank for a living, and Lorny didn't have more'n two
caliker dresses a year and could not get any
more—why! them two would fall in love with each other
so hard 'twould hurt.  That's my opinion, Heppy,
and I give it for what it's worth."

He knocked the heeltap out of his pipe on the
stove hearth.  His sister was not giving him her
full attention.  She raised her eyes from her
darning and listened to the storm.

The wind shrieked like a company of fiends
around the tall tower.  The sleet and spray slapped
viciously against the shutterless windows on the
exposed side of the structure.  The woman shook
her head.

"It's a terrible night, Tobias.  Listen!"

From the ocean rose the voice of a blast seemingly
worse than any that had gone before.  It was
the apex of the storm.  It drowned anything
further Tobias might have said.

The hurricane from the sea took the light tower
in its arms and shook it.  The roar of it made the
woman's face blanch.

As the sound poured away into the distance the
two in the kitchen heard a crash of glass—then a
scream.  Tobias dashed for the stairway door.

"The lamp!" he shouted.

"That ain't no lamp, Tobias," declared his sister.

When he opened the door a gale rushed in and
sucked the flame out of the top of the lamp chimney
with a "plop!"  The stairway seemed filled with a
whirling cyclone of wintry air.

Tobias heard the clatter of Ralph Endicott's boots
on the iron treads coming down from above.  A
door was banging madly on the second floor.  Lorna
screamed again.

"The window of the best room's burst in,
Tobias," shouted Miss Heppy.  "That poor child!"

The lightkeeper had seized his lantern, and now
he started up the stairway.  But youth was quicker
than vigorous old age.  Ralph plunged into the
bedchamber, the door of which had been burst
open by the blast from the wrecked window.

The cowering figure of the girl at the foot of the
bed, wrapped in Miss Heppy's voluminous nightgown,
was visible in the whirlwind of snow.  She
sprang toward Ralph with a cry of relief, and the
young man gathered her into his arms as though
she were a child.

"Oh, Ralph!"

"All right, Lorna!  You're safe enough.  Don't be
frightened," soothed Endicott.

For a long moment he sheltered her thus,
bulwarking his own body between her and the blast
from the window.  She cowered in his arms.  Then:

"For love's sake!" gasped Miss Heppy at the
head of the stairs.

The lantern in her brother's hand broadly
illumined the two young people.  Tobias himself was
enormously amused.

"Don't look as though you hated each other none
to speak of," was his tactless comment.

"Tobias!" shrieked Miss Heppy.

Lorna struggled out of Ralph's arms in a flame
of rage.

"How dare you, Ralph Endicott?" she cried.  "I
thought you were at least a gentleman.  You go
right away from here—now—this minute!  I'll
never speak to you again!"

"Why, I—I——"

Ralph was too startled for the moment to be
angry.  The girl ran in her bare feet to the
comfort of Miss Heppy's ample person.

"Take me somewhere!  Take me to your room,
Miss Heppy.  I never want to see him again.  How
dared he?"

"Oh, sugar!" murmured the perfectly amazed
lightkeeper.

But the fires of rage began to glow within Ralph
Endicott's bosom now, blown by the blast of Lorna's
ingratitude.  His face blazed.

"What do you mean?" he demanded.  "I did
not come here because I wanted to.  You yelled
loud enough for help.  I—I——"

"That will do!" exclaimed Lorna, her head up,
as regal as any angry little queen could be.  "If you
were a gentleman by nature you would have refused
to stay here in the first place, when you knew the
light was my only shelter."

"Well, of all the——"

"You can go on to Clinkerport.  Telephone from
the hotel to Aunt Ida and tell her where I am and
whose care I am in.  If the story that you and I
remained here all night together is circulated about
Harbor Bar, I'll never forgive you, Ralph Endicott!"

"Great Scott!" shouted the young man, coming
out into the hall and closing the door of the
bedroom.  "You don't suppose for a moment *I* want
such a story circulated among our friends, do you?
No fear!"

He started down the stairs, pulling his cap over
his ears and buttoning his automobile coat up to
his throat.

"For love's sake!" again gasped the troubled
spinster, who still held the girl in her arms.

"Hold on!  Hold on!" exclaimed Tobias.
"'Tain't fit for to turn a dog out into this storm."

"I don't care!" cried the hysterical girl wildly.
"He never should have let the car stall in that
snowdrift.  He should have gone on to Clinkerport
alone instead of making a nuisance of himself
around here."

The lower door banged as punctuation to her
speech.

Tobias started to descend the stair.  His sister
motioned him commandingly toward the door of the
best room.

"You find some way to stopper that window,
Tobias," she said, "and then go back to your lamp.
You can't do no good interfering in this."

She led the sobbing girl into her own room and
closed the door.  The lightkeeper shook his head.

"I give it as my opinion," he muttered, "that
women folks is as hard to understand as the Chinee
language.  And they begin their finicking mighty
airly."

Lorna sobbed herself into quietness in Miss
Heppy's feather bed, cuddled into the good
spinster's embrace.  The latter did not speak one word
of criticism.  But as her passion ebbed, Lorna's
conscience pricked her sorely.  She only appeared
to fall asleep.  In truth she remained very wide
awake listening to the bellowing of the gale.

Suppose something should happen to Ralph out
in the storm?  It was hours, it seemed to her, before
the wind calmed at all.  She visualized her friend
staggering along the road toward Clinkerport, back
of the Clay Head cottages that were all empty at
this time of year.  Suppose he was overcome by the
storm, and fell there, and was drifted over by the snow?

She lay and trembled at these thoughts; but she
would not have admitted for the world that she cared!

After all, Ralph had been her playmate for years.
Why, she could not remember when Ralph was not
hanging upon the outskirts of the Nicholet family.
He was as omnipresent, as she had told him, as
Aunt Ida.  And Miss Ida Nicholet had ever been
Lorna's guardian.

The girl was the youngest of a goodly number
of brothers and sisters; but her mother, Mr. Nicholet's
second wife, had died at Lorna's birth.  Miss
Ida had come into the big house at Harbor Bar
at that time and assumed entire control—at least
of Lorna.

The other girls and boys had grown up and flown
the nest.  Mr. Nicholet was a busy man of studious
habits who, if the housemaid had come into his
library, kissed him on his bald crown, and asked
him for twenty dollars, would have produced the
money without question, said, "Yes, my child," and
considered that he had done his duty by his youngest
daughter.

Lorna had often passed him on the street and he
had not known her.

But Mr. Nicholet subscribed to everything Miss
Ida, his energetic sister, said.  If she declared it was
the right thing for Lorna to marry Ralph Endicott—that
ended the matter as far as Mr. Nicholet was
concerned.  Lorna knew it to be quite useless to
appeal to him.

By and by it began to rain—torrentially.  This,
following the snow which had drifted so heavily
during the evening, somewhat relieved Lorna's
anxiety.  The rain would flood the roads and make
them impassable, even if Ralph could repair his
car; but no wanderer on foot would be drifted over
by rain.

She heard Tobias go down and up the spiral staircase
more than once.  He even went out of the lighthouse
on one occasion.  That was soon after Ralph
had gone and while the storm was still high.  But
the lightkeeper had quickly returned.

Dawn came at last, clutching at the window with
wan fingers.  The pale light grew slowly.  Lorna
heard Tobias rattling the stove-hole covers as he
built the kitchen fire.  Then the odor of coffee
reached her nostrils, and Miss Heppy awoke.





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.. _`PROPHECIES`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER IV


.. class:: center medium

   PROPHECIES

.. vspace:: 2

Lorna appeared in the lighthouse kitchen with
red eyelids and the bruised look about her eyes that
usually advertises the lack of sleep in the case of
all dark-eyed people.  But she smiled and thanked
Miss Heppy and Tobias briskly for their kindness.

"I am sure I do not know what I should have
done if you had not taken me in.  Did the storm
do much damage in your best chamber, Miss Heppy?"

"I ain't had time to see, child," replied the
spinster.  "Tobias will have to get a new winder frame,
I cal'late.  You got it boarded up tight, Tobias?"

"Tight's the word," her brother assured her.

"I hope nothing has happened to our house on
Clay Head," Lorna said.

"Not likely.  Them storm shutters and doors
Miss Ida insisted on putting on are a good thing, I
allow," the lightkeeper observed.

"We'd ought to have outside blinds to our lower
windows," his sister complained.  "But the
Government don't think so."

"Now, don't let's get onto politics," said Tobias,
his eyes twinkling.  "Ye know, Lorny, Heppy and
me votes dif'rent tickets, and jest at present she's
ag'in the Government."

"Oh, you hush!" said Miss Heppy, as Lorna's
laugh chimed in unison with Tobias's mellow
chuckle.

"Is it going to clear, Mr. Bassett?" the girl asked.

"I guess likely.  Ain't been but one storm so fur
that didn't clear.  And that's this one.  But I give
it as my opinion that it was a bad night.  Bad," he
added, cocking an eye at Lorna, "for anybody who
had to be out in it."

"Now, Tobias!" ejaculated his sister.

"Them on shipboard, I mean, o' course," the
lightkeeper hastened to say.

Lorna ignored this byplay.  She would not reveal
in any case that she had felt anxiety for Ralph.
She would only show interest in the condition of
the Nicholet house on the bluff, and after breakfast
she bundled up against the cutting gale that still
blew, and ventured to journey cross-lots to the
summer residences.

The road, as Lorna had supposed, was badly
washed by the rain where it was not drifted with
mushy snow.  She wore Miss Heppy's overshoes
and waded ankle deep in slush as she crossed the
barrens toward the steep ascent of the Clay Head.
At the foot of this bluff she struck into the
patrol-path—that well-defined trail made by the surfmen
who patrol every yard of the outer Cape Cod coast,
from the Big End at the tip near Provincetown,
down to Monomoy Point south of Chatham.

It was slippery under foot, and the wind was still
strong.  The clouds were breaking, however, and
Lorna could see clear across the wide-mouthed bay.
She observed a gleam of light reflected from the
cupola of the life-saving station at Upper Trillion.  A
steam tug towing a brick barge, that had run into
Clinkerport ahead of the storm, was now breasting
the after-swell, putting out to sea.

The Nicholet house was the first in the row of
summer houses which overhung the beach toward
Clinkerport.  Lorna was sheltered from the wind
when she approached the side door to which she
had the key.

As she mounted the steps she noted with surprise
that one of the cellar windows right at hand was
uncovered.  The plank shutter lay upon the snow, and
there were marks about the window that might
have been made by somebody entering the house.

"And such a night as last night was," murmured
the amazed girl.  "I can scarcely believe there was
a thief here."

Indeed, marauders of any character were seldom
a menace upon the Cape.  The summer people who
occupied the houses along Clay Head merely locked
their doors in winter and left them until the next
season without fear of trespassers.

Lorna slowly fitted the key in the lock and
opened the door.  She entered softly.  Could it be
possible that an intruder was now in the house?

At the left of this side entry was a small
sitting-room.  When the outer door was closed she
distinctly felt a warm current of air from between the
draperies that had been left hanging in the
sitting-room doorway.

Amazed, she stepped hurriedly forward and held
aside the curtain to look in.  There was a
smouldering fire in the grate.  Lying outstretched upon
the floor, with a rug wrapped about him, was a man.
He was asleep, and for the moment Lorna could not
see his face, nor did she imagine who he could be.

She tiptoed around the table, and then she saw
the sleeper's flaxen head.  Suddenly he started,
rolled over, and sat up.  He opened sleep-clouded
eyes.

"Is—is that you, Lorna?" he yawned.

The girl's face flamed and her eyes fairly sparked
with wrath.  She made a futile gesture with both
hands as she backed away from Ralph Endicott.

"Oh, you—you——"

She could not articulate her disgust.  Of all the
perfectly useless fellows she had ever heard of,
Ralph took the palm!

Without uttering another word the girl left the
room and the house.  Ralph had managed to spoil
everything, after all.  He had not gone to Clinkerport
and telephoned to Harbor Bar.  The tongue of
scandal would not be stilled as she had hoped it
might.  And Lorna Nicholet considered it quite
scandalous for her friends to believe that she and
Ralph Endicott were "as good as engaged."

"I'll never forgive him!  I'll never forgive him!"
she cried over and over, as she tramped back to the
light.

She made no comment then to either Miss Heppy
or Tobias about what she had found at the house.
She did not even notice the old lightkeeper's sly
glances.  He had followed Ralph's footprints by
lantern-light in the storm the night before and knew
where the young man had taken shelter after being
driven from the lighthouse by Lorna's sharp tongue.

Endicott did not appear that day at the Twin
Rocks Light.  But he must have gone on to Clinkerport
after Lorna's unexpected visit to the house
on Clay Head aroused him, for the next day—the
shell road having become passable again for motor
cars—he came out with a truck from the garage
to tow his roadster into town.

"You can go back with the garage man and me,
and I will hire a car to take you home to Harbor
Bar to-night," Endicott said sullenly enough, to
Lorna.

"I will go to Clinkerport with the garage man,"
the girl promptly rejoined.  "But you need not
bother about me after I arrive there.  I can manage
to get home by myself.  The trains are running."

"Well, I telephoned your Aunt Ida I would bring
you home," he said gloomily.  "They—they were
some stirred up about us."

"They need be stirred up no further about us.
I tell you I have got through with you, Ralph
Endicott—for good and all!  I will not be forced by
my family to endure your company."

"It's fifty-fifty," he rejoined.  "You don't have
to ride any high horse about it.  I'm no more pleased
with the prospect of catering to your whims, I
assure you."

"You are no gentleman!" she declared, her little
fists clenched.

"At least, I am telling you the truth, Lorna," he
said grimly.  "Perhaps being a gentleman precludes
one's being candid."

"Oh—you!" she ejaculated again and turned her
back on him.

Tobias watched them depart with puckered face.
Separately the young folk had shaken hands with
the lightkeeper and his sister, and thanked them
warmly for their hospitality.  But when the two
cars started Lorna sat up stiffly, "eyes front,"
beside the garage man and would not look back for
fear of seeing Ralph Endicott in the rear car.

"Just as friendly to each other as a couple o'
strange dogs," observed Tobias.  "She's on her ear,
sure enough.  And Ralphie is just as stuffy as they
make 'em.  What do you reckon will come of it,
Heppy?"

"I know one thing, Tobias, and that ain't two,"
declared his sister flatly.  "None o' your interference
is goin' to help matters.  Don't you think it."

"Wal—now—I dunno.  If I can help a likely
couple like Lorna and Ralph to an understanding——"

"Huh!  Matches are made in heaven," said his sister.

"Oh, sugar!  They don't often smell so when you
light 'em," chuckled Tobias.

"Oh, you hush!"

"I'm thinkin' serious, Heppy, of helping them two
foolish young ones to an understanding."

"You'd better mind your own business, Tobias
Bassett."

"Ain't it my business?" he queried, his head
cocked on one side watching the disappearing motor
cars.  "You know the Bible says we should all turn
to an' help get our neighbor's ass out o' the pit——"

"An' you'll be the biggest jack of all if you
interfere in the affairs of them young ones."

"I dunno——"

"You'd better know!" exclaimed Miss Heppy,
exasperated.  "For love's sake!  who ever told you,
Tobias Bassett, that you knowed enough to
venture where even angels fear to tread?"

"Oh!  Hum!  Then I guess you don't cal'late
after all that matches is made in heaven," he
chuckled.  "And I give it as my opinion, Heppy,
that marrying and giving in marriage ain't never
been angels' jobs.  Mebbe a mere human being like
me might have more of a sleight at matchmaking
than the heavenly host—if anybody should drive up
an' ax ye."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE UNEXPECTED`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER V


.. class:: center medium

   THE UNEXPECTED

.. vspace:: 2

Miss Heppy took pride in her front yard.  The
immediate vicinity of a lighthouse is not often a
beauty-spot, and that of the Twin Rocks Light was
for the most part bleached sand.  Nevertheless the
lightkeeper's sister never failed to make her garden
in early May.

The soil in which she coaxed to cheerful bloom
old maid's pinks, bachelor buttons, ladies' slippers,
marigolds and a dozen other old-fashioned flowers,
was brought from a distance.  The boisterous
autumn winds always drifted over the beds with
sand; yet each spring Miss Heppy, like nature
herself, made all things new again.

"I vum!" said her brother in his good-natured,
if critical way, "I don't see why you do it.  All you
have to begin on every year is the conch-shells and
white pebbles for borders.  Sea sand mixed with its
loam in such quantity would ha' sp'iled the Garden
of Eden for any agricultooral purposes."

"This ain't no Garden of Eden, I do allow," his
sister said.  "Wherever them scientific fellers
undertake to locate what was mankind's first home, they
never say 'twas here on the Cape."

"Oh, sugar!" chuckled Tobias.  "It took them
frozen-faced Puritan ancestors of our'n to choose
the Cape to locate on an' set the Provincetown folks
and the Plymouth folks a-fightin' over which town
should be celebrated in song an' story as the real
landin' place of the Pilgrim Fathers."

"Humph!" sniffed Hephzibah, "we hear enough
about the Pilgrim Fathers.  I cal'late if it hadn't
been for the Pilgrim Mothers there wouldn't have
been any settlement here a-tall."

"Ye-as," agreed Tobias, pursing his lips.  "But
the women didn't have the vote then, so they didn't
get advertised none to speak of.  Of course, there
was Priscilla Alden—she that was a Mullens.
Longfeller advertised *her* a good bit.  She's the only
woman among the Pilgrims that we hear much
about.  I cal'late 'twas because she was one that
knowed her own mind."

"No," said his sister, whose habit of looking at
the darker side of life could not be denied.  "No.
The first woman the history of them times tells
about was drowned off the *Mayflower* as she lay in
Provincetown Harbor."

"Oh, sugar!  That's so," chuckled Tobias.  "She
was crowded overboard by the deckload of furniture
the packet carried.  I never did understand how
such a small craft could have brought across all that
household stuff folks claim was in her cargo."

But Miss Heppy's reflections were not to be
turned by frivolity.

"She," the spinster said, with a sigh, "was the
first of us Cape Cod women to suffer from the
savage sea."

"Oh, sugar, Heppy!" ejaculated Tobias.  "You're
the beatin'est for seining up trouble and seeing the
blackest side of things.  Enough to give a man the
fantods, you are!  Hello!  Here's the mail packet
heaving into sight."

A bony horse with a head so long that he might
easily eat his oats out of a flour barrel, appeared
from around the turn in the Lower Trillion road.
He drew behind him a buckboard which sagged
under the weight of Amos Pickering, the rural mail
carrier.

"Maybe he's got a letter for us," suggested Miss
Heppy with some eagerness.  "You go see, Tobias."

The lightkeeper dropped his spade and made a
speaking trumpet of his hands.  "Ahoy!  Ahoy,
Amos!  What's the good word?"

The mail carrier waved an answering hand before
diving into the sack at his feet and bringing to light,
as Tobias strode down to the roadside, a letter and
a paper.

"Wal, now," said the lightkeeper, "that's what ye
might call a heavy haul for us.  I cal'late, Amos, if
all your customers got as few parcels o' mail as what
me and Heppy does, you'd purt' near go out o'
business."

"It's got a black border onto it, Tobias," said the
mail carrier, voicing the curiosity that ate like acid
on his mind.  "And it's postmarked at Batten.  Ain't
that where your Uncle Jethro lives?"

"Sure enough!" agreed the lightkeeper.  "But
'tain't his hand o' write—nossir!"

"Be you sure?"

"Surest thing you know, Amos.  'Cause why?
Cap'n Jethro Potts never learned to more than make
his mark—if that much."

"I cal'late he's dead, Tobias."

"Then it's sartain he didn't send this letter with
the black border."

"Well, it must be something about him, don't you
think?" suggested the mail carrier leaning forward,
his eager eyes twinkling.

"Why, we ain't in correspondence with nobody
down there to Batten," said Tobias slowly, and
holding the letter far off as though he feared it
might explode.

Miss Heppy had got to her feet now and came
forward.

"What's the matter with you, Tobias?" she cried.
"Why don't you open it?  Amos won't get home
to-night if you don't."

Her gentle sarcasm was quite lost on the two
men.  Her brother shook his head.

"Can't open it," he said.

"Why not, for love's sake?" demanded the
exasperated Heppy.

"'Cause it's for you," chuckled Tobias, thrusting
the letter into her hand.

"For love's sake!" repeated Miss Heppy much
flustered.  "I can't read it, Tobias.  I ain't got my
specs here."

"No more have I," her brother rejoined.  "But
I cal'late I can read it for you if 'tain't writ in
Choctaw."

The others, Amos no less than Heppy, remained
eagerly expectant while Tobias worked his stubbed
finger under the gummed flap of the envelope and
tore it open.  The folded sheet of paper he drew
forth was likewise bordered with black.  He held it
off, for he was far-sighted, and read aloud slowly:

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: left white-space-pre-line

   "'Batten, Mass.

   "'Miss Hephzibah Bassett,
        "'Twin Rocks Light.

.. class:: left

"'Dear Miss Heppy:—

"'Your uncle, Captain Jethro Potts, of this town,
passed into rest this day at noon.  The funeral is set
for Thursday at ten in the morning, that being high
tide.  You and your family is hereby notified and
are requested to be present at the unsealing of
Captain Potts' will in Judge Waddams' office which will
follow the ceremony at the grave.

.. class:: left white-space-pre-line

   "'Your relation by marriage,
        "'ICIVILLA POTTS.'"

.. vspace:: 2

Then followed the date.  The reading of the letter
for the moment left the trio—even the mail
carrier—stunned.  The latter finally said:

"Well!  Well!  That's sad news—'tis, for a fact.
I expect he left a tidy bit of money?"

"Poor Uncle Jethro!" murmured Miss Heppy.

"I don't know how much money Uncle Jethro had
to leave," said Tobias slowly.  "But however much
or little 'twas, he left it all.  That's sure."

Amos gathered up the reins.

"Course you'll both go down to the funeral?"

"'Tain't likely," Tobias said.  "Somebody's got
to stay and nuss this light, and I cal'late 'twill be
me."

But Miss Heppy would not hear to that.  She
declared it to be her brother's duty to go and
represent their branch of the family.  To tell the truth,
Miss Heppy had never in her life been farther from
Clinkerport than to the East Harwich Fair, while
Tobias was, of course, like all deep-bottom sailors,
"a traveled man."

Came Thursday, and Zeke Bassett arrived with
his motor car to take Tobias to the train.  It was
rather an early hour for a man to climb into his
Sunday suit, and the lightkeeper hated formal dress.

He should have been well used to the black suit
by this time.  It had served him for state occasions
for full twenty years.  When it was bought Tobias
had not been so full-bodied as he was now.  He was
a sturdy man, built brickwise, with more corners
than curves, and the black short-tailed coat strained
at each and every seam to keep him within its
bounds.

To have buttoned it across his chest would have
rent button from fabric.  It was so tight at the
armholes that his elbows were held from his sides
and his shoulders squared in a most military
fashion.  Tight as the coat was at these points, there
were three sets of wrinkles plainly evident at the
back—two perpendicular and one set horizontal.
Altogether this ensemble of dress gave one the
impression of a rather bulgy man being slowly choked
to death by his own habit.

"I don't mind wearin' 'em on the Sabbath,"
confessed Tobias.  "To keep in a proper frame of mind
to enjoy one of Elder Hardraven's sermons, who's
as melancholy as a widder woman with six small
children, a feller needs to have something wearing
on his mind b'sides his hair.  It makes me right
religious feeling to put on Sunday-go-to-meeting
clothes."

"For love's sake!" his sister said tartly, "you're
going to a funeral.  I should think you would
expect to feel religious."

"If I do," rejoined Tobias grimly, "me and the
minister will be 'bout the only ones there that feel
that way.  This here is going to be a gathering of
the vultures, Heppy."

"Why, Tobias, how you do talk!"

"Yep.  The Pottses and their rel'tives are going
to gather from far and near to hear the reading of
Uncle Jethro's will.  Icivilly Potts would never have
writ us if Judge Waddams hadn't told her to.  The
Pottses of Batten would like to make the fun'ral
and reading of the will a close-corporation affair, I
cal'late.  But 'tis evident Uncle Jethro must have
mentioned others in his last will and testament."

"Oh, Tobias!" gasped his sister, clasping her hands.

"Yep," he rejoined.  "If the old captain left us
something, you'll be getting your wish, won't you?"

"Oh, don't Tobias!" she cried.  "That sounds awful!"

"Oh, sugar!" drawled the practical lightkeeper,
"we might's well own to it.  We never bothered
Uncle Jethro none endurin' his life.  He was here
and took pot-luck with us many's the time.  He did
seem to like your fishballs an' biscuit, Heppy.  If
he hadn't had prop'ty to watch down there at Batten,
I cal'late he might nigh have lived here all the
time.  So why shouldn't we have expectations?"

"Oh, Tobias!" she murmured.

"I am frank to say," the lightkeeper declared,
"that I'm going down there to Batten with expectations.
Uncle Jethro is dead, and I cal'late to show
respect to his memory.  If the sermon is long I'll
likely go to sleep during it.  But I don't cal'late to
sleep none in Judge Waddams' office when the will
is being read."

His perfectly frank acknowledgment shocked
Miss Heppy.  But that was Tobias Bassett's way.
He gave no hostage to Mrs. Grundy in any particular.
No odor of hypocrisy clung to anything he did
or said.  If he had ever occasion to be untruthful
he lied "straight from the shoulder"—without any
circumlocution.

In his Sunday clothes, however, Tobias o' Twin
Rocks Light was not likely to go to sleep under the
dreariest funeral sermon that was ever preached on
the Cape.  The embrace of the Iron Virgin of the
Inquisition could have been little more
uncomfortable than that of his Sunday suit.

The Mariners' Chapel at Batten was set upon
one of the loneliest sites to be found along the entire
length of the Cape's ocean shore.  Weather-bleached
dunes and flats on which sparse herbage grew
surrounded the chapel.  But the building was centrally
located and tapped a good-sized community.  The
gulls clamored about its squat bell-tower and the
marching sands drifted against its foundation.  The
northeasterly windows which overlooked the sea
were ground by the flying sand to a pebbly roughness.
The high roof beams were hand-hewn, for the
chapel had weathered at least four-score years.  The
pews were high-backed pens with doors.  The
old-time worshipper in the Puritan House of God
preferred to be shut in from his neighbors, and he
likewise kept his religion a matter of close
communion.  The uncushioned seats were the most
uncomfortable that the ingenuity of man could devise.

There had been no service at the house.  Such a
thing as a private funeral was not known in this
community.  A funeral is one of the most important
incidents in the existence of Cape Cod folks,
and at Batten (which was a clam-digging village)
was held at high sea.  It was expected of the
minister that he should preach a full and complete
sermon over the remains.

The bustling old undertaker, in shabby black
broadcloth and with his iron-grey hair brushed
forward over his ears, giving him the look of a
super-serious monkey, marshaled the audience after the
sermon to march down one aisle past the coffin and
out the other aisle.

The grim, mahogany-hued face of Captain
Jethro Potts, the lines of which even the touch of
death could not soften, confronted his neighbors
from the coffin.  His countenance was not composed
as the dead usually are; but looked as though he lay
there in ambush, ready to jump out at one.  There
was even the glitter of a beady eyeball behind the
thin lashes drawn down over his eye.

"He looks mighty like he was a-watchin' of ye,"
observed the undertaker to Tobias.  "I never see
a corp' more nateral."

"You said it.  'Nateral' is right," agreed the
lightkeeper.  "I cal'late Uncle Jethro has got something
to spring on his rel'tives.  He's watchin' of 'em yet."

Whether the other members of the family had
the same feeling about the dead man's alertness or
not, they saw the lid of the coffin screwed down
with complacency.  Tobias was one of those who
bore the coffin out to the churchyard and lowered it
into the newly opened grave, the sides of which
had to be bulkheaded to keep the sand from caving in.

Following the prayer there was a little lingering
in the graveyard.  Judge Waddams had announced
that he would read the dead man's will in
his office an hour later.  Those interested began
drifting back to the village along the white shell
road.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`DEAD MEN'S SHOES`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER VI


.. class:: center medium

   DEAD MEN'S SHOES

.. vspace:: 2

A dozen or more grim-faced men and women
were gathered in the lawyer's office when Tobias
Bassett entered.  He had seen them all at the church
and grave, but there had been no opportunity to
greet personally the Pottses, the Bassetts and the
Dawsons, names which for the most part made up
the roster of Captain Jethro's immediate family.

The lightkeeper proceeded to speak to each in turn.
He was of no grim disposition himself, and was
sport enough in any case to shake hands with his
deadliest enemy before the battle.

His smile and cheerful word were for all, even
for Icivilla Potts who was, of all the dead captain's
relatives, the one who considered that Tobias's
interest in the will should be infinitesimal.  She had
lived next door to Captain Jethro's little box of a
house for thirty years, and had kept a sharp and
hungry eye upon him and his affairs during all of
that time.

"Yes," she was saying, "he depended upon me for
everything.  If Cap'n Jethro had been my own
father I could have taken no more pains with him."

"I don't doubt it!  I don't doubt it!" put in
Mrs. Andrew Dawson, as sharp as any sparrow.  "Cap'n
Jethro told me that you'd interfered with everything
you could, the whole endurin' time.  He said, the
Cap'n did, that you'd change the sun and moon, let
alone the stars, in their courses, if so be you could!"

"Haw!  Haw!" chortled Isaac Bassett, a bewhiskered
old man whose bleary eyes and empurpled
nose told the tale of much secret tippling.  "Le's
speak right out in meetin' and tell all we know.
Who'll be the first of you women to tell how ye
fished ter get the old Cap'n ter come and live with ye?"

"Why, Ike Bassett!  How you talk!" was the
chorus of denial.

"'Tis so," chuckled Isaac.  "Jethro told me once
that purt' nigh every woman that was any kin to
him—and some that warn't—had offered to make
a home for him.  Come to think of it, though," he
added, turning a bleary eye on Tobias, "there was
one he said that hadn't bothered him none that-a-way.
How is your sister Heppy, Tobe?"

"Wal, she ain't no younger," said the lightkeeper,
cheerfully.  "Otherwise she is spry."

Judge Waddams entered at this point, before the
tide of family acrimony could rise higher.  He was
a soft-stepping, palm-rubbing man, with a bald
crown and iron-grey burnsides.  His clean-lipped
mouth was a slit no wider than the opening of his
hip pocket.  Yet he was not an unsympathetic man,
as his mild brown eyes betrayed.

"Well, friends, we are gathered here on an
occasion that I had hoped might be put off for a
score of years yet.  But Cap'n Jethro broke up fast
during the past year, as such men as he often do.
When their old hulks strike the rocks of age they
go to pieces quickly.

"But Cap'n Jethro took time by the forelock and
made all his property arrangements in good season.
He converted everything into cash—even to the
house he lived in to the last—and to settle his estate
is going to be a very easy matter.

"Are we all here?" proceeded Judge Waddams,
looking slowly about the room.  His gaze fastened
upon Tobias.  "I don't see your sister, Miss Heppy,
Mr. Bassett?"

"You'll have to look twice at me, then, Judge,"
chuckled the lightkeeper.  "She couldn't make it
to come, nohow."

Judge Waddams gravely nodded, unlocked a
drawer in his table, and drew forth a folded
document of portentous appearance.  There was
considerable stiffening in the chairs and a general
clearing of throats.  The Judge adjusted his eyeglasses.

"Captain Jethro Potts entrusted me with the
drawing of this will, and it was sealed in my
presence, and in that of two witnesses who have
absolutely no interest in the provisions of the
instrument," he said officially.  "I will now read it."

The introduction and opening paragraphs held
the breathless attention of his audience.  There
followed itemized gifts of personal property, such as
the ancient furnishings of Captain Potts's little
home—keepsakes that might or might not satisfy a
sentimental feeling in the hearts of the recipients.

Icivilla Potts preened herself over the fact that
the walnut highboy which had been the chief piece
of furniture in Captain Jethro's parlor had been left
to her by the maker of the will.  Then:

.. vspace:: 2

"'Item: One certain two-gallon jug containing
Jamaica rum, to my mother's second cousin, Isaac
Bassett—that remaining portion as he shall not have
already drunk at the unsealing of this instrument.'"

.. vspace:: 2

"Heh?  By mighty!  An' I drunk the last drop
o' that rum just before we took him to the church
to-day," exploded Isaac, more in sorrow than in
anger.  "Wal, I always did say that you couldn't
get the best of Cap'n Jethro Potts, dead or
alive—an' this proves it!"

"Sarves ye right," declared Mrs. Andrew Dawson,
as the lawyer frowned down Isaac's interruption.

All those present—and some others—had been
named for legacies of personal property, saving
Tobias.  The other relatives of the dead man began
to gaze curiously upon the lightkeeper as the list
was concluded—Icivilla with scorn.

The lawyer read gravely the next partition of the
will.  It was to the effect that the testator, having
seen clearly that his relatives hereinbefore named
were covetous of his money, and would little
consider the sentimental value of the above legacies,
bequeathed to each person the sum of one dollar to
be paid out of his estate by the administrator,
Edward Waddams.

This stunning statement smote dumb every
listener save Isaac Bassett.  He burst into a raucous
"Haw! haw!" and slapped his knee as he weaved
back and forth in his chair.

"By mighty!" he exploded, "I ain't the only one
old Jethro fooled.  Haw!  Haw!"

The high squeal of Andrew Dawson, who occasionally
asserted himself in spite of his wife, rose
above the general murmur of disappointment and
anger:

"I wanter know, then, what's to become of all
Jethro's money!  I wanter know *that*!"

"If you folks will keep quiet long enough for me
to do so, I will read the remainder of the
instrument," Judge Waddams said sharply.

They subsided.  But there were few but red and
wrathful faces in the company.  Icivilla Potts was
almost bursting with rage.  Judge Waddams continued.

The residue of the estate, which would amount,
after all bills were settled and fees paid, to about
six thousand dollars, was to be divided equally
between Hephzibah Bassett and Tobias Bassett, of
Twin Rocks Light, the two relatives of all Captain
Jethro Potts's clan, as the will stated, who had
never made him feel that they were covetous of his
money or wished him out of the way that they
might get it.

"Oh, sugar!" murmured Tobias, actually disturbed.
"Too bad Cap'n Jethro felt that way about
it.  I don't believe *all* of them wished him dead."

Judge Waddams looked scornfully over the
company now expressing to each other in no unmistakable
terms their disappointment and chagrin, and
observed to the lightkeeper:

"There's a-many people's feet feel that itch for
dead men's shoes, Tobias.  I'm glad you and Miss
Heppy were favored by Cap'n Jethro.  I know of
none of his family more deserving."

"Oh, sugar!" rejoined the lightkeeper, "I cal'late
Cap'n Jethro didn't much consider me and Heppy's
deserts.  It was to satisfy his own grudge ag'in 'em
that he done this.  Still, we are as near to him in
blood as ary one of the others.  And we didn't
never cal'late on getting his money, though I'm
frank to say we hoped he'd give us some if he died
first.

"Wal, Judge, when you want Heppy and me to
sign papers we'll meet you at the Clinkerport Bank.
This ain't no place for me just now.  Icivilly could
purt' near tear me apart.  I am going to escape
while the escapin' is good," Tobias concluded,
chuckling.

He could not play the hypocrite by commiserating
with the disappointed crowd.  Nor did he wish any
of them to congratulate him when their hearts were
not at all attuned to such feeling.

"Least said, soonest mended," Tobias secretly
observed.  "Give 'em time to trim their sails.  But
won't Heppy be purt' near surprised to death over
this?  Oh, sugar!"

He was in no mood to discuss the surprising
outcome of the funeral of Captain Jethro Potts, even
to the curious Clinkerport folks who knew of the
reason for his trip down the coast, and who saw
him alight from the up train that afternoon.

"Wal, how'd ye make out, Tobias?" asked Ben
Durgin, the Clinkerport station agent.

"Purt' tollerble," responded the lightkeeper
cheerfully.  "Though my feet do ache some in these
shoes."

"Did your Uncle Jethro leave much, Tobe?" asked
a bolder spirit.

"Wal, as the feller said, he left the earth,"
chuckled Tobias.

"I say!" exclaimed Ezra Crouch, whose bump of
inquisitiveness could only be equaled by Amos
Pickering, the mail carrier's, "didn't they read the
will, Tobias?"

"Oh, sugar!  Yes.  So they did," agreed the
lightkeeper.

"Wal, then, who's to get his money?"

"Why—there wasn't nobody forgotten," Tobias
assured him.  "No, sir, not a soul!  There ain't no
rel'tive of Cap'n Jethro' that can honestly say he
or she was forgotten in the will."

Nor was he more communicative when he chanced
to meet Ralph Endicott getting out of his roadster
in front of the Clinkerport Inn.

"Wal, young feller!" exclaimed the lightkeeper,
"what brings you over here from Amperly?  Ain't
got your lady friend with ye, eh?"

"If you mean Lorna, I have *not*.  She has gone
to New York on a visit, I understand.  But Uncle
Henry made me come over here and arrange for one
of Tadman's bungalows.  He won't hear to our
going anywhere else for the summer."

"Which don't please you none, I can see,"
commented Tobias.  "Which one of them bungalows
are you going to have?"

"I had to take the one right next to the Nicholet
house," said the disgruntled young man.  "That
was the only one left—it is so late in the renting
season.  I was hoping to get Uncle Henry to agree
to a change for one summer, at least.  But nothing
doing!"

"I see," observed Tobias, grinning privately.

"Uncle Henry is all wrapped up in a new invention.
He wants to be where it is quiet.  The goodness
knows it's quiet enough at Clay Head."

"I cal'late.  Come over to the light, Ralphie, and
have a mess of Heppy's fishballs."

"Well, I might drive you home just as well as
not," the young fellow agreed, smiling.

"You're a re'l bright boy, Ralphie, even if you
can't appreciate Lorny Nicholet."

"Now, stop that, Tobias Bassett!" exclaimed his
young friend, exasperated, "or I'll surely overturn
you in the ditch," and he threw in his clutch with a
vicious jerk as the engine began to purr.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A NEWCOMER`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER VII


.. class:: center medium

   A NEWCOMER

.. vspace:: 2

Tobias postponed the telling of the wonderful
news to Miss Heppy until after supper and after
Ralph Endicott had wheeled away from the Twin
Rocks Light in his car.  She had crowded down the
question until then; but it finally came out with a
pop.

"Who did Uncle Jethro leave his money to,
Tobias?" she demanded, as he turned away from
closing the door.

"To me an' you, Heppy—pretty near every last
cent of it."

"Now, stop your funnin'!"

"Ain't funning.  It is the truth," her brother
said.  "Six thousand dollars, nearabout.  And if
you'd seen Icivilly Potts's face!" he chuckled.

"For love's sake!" gasped Miss Heppy.  "It can't be!"

"It *can* be, for it *is*."

"Why, Tobias, we're rich!"

"I cal'late."

"I—I never would have believed it!" exclaimed
his sister, and sinking into her chair she threw her
apron over her head and began to sob aloud.

"Oh, sugar! what you cryin' for?" Tobias
demanded.  "'Cause Icivilly and them others didn't
get Uncle Jethro's money?  Have some sense, do!
This ain't no time for weeping.  Just think of what
you can do with three thousand dollars."

"You just said six thousand!" ejaculated Miss
Heppy, hastily reappearing above the hem of her
apron.  "Where's half of it gone?"

"Oh, you're to get half and me half.  What you
going to do with your three thousand, Heppy?"

"Just what you will do with yours, Tobias
Bassett!" she exclaimed.  "Put it into the Clinkerport
Bank to our joint account.  We got 'most two
thousand there now.  We'll have eight thousand against
the time when we can't work no more and will need it."

"Oh, sugar!" muttered her brother.  "I might ha'
knowed it.  Your idea of a pleasure spree always
was going to the bank to make another ten dollar
deposit."

"Now, Tobias," she said with gravity, "don't you
let no foolish, spendthrift idees get a holt on your
mind.  I won't hear to 'em.  You never would have
had a penny in the bank if it hadn't been for me."

"That's the truth," sighed Tobias.  "You got me
so that every time a quarter comes my way the dove
of peace on it screams for mercy.  Yessir!  I'm
getting to be a reg'lar miser, 'long o' you, Heppy."

The lightkeeper and his sister fully understood
and appreciated each other's virtues.  That Tobias
was generous to a fault and that Hephzibah's saving
disposition had long since warded him from financial
wreck, they both were well aware.  Tobias publicly
scorned, however, to acknowledge this latter fact.

"I certainly shall hate to see you turn the key on
every dollar of that money, Heppy," he complained,
preparing to mount to the lamp to see that all was
right up there.  "We ain't never cut a dash in our
lives.  I certainly should like to make a splurge for
once."

"You'd fly right in the face of Providence if I
wasn't here to hold you back," declared his sister.
"Experience can't teach you nothing."

"Oh, sugar!  I know I've always spent my paycheck
like ducks and drakes," he chuckled.  "Wal,
leave it to you, Heppy, and Uncle Jethro's money
won't get much exercise, for a fact."

When he came down from the lamp he announced
a change in the weather.  The wind began to whine
around the tall staff and rain squalls drifted across
the sullenly heaving sea outside the Twin Rocks.
The night dissolved into a windy and tumultuous
morning, and the fishing fleet remained inside the
capes.

Tobias went aloft after breakfast to clean and
fill the lamp before taking his usual morning nap.
To the eastward rode a dun-colored object that at
first could scarcely be made out, even by his keen
eyes.

"It's a craft of some kind—sure is!" he muttered.
"But whether it's turned bottom up, or is one o'
them there motor-boats, decked over for'ard and
without no mast—Hi!  There's a mast of a kind,
and with a pennant to it, or something.  Mebbe 'tis
the feller's shirt."

That the motor craft was in some trouble the
lightkeeper was confident.  The heavy seas buffeted
it without mercy.  He saw that the master of the
craft could not keep steerageway upon it.

"He'll be swamped, first thing he knows," muttered
the anxious lightkeeper.  "Yep! he's put up
some kind of a flag for help.  But, sugar! nobody
won't see him from inside the harbor—an' there
ain't another livin' craft upon the sea."

Tobias hurried down from the lamp gallery.  The
cove between the light and the Clay Head was empty
of all craft so early in the season.  In fact, the only
boats in sight were his own sloop, still high and dry
upon the sands at the base of the lighthouse, and
the heavy dory from which he trolled for rock-fish
as he chanced to have time on the outer edge of the
reefs.

He flung a word to Heppy, and she ran out and
helped him launch the dory.

"You have a care, Tobias," she cried after him
as he settled the oars between the thole-pins.
"Remember you ain't so young as you used to be."

"Oh, sugar!" he returned, "I ain't likely to forget
it as long as your tongue can wag, Heppy."

The heaving gray waves roared over the rocks in
great bursts of foam.  The tiny, sheltered bight
between the reefs had offered a more or less quiet
launching for the dory, but the lightkeeper was soon
in the midst of flying spume, his craft tossed and
buffeted by the broken water that eddied off the
points of the reef.

.. _67:

He drove clear of this in a few moments and
pushed out to sea.  Rising on a "seventh wave"—a
particularly big one—Tobias glanced over his
shoulder.  The wallowing motor-boat was still right side
up.  There seemed to be but one person in it.  The
pennant whipped from the short staff in the stern
where the figure of the man was likewise to be
distinguished.

"She's broken down complete," muttered the old
lightkeeper, "and he's keeping her head to it with
an oar."

He settled himself for the long and arduous pull
before him.  In his youth he had many times
managed a dory—sometimes laden with fish from the
trawl-lines—in a worse sea than this.  Tough in
fibre as the ash oar he drove, was Tobias Bassett.
He did not overlook the possible peril in this trip to
the unmanageable motor-boat, but he had taken just
such chances often and again.

Spoondrift, dashed from the caps of the waves,
drenched him.  When he turned his head now and
again to make sure of his course, this spray spat
viciously in his face.  Little whirlwinds swooped
down upon the sea and turned certain areas of it
into boiling cauldrons of yellow foam.

"Looks like a caliker cat in a fit," was Tobias's
comment on one occasion.

But these squalls were for the most part ignored
by the lightkeeper.  They were unpleasant
visitations, but he knew the dory could weather them.

He pushed on unfalteringly.  Glancing from time
to time over his shoulder, Tobias saw that the
occupant of the stalled motor-boat had sunk down in her
cockpit.  He seemed to have lost his steering oar,
and the craft was being tossed whithersoever the
sea would.

"The poor fish!" growled Tobias.  "He's likely
to find a watery grave after all.  Must be something
the matter with him."

As the dory drew nearer the lightkeeper saw a
pallid face staring at him over the gunnel of the
motor-boat.  The boat had shipped considerable
water and was wallowing deep in the sea; but the
man seemed unable even to bail out.

"Crippled—must be," decided the rescuer, at last.
"I'd better get to him soon, or he'll lose all holts."

Despite the boisterous seas the lightkeeper brought
his dory skilfully alongside the tossing motor-boat.
The wan face of the young fellow in it advertised
his woe.

"What's the matter with ye?" bawled Tobias.

"I've hurt my foot!" replied the man.  "I guess
I've sprained it."

"Oh, sugar!  That might ha' kept ye from walking
ashore.  But what's the matter with your boat?"

"The engine won't run, and the steering-gear is
fouled.  I haven't been able to do a thing with it
since daybreak."

"Hard luck!" returned Tobias.  "Better come
aboard here.  Can ye make it alone?"

"Can't you tow me?  I don't want to lose my
boat.  It cost a lot of money."

"Likely.  But I ain't no sea-going towboat," said
the lightkeeper.  "If I undertook to try to tow your
boat, we'd bring up about to the Bahamas.  You'll
have to kiss it good-bye, I cal'late."

"I'll pay you well," cried the other.

"Can't be did," said Tobias confidently.  "Now,
then, when I throw her to ye, be ready to crawl over
the gunnels.  We ain't got no time to jabber.  Stand by!"

Seeing that the old man was firm in his intention,
the castaway prepared awkwardly to make the
exchange.  He was doused between the two boats, but
Tobias Bassett's strong hand helped him inboard,
or a tragedy might have been enacted.  The
castaway was a man in the early twenties, and not at
all robust looking.  Nor did his countenance very
favorably impress the rescuer.

"Still, ye can't scurcely judge the good points of
a drowned rat," Tobias considered, as the man he
had rescued squatted in the stern of the dory,
nursing his right foot and groaning.

"Tell me all about it," the rescuer suggested.
"How did it happen?"

"I left Nantucket yesterday noon, going to Boston."

"All the weather-wise folks on Nantucket must
be dead, eh?  Or didn't nobody tell ye to take the
inside passage?"

"Well, I thought I could make it outside before
it blew really hard.  And I could have done so, only
for that engine."

"I see."

"Then I fell and twisted my foot.  It's swollen,
you see.  Can't put my weight on it."

"Too bad," grunted the lightkeeper between
strokes.  "And you been battin' off and on here all
night?"

"Pretty near."

"Lucky I spied ye.  It's going to blow harder
before it gets through.  You didn't stand much
chance of being picked up by any other craft, so far
inshore."

"I hate to lose my boat," complained the castaway.

"You like to have lost your life, young feller,"
said Tobias, seriously.  "You can get another
motorboat easier.  What's your name?"

"Conway Degger.  I belong in Boston."

"Do ye, now?  Come o' rich folks, I cal'late?"

"Not rich enough to throw away a motor-boat
like that."

"Oh, sugar!  I s'pose not.  If the wind shifts she
may come ashore."

"She'll be smashed up."

"Mebbe not past mending," said Tobias, trying
to be comforting.  "Anyhow, you be glad, young
feller, that ye got out of it as slick as ye did."

"I don't want you to think I'm ungrateful,"
groaned Degger, caressing his bruised foot.  "But
motor-boats don't grow on bushes."

"Never thought they did.  Or I should try if one
o' them bushes would grow in Heppy's garden,"
chuckled the lightkeeper.

It was a long and hard pull to make the lighthouse
landing.  It was near noon, and Tobias had
rowed steadily for four hours, when the dory
grounded upon the sands with the surf roaring over
the reefs between which he had skilfully steered.

"Wal, we made it, didn't we?" sighed the
lightkeeper, with a measure of sarcasm quite lost upon
Mr. Degger.  "One spell I didn't know as we
would—you bein' crippled and helpless like you be."

"I am a thousand times obliged to you, Skipper,"
said Degger, quite warmly, as he cautiously stood
on one foot like a sandhill crane.  "I don't know
how to thank you."

"No, I see ye don't," observed Tobias.  "But
ne'er mind.  I got an attic full of 'thank-yous.'  Don't
try to give me no more.  Come up to the
light and have dinner.  I smell fish chowder, and
I do think my Sister Heppy can make fish chowder
'bout right."

Conway Degger evidently agreed with the
lightkeeper regarding Miss Heppy's cooking.  After
Tobias had aided the cripple to hop up the strand
and to the light, and had introduced him to Miss
Heppy, Degger proceeded to make himself quite at
home.  Miss Heppy plodded up the spiral stairway
to the lamp room after dinner to consult with her
brother.

"He wants I should take him to board for a
spell," she said.  "He seems a civil spoken sort of
boy.  I s'pose we could put him in the spare room,
now that you've finally got new winder-sashes for it."

"Wal, I s'pose you could."

"He wants to stay till his foot gets better.  It's
as black as your hat.  I been bandaging it."

"Did he want a bandage put on his pocketbook, too?"

"Now, Tobias!  He's going to pay me four dollars."

"For the bandage?"

"A week.  For his board."

"That's mighty good——"

"Why——"

"For *him*," finished the lightkeeper.  "But it's
your business, Heppy, not mine.  Seein's we are
only going to have 'bout eight thousand dollars in
the bank, I presume you'd better take boarders to
help out."

"Now, Tobias Bassett! it behooves us to make
money while we may.  We ain't gettin' any younger."

"I agree with you," said her brother.  "And I
don't believe we'll be wickedly overburdened with
all the money you make out of this Degger feller."

For Tobias had judged fairly accurately that
young man's idiosyncrasies.  There was nothing of
the spendthrift about Mr. Conway Degger.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`PHILOSOPHY AND OTHER THINGS`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER VIII


.. class:: center medium

   PHILOSOPHY AND OTHER THINGS

.. vspace:: 2

Tobias Bassett was a social soul and the
"boarder," as he insisted upon calling the young
man he had rescued from the motor-boat, was not
tongue-tied.  Get Degger set on a course, as Tobias
termed it, relating to his own exploits, and the
young fellow became more than voluble.

The lightkeeper and Miss Heppy certainly were
surprised to learn that their visitor was acquainted
with the Nicholets.

"You don't mean to tell me that that is the Nicholets'
summer home up on that bluff?  That first one
yonder?" said the young man.

"That's it," replied Tobias, sitting on the bench
beside the lighthouse door to smoke an after-supper
pipe.  "I see the storm shutters are down.  They'll
be coming soon, I cal'late."

"And Miss Lorna comes here every summer?  A
charming girl."

Tobias looked at him fixedly.

"I don't suppose you'd be knowing Ralph Endicott?
The Endicotts will occupy the house next to
the Nicholets."

"The Endicotts of Amperly?"

"Them's the ones.  Ralph is the one I mean.
Feller 'bout your age, mebbe."

"If it is the Ralph Endicott I know," said Degger,
the expression of his face changing, "he and
I were at Harvard together."

"You don't say!"  Tobias's eyes twinkled.  The
reason for the familiar sound of the boarder's name
was suddenly explained.  This was the "Conny
Degger" Ralph had spoken of, for whose society
Lorna had once shown a penchant.  "I cal'late you
know Ralph pretty well, then?" insinuated the
lightkeeper.

"Oh, I was never chummy with Ralph Endicott,"
Degger observed.  "He and I were scarcely in the
same set."  Which was strictly true.  Nobody could
doubt it.  Then he verged on rather thin ice: "You
see, Ralph's kind are high-flyers."  He dropped his
voice a notch and glanced around to make sure
that Miss Heppy was not within hearing.  "Fellows
like Ralph Endicott don't go to college altogether to
study."

"I give it as my opinion," admitted Tobias, placidly
smoking, "that some of 'em go mostly to learn
about the breeds o' bulldogs—both pipes and canine.
And they study how to play cards, and to dress as
fancy as a nigger minstrel.  I've seen some of that
kind.  But Ralph——"

"No.  He did not run to those foibles, I believe.
But there was a girl—well, you know how it is with
some fellows, Skipper.  Every pretty face attracts
them, and there are plenty of girls of light ideas in
every college town.  Cambridge is no exception."

"Oh, sugar!" ejaculated the lightkeeper.  "I
wouldn't think it of Ralph."

"Sly boy!" chuckled Conny Degger grinning.
"Guess his folks never knew much about it.  They
are straight-laced, I fancy.  But he was seen a good
deal with Cora Devine—and she was not all she
should be."

"Oh, sugar!" exclaimed Tobias again.  "Maybe
'twas only a boy and girl flirtation."

"*She* was no innocent kid.  Believe me, Skipper,
that Devine girl knew her way about.  Why, I was
told she'd been trooping with a burlesque show.
Ralph Endicott made a perfect jack of himself over
her.  It was even rumored that they ran off and
were married once when he was half-stewed."

Tobias jumped on the bench and uttered a startled
exclamation.

"What is the matter, Skipper?"

"Must o' been one of them pesky sandfleas,"
muttered the lightkeeper.  "Wal, go on with your tale
o' crime."

"Ha!  Ha!  No crime about it.  Just Endicott's
foolishness.  If he did marry her, I'm sorry for
him.  She'll be bobbing up to confront him later.
Such girls always do.  They are expensive
trimmings to a fellow's college career."

"I cal'late," agreed Tobias, more calmly.

But later he sounded Heppy on a topic which he
had not touched upon since back in the late winter
when Lorna and Ralph had been stormbound at the
light.

"Didn't Lorny say something to you about Ralph
paying 'tentions to some gal at college?  Wasn't
she some worked up about it?"

"For love's sake, Tobias, she never spoke as
though she'd feel jealous any if Ralph Endicott had
forty girls!  I should say not!  She did mention
that Ralph had some love affair when he was at
school.  But she called it puppy love," concluded
Miss Heppy, with a sniff.

"Humph!  Sort o' scorned it, did she?  It didn't
seem to worry her none?"

"Worry her?  I should say not!  But I guess
'twas only gossip at that.  I don't believe Ralph
Endicott is the sort of a boy to play fast and loose
with any girl."

"Does seem as though we feel about alike on that
score, Heppy," reflected her brother.  "Ralph,
it strikes me, is purt' sound timber.  But I wonder,
now, where Lorna Nicholet got her information
about Ralph's chasing around after that chorus gal?
Does seem as though such a story *might* be one o'
the things that makes Lorna so determined to cut
Ralph adrift.  Oh, sugar!"

But these final reflections of the lightkeeper were
inaudible.  He had by no means lost interest in his
matchmaking intrigue regarding the two young
people who he was convinced were "jest about made
for each other."

His scheme—if scheme he had—had been in
abeyance all these weeks.  Now that the families of
the young people were about to take up their
residence on the Clay Head, he proposed to enter upon
a more active campaign for what he believed to be
the happiness of all concerned.

Not alone was Miss Heppy aware of the long-past
bond of affection between Miss Ida Nicholet
and Ralph's Uncle Henry.  Tobias Bassett had been
just as observant as his sister—or anybody else.

Like others, he had wondered twenty years
before why the then young Professor Endicott had
not pursued with more vigor the charming, if
independent, Ida Nicholet, and made her his bride.
*There* was a romance nipped in the bud which
Tobias always felt he might have mended—"if he'd
put his mind to it."

In any case he determined not to see the ship of
Ralph and Lorna's happiness cast on the rocks if
he could help it.  He felt that it might be within
his power to avert such disaster.  The strategic
yeast of the true matchmaker began to stir within
him.

"Miss Ida," as everybody called Lorna's assertive
aunt, could not be long in any place without making
her presence felt.  Her original and independent
character never failed to make its impress upon all
domestic, as well as other, affairs.  The Nicholet
ménage was run like clockwork.  Miss Ida was the
clock.  Everything at the big house on Clay Head
was soon working smoothly, and Miss Ida could
look about.

She was a tall, free-striding, graceful woman
without a gray thread in her abundant dark hair.
She piled that hair low at the back of her head, and
her neck and throat were like milk, and flawless.

When she came across the barrens under her
rose-tinted parasol to see Miss Heppy at the Light, her
plain morning dress was arranged as carefully as a
ball gown would be on another woman.  In
addition, her pleasant eyes and round, firm chin,
together with her Junoesque figure, made her
appearance most attractive.

"Well, Heppy, how do you do?" she asked, her
voice mellow and full.  "How has the winter gone
with you?"

"'Bout the same as usual, Miss Ida," the
lightkeeper's sister replied.  "You *be* a pretty sight.
None o' the young ones can put anything over you,
Miss Ida.  You ain't got a wrinkle or a fleck of
gray in your head."

Miss Ida laughed.  "I'm forty-two.  I'm frank to
admit it.  Why shouldn't a woman be well preserved
and in good health at my age if she has never
made herself a slave to some man?"

"For love's sake!  As for *that*, I ain't never been
married.  But look at my wrinkles!"

"Those are creases, not wrinkles, in your case,
Heppy," laughed the visitor.  "You are getting too
fat.  And you have been practically a slave for
Tobias."

"Sure she has," agreed the lightkeeper grinning.
"I've been thinking of putting a nose-ring on her.
She's abused, all right."

"You hush, Tobias!  I ain't slaved for nobody
*but* him, Miss Ida," declared Hephzibah warmly.
"While you, Miss Ida, have shouldered the responsibility
for your brother and all his family.  If you'd
married," added the longshore woman wisely, "like
enough you wouldn't have had nowhere near so big
a family to care for."

"I wonder?" laughed the other woman.  Yet her
expressive countenance became immediately serious.
"My family is pretty well grown now, Heppy.  I
am sure even Lorna is old enough to make a nest
for herself.  She has been out two years."

"Out o' what?" Tobias asked, taking the pipe
from his mouth and staring.  "Looks to me as
though she was well supplied with most everything
a young gal ought to have, an' wasn't out o' nothing."

"I mean she has been in society two years."

"Oh, sugar!  That's a case, is it, of when you're
*out*, you're *in*?" chuckled the lightkeeper.  "I give
it as my opinion that the only thing Lorny lacks is
a good husband."

Miss Ida flushed softly.  "I hope she will see the
advisability of choosing wisely in that matter," the
aunt said, speaking intimately to these two old
friends, at the expression of whose interest in her
family affairs she was far too sensible to take offence.

"Yes," she pursued.  "You know what hopes her
father and I have for her.  An eminently fitting
alliance.  And Ralph is a manly fellow.  It does
seem as though those two were quite made for each
other."

"Humph!  Yes.  'Twould seem so," muttered
Tobias.  "But it does appear sometimes as though
the very things that *ought* to be don't somehow come
around to happen."

"You are a philosopher, Tobias."

"Dunno as that's a compliment, Miss Ida,"
rejoined the lightkeeper, his eyes twinkling.  "I got
all my wits about me yet, and most of them philosophers
you hear tell about ain't.  They get on some
hobby and ride it to death.  And a man ain't really
broad-minded unless he can see both sides to a question.

"Now, takin' the chances for and against your
Lorna and Ralph Endicott marryin'.  What would
you say, Miss Ida, was the one best bet?"

He looked up at her shrewdly, holding his pipe
with that familiar gesture of his.  Miss Ida's gravity
grew more profound.

"I believe you and Heppy must know that of late
my niece and Ralph have seemed to fret one
another?" she queried.

"They give themselves away some when they
stopped over here that time they got stalled in
Ralph's car," admitted Tobias.  "Warn't it jest a
leetle spat?"

"I am afraid not.  They have not seemed the
same since.  And I am afraid it is Lorna's fault,"
sighed Miss Ida.  "She is so hot-tempered.  I have
warned her.  The families have never considered
any other possible outcome but an alliance between
Lorna and Ralph.  I have told her so."

"I cal'late you have," murmured Tobias softly,
pulling on his pipe again.

"When she returns from New York—as she will
in a day or two—I shall put the matter to her very
strongly.  If you and Heppy have noticed their
drifting asunder, other people must have noticed it
too.  The Nicholets would be utterly disgraced if it
were said that Ralph Endicott—er—dropped Lorna.
And if he should, I fear it will be my niece's own
fault."

When she was gone Tobias snorted suddenly.

"Oh, sugar!" he said.  "If I scorch 'em a mite
graced, I want to know, when Miss Ida's love
affair with Professor Endicott busted up?  Seems to
me that leetle gal, Lorny, is going to be put upon
by her folks.  *That* won't do."

"Now, do try to mind your own business, Tobias,"
advised his sister, comfortably rocking.  "I
know it will be hard for you to do so.  But you'll
burn your fingers, like enough, if you don't."

The lightkeeper spread out his gnarled,
work-blunted fingers to observe them reflectively.

"Oh, sugar!" he said.  "If I scorch 'em a mite
helping that leetle gal and Ralph Endicott out o'
their muss, what's the odds, Heppy?  You know,
we're put here to help each other."

"That is what most folks say that have an itch
for minding other people's business.  Now, you have
a care what you do, Tobias Bassett."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE DROP OF WORMWOOD`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER IX


.. class:: center medium

   THE DROP OF WORMWOOD

.. vspace:: 2

When Lorna Nicholet first appeared at the Twin
Rocks Light after arriving at her summer home,
she gave no evidence of needing the lightkeeper's—or
any other person's—good offices.  She was her
usual brisk, contented and fun-loving self.

Conway Degger chanced to be present when
Lorna came to the Light.  Miss Ida had not seen
the young man when she had called on Tobias and
Heppy.

"What a surprise, Mr. Degger!" the girl said,
giving him a warmly welcoming hand.  "I had no
idea you were in this locality."

"I am a waif from the sea, Miss Nicholet," he
told her.  "You ask the skipper, here, about it.  I
can never thank him enough.  And Miss Heppy,
too, who has so kindly taken me in and ministered
to my well-being."

"He says it pretty, don't he now?" whispered
Miss Heppy to Tobias.

"Pretty is as pretty does," muttered the
lightkeeper.  "Somehow them fanciful speeches of his'n
don't bait much trawl with me."

But Miss Heppy considered Conny Degger quite
worthy of approval.  Lorna found him interesting,
too.  Perhaps the very fact that her Aunt Ida had
opposed her acquaintance with the young man
caused Lorna to be the more contrary.  And, really,
Degger betrayed some rather attractive traits.

During the next few days the girl and the boarder
at Twin Rocks Light became close companions.
They went fishing together in Tobias's dory.  They
tramped the beach as far as the Lower Trillion
life-saving station, Degger's sprained foot being quite
well again.  And the young man appeared regularly
on the Clay Head bathing beach at the morning
bathing hour.

Among the few families already at the resort,
who made up a little social world of their own, it
soon became a topic of conversation—this
companionship of Lorna Nicholet and Conny Degger.
Particularly was it commented upon, because for so
many summers the girl and Ralph Endicott had been
such close chums.

Although the Endicotts had already arrived at
the Clay Head, Ralph did not at once put in an
appearance.  This fact perhaps threw Lorna the more
into Conny Degger's company.  Tongues began to wag.

"I should say," squeaked Amos Pickering, who
was a very busy man these days because of the
influx of summer visitors, "that Lorny Nicholet has
got another feller.  That long-laiged Endicott boy's
always been tagging her other summers.  Now this
here boarder you got, Tobias, is stickin' to her like
a barnacle.  What d'ye think it'll amount to?"

"I give it as my opinion," retorted the lightkeeper,
pursing his lips, "that it won't add none to your
burdens, Amos.  I don't see no weddin' invitations in
the offing for you to distribute."

"She's jest a-flirtin', is she?"

"Like a sandpiper," declared Tobias.  "Keepin'
her hand in as ye might say.  There ain't a mite
o' harm in Lorny, but she's got to have some amusement."

He was nevertheless glad to see Ralph arrive.
The lightkeeper believed that Lorna would much
better have her old friend at hand to compare
Degger with.

Had he been present at the first meeting of the
trio, Tobias Bassett might have experienced some
doubt of the value after all of such comparison.
Lorna greeted Ralph very coolly.  She and Degger
were about to launch the lightkeeper's dory for a
fishing trip when Ralph came striding down from
the Clay Head.

"'Lo, Ralph," was the girl's careless hail.  "Did
you put the bait-pail in, Mr. Degger?"

"All right, Miss Lorna.  It's right here.  How
do, Endicott?"

"I heard you were here, Degger," said Ralph,
merely nodding to Lorna.  "What's running now?"

"Mostly squeteague and fluke," replied the girl.
"Occasionally a tautog on rocky bottom.  No
snappers yet."

"Nothing worthy of Your Majesty's prowess,"
gibed Degger.  "I understand you are a real
fisherman," and he pushed off the boat.

Ralph's gaze narrowed and his brow clouded.
He sat down on the sand.  There was room enough
in the dory for a third; but neither of them had
suggested his joining them.

Perhaps Ralph's attitude was not exactly that of
a dog in the manger.  But it did trouble him to
see his erstwhile chum so friendly with Conny
Degger.  Not that he knew of anything actually bad
about the fellow.  Merely, he had seemed so
inconsequential and, at times, rather vulgar.

Ralph was quite aware that some men are one
thing to their masculine friends while they act
entirely differently in the company of women.
Degger, he thought, was of that kind.  He hated to see
Lorna "mixing up," as he termed it, with the fellow.

He was not wise enough—wise in women's ways—to
hide this feeling from Lorna's sharp vision.
She flattered herself that her old friend was
displaying jealousy.  This supposition could not fail
to please her.  Ralph had become such a nuisance in
her opinion, that she was determined to show him
that she could easily attract other men.  She would
flout him and his whole family—as well as her
own—by playing about with Conny Degger.

"Ralph thinks that he is the only man who ever
pays me any attention," Lorna secretly ruminated.
"And goodness knows, he has hung around so close
that almost everybody else has been driven off.
Conceited!  That is just what Ralph Endicott is.
Always looking over a tall collar at the rest of the
world.  If he didn't believe that Adam's last name
was Endicott he never would admit relationship
with the first of the race!  Humph!"

So she treated Degger particularly nicely on
this occasion.  She overlooked some rather crude
things about the young man, and from the shore
where Ralph lay she appeared to be having a most
delightful time with her fishing partner.

It made her angry to see how Ralph hung around.
She delayed coming ashore as long as she could,
hoping he would go away.  She did not want a
scene with him.

Ralph, however, did not even rise from his
recumbent position when the fishing party beached
the dory on the strand between the out-thrust reefs.
Lorna hurried away, and Ralph did not attempt to
join her, as she had feared he would.  Instead, he
got up slowly and aided Degger draw up the
lightkeeper's dory.

"Awf'ly nice girl, that," said Degger boldly.

"Yes."

"Good sport, too.  I never met a nicer girl."

"I don't believe you ever did," said the other, his
level gaze boring Degger rather unpleasantly.

"Oh, I don't know!" ejaculated Degger, with
sudden warmth and a sneer on his lips.  "I've known a
lot of girls——"

"But not of her kind," broke in Ralph.  "And
don't you think it!  Watch your step with Lorna."

"What's the matter with you, Endicott?" snapped
Degger.  "I don't have to take orders from you."

"Not as long as you go straight you don't," Ralph
assured him.  "But we all think too much of Lorna
Nicholet around her to see anybody try to
misbehave with her."

"Oh—you——"

"I know a few things about you.  It's none of my
business what you try out with other girls," Ralph
hastily added.  "But you be mighty careful with
Lorna."

He turned on his heel then and strode away.
Degger sneered after him.

"Think's he is the Great I Am!" he muttered.
"You'd think he owned the girl.  And putting on
his airs with *me*!"  Degger's scowl grew darker as
he added: "Guess the beggar wants me to pay up.
That is like these rich fellows.  They are mighty
free offering to lend you money; but they make you
feel the obligation forever after."

Now, Conway Degger quite wronged Ralph on
this point.  The latter had entirely forgotten that
Degger was in his debt from some time back in their
college days.

Indeed, Ralph Endicott was never one to trouble
about money, for he never remembered putting his
hand into his pocket when he wanted that
commodity without finding it.  His family had been
wealthy for generations.  Just how well-to-do they
were in the present generation he had never troubled
to ask.  Uncle Henry and the family attorneys
attended to all that.

It did seem odd that just at this time the money
matters of other people should begin to disturb
Ralph Endicott.  Not that he bothered his head
about Conny Degger's affairs.  It was somebody
entirely different of whose financial difficulties he
was unexpectedly made aware.

Coming up from the shore following his brief
conversation with Degger, Ralph found the old
lightkeeper mending a seine outside the lighthouse door.

"Wal, now," said Tobias, "ye look some het up.
I seen ye soaking yourself out there on the sand in
the sun, and I cal'lated you'd look like a b'iled
lobster when you come up.  And you do."

Ralph knew that it was an angry flush Tobias saw
on his face.  He grinned ruefully.

"More than the sun to make a fellow's blood boil,
Mr. Bassett, sometimes."

"Oh, sugar!" rejoined the lightkeeper.  "Ye don't
let that feller bother ye none, do you, Ralph?"

"I do not like him much," the young man said
stiffly.

"You mean you don't like him to be fooling
around Lorny, hey?" said Tobias, his head shrewdly
on one side.

"It is none of *my* business——"

"Course it is!  Course it is!" exclaimed the
lightkeeper vigorously.  "I've just about sized this
Degger feller up, I cal'late.  His folks ain't any too well
off, and I bet he'll never get round-shouldered
carrying his money around."

"What has that to do with it, Mr. Bassett?"
demanded Ralph, rather startled.

"Why, Lorny can't afford to waste her time with
a feller like him," the lightkeeper declared coolly.
"She's got to marry somebody with money.  I know
by the way Miss Ida was talkin' the other day over
here, she was worried about Lorny marrying."

"What *do* you mean, Tobias Bassett?" ejaculated
Ralph, dropping down on the bench beside him.

"Why, I cal'late you know more about the Nicholets'
affairs than I do."

"I don't understand you at all," said the young
man.  "Do you mean to say——"

"That Lorny's got to marry money—yep!"
exclaimed Tobias, pursing his lips and nodding.  "It
'ud ease matters a whole lot for Miss Ida and
Lorny's father if she gets a rich husband.  Why,
Ralph!  I s'posed you knowed *that*."

"I never dreamed it!"

"Cal'late that is why they were so anxious for
you and her to make a match of it," pursued the
lightkeeper.  "O' course, she don't know nothing
about it.  But I give it as my opinion that a rich
husband for Lorny is going to take a great burden
off the shoulders of her family."

"You amaze me."  Ralph's face was a study.

"So ye see," said Tobias, with a cheerfulness that
grated on Ralph's nerves, "this Degger feller,
unless he's got more money than he's showed any sign
of having, ain't got no chance with Lorna.
Leastways," he added, "not with her folks."

"I—I never thought of it before," said Ralph
reflectively, "but I do not think Degger has much
money."

"Then he'd better be shooed away from the
vicinity, as ye might say," the matchmaker said
vigorously.  "For if you air bound not to marry her
yourself, Ralph, no use her fallin' into the lap of a
poor man."

"You know very well Lorna wouldn't marry me,
Tobias Bassett!" exclaimed Ralph angrily.  "You
needn't talk as though *I* were at fault."

"Oh, sugar!  I don't see you fallin' over your own
feet none, young man, to *make* her marry ye."

"Don't you remember how she talked to me that
night we were stormbound here?  Didn't she fairly
drive me out of the lighthouse right at the worst of
the gale?  You said yourself it wasn't a night fit
for a dog to be out in.  If I'd undertaken to walk
to Clinkerport they'd have found me along the road
somewhere, frozen stiff!  That's all she cared about me."

"Oh, sugar!" said Tobias again, "I wouldn't hold
that against her.  She's spirited, Lorny is.  She
was mad with you——"

"I should say she was!"

"But she didn't re'lly mean it," pursued the
lightkeeper.  "If she had thought you were in danger
she'd never driv' you out.  I'm sartain sure, Ralph,
that she thinks a heap of you."

"She shows it!"

"No, she don't show it.  No more than you show
how you re'lly feel toward her."

"Huh!"

"Oh, I know," declared Tobias wagging a
confident head.  "You wouldn't see no harm come to
Lorny.  That's why I tell you as I do that this
Degger—'nless he's a sight richer than he 'pears
to be—ain't got no business shining around her.
I give it as my opinion that Lorna's friends have
got to come to her rescue and see that she marries
a rich man."

He stopped right there.  Tobias Bassett was wise
in his iniquity.  Without coming out unequivocally
and stating in so many words that the Nicholets
had lost the greater part of their wealth, he had
intimated enough to trouble the waters of Ralph's mind.

The latter could not visualize the luxury-loving,
softly-bred girl as a poor man's wife.  Why, Lorna
never could in this world endure privation, or even
a lack of those things which only money—and
plenty of it—could purchase.

"Poor girl!" was the young man's secret thought.
"She has always expected to have plenty of money
in her own right some day.  Wonder what John
Nicholet has been doing with the family fortune?
Speculating, I bet!  He's a visionary chap.

"But—but it seems terrible for Lorna if she must
marry wealth to save the family from penury.  And
she all unconscious of the fate in store for her.  It
is a wicked, wicked shame!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`STARTING SOMETHING`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER X


.. class:: center medium

   STARTING SOMETHING

.. vspace:: 2

It was long before this that the lightkeeper and
his sister had been put in possession of Jethro Potts'
personal estate by Judge Waddams.  The nine days'
wonder of that happening was past for Clinkerport
folk, and as the old couple made no splurge with
their fortune, the neighbors put aside the matter for
fresher gossip.

With a stern hand Miss Heppy had put down incipient
rebellion on her brother's part.  The legacy
added to what they already had in the bank made
"just a little bit more."

"And that's purt' average unsatisfying,"
complained Tobias on occasion.

"You mean to tell me, Tobias Bassett, that it ain't
a satisfying feeling to know you got nigh eight
thousand dollars in the bank?"

"It's jest so much more of a temptation to Arad
Thompson," sighed her brother.  "Dunno as we'd
be found guiltless if the bank did bust and Arad
Thompson should run off with the funds."

"I cal'late he won't run far in that wheel chair,"
said Heppy, perhaps with additional confidence
because of the bank president's affliction.

However, their simple minds could not fail to be
fixed upon the nest-egg a good part of the time.
When one has worked and scraped to get together
a few dollars over a long stretch of years, the
sudden access of comparative riches cannot fail to
become and continue to be a very important topic of
thought.

Whenever Tobias took his pay check to the bank
and drew the cash needed for their household
expenses, he secretly desired to ask the cashier,
Mr. Bentley, to let him see that eight thousand in real
money so as to be sure the bank was still safely
guarding it.

Tobias usually went to Clinkerport in the sloop
*Marybird* on these marketing expeditions, now that
the weather was good.  Conny Degger on a certain
occasion went with him.

Degger's salvage from the wrecked motor-boat
had been an oar, one seat-cushion, and a broken
pennant staff.  In other words the craft had been
a total loss.  And this fact appeared to worry the
boarder considerably.

He paid his weekly stipend of four dollars to Miss
Heppy with admirable promptness, and he had sent
for a fairly well-filled trunk, so that he made a
presentable appearance in public.  But he seemed to
be, as Tobias had hinted to Ralph, not overburdened
with money.

At least, he spent little in the sight of the
lightkeeper.  He did not even treat the latter to a good
cigar, as might have been expected when Tobias
gave him passage in the *Marybird* to and from
Clinkerport.

"He ain't no three-minute egg, that's sure," was
the lightkeeper's comment to his sister.  "He's
hard-boiled all right."

Nor did Degger seem to make himself popular
with the loafers around the Clinkerport Inn and the
livery stable, as so many of the youthful summer
visitors did.  On one occasion, however, Tobias heard,
and saw the boarder in earnest conference with a
man who seemed to be quite well acquainted in
Clinkerport, although he was not a resident.

"Well, Conny, take it from me," said this individual,
"somebody has got to pay for that motor-boat.
When a fellow treats me right I'm the easiest person
who ever did another a good turn.  But they say
patience runs out of virtue after a while.  That's
my case exactly."

"But I haven't any money to spare at present,
Burtwell," complained Degger, quite loud enough
for the lightkeeper to hear.

"Get busy then and find some.  How do you
manage to live, I want to know?"

"On expectations," Degger rejoined airily.

"Huh!  I've seen her.  She *looks* all to the good,"
Burtwell said coarsely.  "Folks rich, I suppose?"

"As cream," admitted the optimistic Degger.

"And you expect to make a killing, Con?"

"I fancy I am not altogether wasting my time,"
the younger man drawled in a tone that made Tobias
want to kick him.

"Well," Burtwell said, "I can't afford to wait
forever for the money I had to advance on that
motor-boat transaction.  I tell you there is a limit
to my patience.  But there may be a way for you
to help me—and yourself—to some of the wherewithal."

The lightkeeper took his packages then and passed
the couple on the store porch.  He did not glance
at Degger, nor did he wait for the fellow to join
him at the dock.  He got under way in the *Marybird*
and let the boarder exercise his legs on the shell
road if he wanted to get back to the Light for supper.

"Something's got to be done," ruminated Tobias,
tacking for the cove, in which he moored the sloop
hard by the lighthouse.  "This here feller may be
able to rush Lorny an' tie her up to some contract
'fore she knows what he's about.  He seems
a'mighty sure of himself.

"I cal'late," pursued the lightkeeper, "that as the
angels fear to tread on this matrimonial path—as
Heppy says—it's up to me to do so.  I ain't going to
see little Lorny get stung in no marriage game.  Nor
yet I don't mean Ralph shall lose all holts.
Something's got to be done."

It seemed as though circumstances played into his
hands.  Tobias was conceited enough perhaps to
believe that he really was foredoomed to act the part
of matchmaker.  At any rate, there was Lorna on
the shore when the *Marybird* drifted in to her
moorings, the site of which was marked by a nail keg.

Tobias picked up the bight of the anchor cable and
looped it upon a becket, taking a turn or two for
safety.  Then he drew up the dory, put aboard his
purchases, locked the *Marybird's* cabin, and sculled
ashore.  Lorna smiled upon him.

"Nice day, Lorny."

"So it is, Mr. Bassett.  Didn't Mr. Degger come
home with you?"

"Oh, sugar!  I forgot all about him, didn't I?
Did you want to see him partic'lar, Lorny?"

"Just wanted somebody to play with," she confessed.

"Wal! wal! you air to be pitied," he said.  "Won't
Ralph do?"

She made him a little face, but flushed too.

"Ralph Endicott is no fun any more.  He's as
grouchy as a sore-headed bear."

"I want to know!"

"Yes.  He's going away soon, anyway, I understand.
And I'm glad of it," the girl declared.

"Oh, sugar!  I suppose that's so," reflected
Tobias, filling his pipe.  "Wal, a feller can't always
appear chirpy an' lively when things is going wrong
with him."

She flashed him a look of suspicion.  "What do
you mean by that, Tobias Bassett?"

"Er—wal, like enough he don't feel any too
happy.  I give it as my opinion that none of the
Endicotts do, right now.  Wal!"

He sighed reflectively, and slowly pulled on his
pipe to get it well alight.  Lorna continued to stare
at him, a little puzzled frown marring her brow.

"You are the most mysterious person," she said.
"Tell me straight out what you mean."

"Oh, sugar!  I don't guess I need to tell you what
Ralph's trouble is."

She flushed more deeply then, and her eyes began
to spark.  "If you are hinting that I have anything
to do with making Ralph Endicott unhappy——"

"Not a-tall!  Not a-tall!" the lightkeeper hastened
to say.  "But I reckoned you'd know full as much
about the Endicott's private affairs as I do."

"Mr. Bassett! what *is* it?"

"Why, ain't you even heard about it?" exclaimed
the old fellow most innocently.  "Didn't nobody tell
you how the Endicotts have lost purt' near all their
money?  Oh, sugar! ain't you heard?"

"Never!"

"Wal, they do say Henry Endicott has jest about
wrecked the family fortune putterin' with them
inventions of his.  'Tain't to be wondered at.  Might
have been expected.  Foolin' away both time and
money.  Yessir!"

Each of these phrases was emitted between puffs
of tobacco smoke which served as a screen for the
expression on the lightkeeper's countenance.

"Lost their money?  The Endicotts?  You can't
mean it!" ejaculated Lorna.

"Does seem too bad," went on Tobias.  "'Twarn't
Ralph's fault, of course.  But he feels it, I cal'late,
as bad as any of 'em.  Like enough he's goin' away
from here, like you say, to get him a job of work.  I
shouldn't wonder," sighed the guileful Tobias.

"Why, Mr. Bassett, this is *awful*!"  There was
real sympathy in Lorna's shocked tone.

"I cal'late that if your Aunt Ida did have a liking
for Professor Endicott years ago she was wise to
turn him down.  Yes'm.  She likely foresaw the
snarl that was comin' through Henry's puttering
with these inventions.  Your Aunt Ida is a wise
woman, Lorny."

"Why, Mr. Bassett!" ejaculated Lorna, some
displeasure in both her tone and look, "Aunt Ida is
not like that.  She is the least mercenary person I
know."

"Wal, p'r'aps.  I don't know.  But she'll mebbe
be just as well satisfied now that you did turn Ralph
down.  Of course, a feller that's got to work for
his livin'—has his own way to make in the
world—wouldn't do for you."

"I don't know what you mean, Mr. Bassett,"
cried the girl, her head high, her cheeks red, and
already tight-lipped with wrath.  "You have no
right to say that."

"Oh, sugar!  I warn't meaning nothing out the
way," said Tobias easily.  "It's a good thing you
and Ralphie got over your foolishness 'bout each
other.  Now, ain't it so?"

"You have no right—I won't listen—oh, Tobias
Bassett!  Is it really so that the Endicotts are poor?
Has Ralph really got to go to work?  Why! he
never hinted at such a thing when he told me he was
going away."

"Guess you ain't been showing him much sympathy,
have ye?" rejoined the callous Tobias.  "But
now see here!"  His manner changed suddenly.
"Don't you go and run off to him and say that I told
you all this.  I cal'late the Endicotts wouldn't be
likely to want all the world and Dick's hat band to
know they'd lost their money.  Ralph's proud—you
know he is."

"Oh, that is true," agreed Lorna, displaying much
disturbance of mind.  "Ralph is the proudest fellow!
It's in the Endicott blood.  I suppose they would
starve before they would tell their dearest friends of
the straits they are in."

"I cal'late," agreed the quite unruffled lightkeeper.

"Perhaps that is what has made Ralph so grouchy."

"I shouldn't wonder a mite."

"I—I really can't think what to do," murmured Lorna.

"Oh, sugar! you can't do anything, child.  Ralph
wouldn't let you help him.  He wouldn't borrow
money of a girl.  Why, he wouldn't let me lend him
any," and the lightkeeper nodded his head ponderously.

It was plain that what he had said had made its
impression on Lorna Nicholet's mind.  She wandered
away, deep in thought and forgetting all about
Conny Degger.

"I cal'late," muttered Tobias, "I have started
something at last.  Now, let 'er simmer!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE BLACK SQUALL`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XI


.. class:: center medium

   THE BLACK SQUALL

.. vspace:: 2

Lorna Nicholet was of a joyous heart—a
joy-bringer and a joy-giver.  She had spent a happy
childhood.  Miss Ida's firm government had been
the very best bringing up the girl could have had,
for not only was she of a lightsome disposition, but
she was inclined to carry that chief trait of her
character to recklessness.

Left to herself, impulse would more often have
guided her decisions—both momentous and
unimportant—than the really good sense with which she
was endowed.  She was a charming mixture of
infantile trustfulness and downright practicality.  She
was wont to trust in the good intentions of
everybody, yet she often shrewdly evaded pitfalls that
girls of her cheerfully optimistic type sometimes get
into.

Her happy association with Ralph Endicott
caused Lorna to look upon all young men as being
like her chum.  Because Ralph was chivalrous and
a "good fellow," Lorna believed such was the
character of all young men.  She treated Conway
Degger as she always had Ralph.  Degger was
shrewd enough (or was it because of the warning
word Ralph had once given him?) in most instances
to pattern his attitude after the example set by the
frank and clean-minded Endicott.

Occasionally there were crudities shown in
Degger's nature that rather shocked the gently bred
Lorna.  But she overlooked these lapses on his part,
and their companionship was in the main that of two
healthy-minded boys, rather than that of a young
man and a young woman.

She had insisted upon blaming Ralph Endicott
for the determination of their families to force
Ralph and herself into an engagement.  She felt
that if he had "put his foot down like a man" and
refused to hear of any such arrangement the
Endicotts and the Nicholets, in conclave assembled,
would give up the idea.  That she had not yet
declared in her own household that she scorned Ralph
and would not marry him, did not count in her
opinion.  If Ralph was a real man he would not put
such a burden upon her.  And then, secretly, she
knew her Aunt Ida and her father would take any
such declaration on her part very lightly indeed.

"Lorna is very young yet, John," Miss Ida said
to Lorna's father, and in the girl's hearing.  "Too
young to really know her own mind.  But surely,
when she throws off this childishness of thought, she
must agree with us that there is only one proper
course to pursue.  Ralph is a splendid boy, and his
family is irreproachable."

"He's a good deal like his Uncle Henry, I should
say," observed John Nicholet.

Miss Ida bridled, as she frequently did when
Henry Endicott was mentioned.  Lorna had more
than once noted it.

"I should hope Ralph would have some traits of
character not patterned upon those of his uncle,"
she said.  "I believe that if Lorna takes Ralph
Endicott for a husband, she will do extremely well."

What could a girl say in rejoinder to such calm
and over-riding statements?  Individuality was not
to be considered at all!  She must look upon a
marriage contract as of more importance to the family
than to herself.

"I might as well be a French girl, instead of a
real Yankee," she furiously complained.  "What did
our ancestors come here for?  For freedom!  And
I mean to have my share."

"There, there!" sighed Miss Ida, smiling faintly.
"At least, my dear, don't be loud if you do insist on
being childish."

What could one do under these circumstances?
Run away?  Flout her family—and the
Endicotts—directly?  But Lorna had no place to run away
to, and nobody she cared to run away with.  Least
of all at this time did she have any idea of running
away with Conny Degger!

That young man bided his time with admirable
composure.  If he was deeply enamored of Lorna,
he succeeded in hiding the feeling from public view.
The girl wanted a male companion to "play with."  Beyond
having a good time swimming, and boating,
and fishing, and following other longshore pursuits,
Lorna had no thought.  Degger was a patient
waiter.

The old lightkeeper's suggestion that Ralph and
his family were in financial difficulties gave Lorna
certain pause.  She had been treating Ralph
whenever they met to a mixture of careless comradery
and downright snubbing.  He could consider
himself as being, in her opinion, of small importance.
She thought this had begun to make its impression
on what she called "His High-Mightiness."

Of late she had caught Ralph looking at her with
an expression of countenance that she could not
altogether fathom.  Was it a look of compassion?
And why?  Or did it display his secret fear of losing
Lorna altogether?  The girl never had believed that
Ralph Endicott was as much opposed to the
determination of the two families to get them married
as she herself was.  What girl with a proper amount
of pride and vanity could have believed such to be
the fact?

Tobias Bassett's matchmaking, brought to bear
upon Lorna's mind, caused the girl to reconsider
Ralph's evident disturbed mental state.  If
Mr. Henry Endicott had frittered away the family
fortune, as Tobias intimated, naturally Ralph's family
would insist more strongly than ever that he marry
Lorna.

Upon coming of age Lorna would have a considerable
fortune in her own right.  This dowry
the Endicotts naturally would consider as being the
salvation of Ralph's fortunes, if not of the family's.
Nor did this thought seem at all shocking to the
girl's mind.

The idea of Ralph going away to look for a
business opening seemed much more disturbing to
Lorna.  That an Endicott should be obliged to seek
a livelihood in the ordinary marts of trade was a
most upsetting thought.  She really wished—did
Lorna—that she might do something for her old
chum in a financial way without thereby pledging
her hand to him in marriage.

The effect of all these disturbing thoughts upon
her own peace of mind was to be considered.
Already her Aunt Ida had emphatically declared it to
be Lorna's duty to marry Ralph.  If Miss Nicholet
knew of the waning fortunes of the Endicotts,
would she not be the more insistent that her niece
keep faith with Ralph and fulfil the contract so long
arranged by their kin?

"My goodness!" sighed Lorna, being sorry for
Ralph, yet more sorry for herself, "if it would only
enter Aunt Ida's head to marry Professor Endicott.
That would be a logical way out of it, and would
relieve me.  And if Aunt Ida was once in love with
Ralph's uncle, why shouldn't she come to the rescue
instead of making me the sacrificial offering?  Oh,
dear!"

Lorna's confidential relations with Ralph,
however, were broken.  Instead of planning the day's
activities with her old chum, it was to Conny
Degger she turned for assistance in pleasurably killing
the idle hours alongshore.

Degger did nothing quite as well as Ralph—unless
his small talk was more amusing.  He did possess
a fund of amusing chatter; whereas Ralph had been
wont to lapse into long spells of silence while he
and Lorna were fishing or sailing.  Lorna often
accused Degger of "talking the fish off their feeding
grounds."

Still, the light chatter of her new chum was not
altogether unentertaining.  She could not expect
any other young man to be just like Ralph Endicott.
Indeed, she told herself she did not want Conny
Degger to be the same sort of man as Ralph.

Now she had a chance to take the lead when they
went fishing or boating.  She knew infinitely more
(thanks to Ralph) about such sports than Degger.
Lorna could not, however, manage a boat—not
even the lightkeeper's dory—as well as Ralph.  No
fisherman's son in all Clinkerport was a better sailor
of small craft than Ralph Endicott.

So it was that the day came when Lorna (whether
she would or no) desired the presence of Ralph
instead of Conny with her in the dory off the Twin
Rocks.  She had ample opportunity on this occasion
to compare the two young men.

The weather had been uncertain all day.  When
Lorna and Conny Degger came over from the Clay
Head and borrowed the lightkeeper's dory, Tobias
would surely have warned them against going out
had he seen them.  But he was taking his daily nap,
for his care of the lamp in the tall tower kept him
awake a good part of each night.

Gusts of wind were swooping down upon the sea
and ruffling it into lurid patches far off shore—certain
indication of coming trouble.  After the dory
was beyond the shelter of the reefs the pleasure
seekers saw streaks of driving rain racing across
the wave tops, away out on the open sea.  But the
fish began to bite ravenously.

It was while their luck was so good that Lorna
saw suddenly a figure scrambling over the shore-end
of the outer reef, and waving an energetic arm
to them.

"Now, what does *he* want?" the girl demanded,
with no little exasperation.

"Who is it?  The skipper?" Conny asked lightly,
and without turning his head.

"It's Ralph," she said shortly.

"Oh!  Endicott?  He is always trying to butt in,
isn't he?" suggested Conny, laughing.  "Sour
grapes, I suppose.  Let him swing his arm off.  *He*
doesn't own this boat."

Lorna giggled.  "It's funny," she commented,
glancing back at the figure gyrating on the rock.
"Ralph doesn't often get so excited.  And over
what, I wonder."

Neither she nor her companion looked skyward.
Over the bay a black mass of cloud had risen and
was rolling toward the open sea.  Lurid lightnings
played upon its edges.

The dory in which the girl and Conny Degger
sat was several cable-lengths off the jaws of the
reef.  It seemed as though they had plenty of
clear-way in which to manage the craft if a squall did
strike.  Neither, however, expected what was
threatening from the cloud.

When Ralph, mooning alone alongshore, as had
become his wont of late, spied the coming squall
and the couple's danger therefrom, there was ample
time for the fishers to have got up anchor and gained
shelter between the Twin Rocks.

It was several minutes before Ralph realized that
Lorna at least was deliberately ignoring his effort
to warn her of peril.  Or was she so much under
Conny's influence that she considered his wisdom
in weather matters above that of Ralph?

The latter might be stung in his pride—a vulnerable
spot—by such a thought; but the occasion was
too serious for him to shake off responsibility by a
shrug of his shoulders.

He saw at last that the fishers were determined
to yield him no attention.  So, turning swiftly, he
scrambled back to the sands.  At the cove lay his
own motor-boat, the *Fenique*, the fastest of the
small flock of craft moored in the cove.  In five
minutes he reached the strand, pushed in a skiff, and
sculled out to the *Fenique's* moorings.

Already the oily black mass of cloud had spread
over the greater part of Clinkerport Bay.  Thunder
muttered behind it.  The vivid lightnings intermittently
lit the edges of the cloud.  Behind that screen
lurked an electric storm that, when it burst,
promised disaster.  Any light craft in its path would be
as mere culch before a cyclone!

The barren backbones of the two reefs hid the
dory on their seaward side from the site of the
*Fenique's* moorings.  Lorna and Conny might see
their danger in season and make for shelter while
Ralph was getting his motor-boat out of the harbor.
But Endicott must take the risk of this.  As the girl
and her companion in the dory had refused to heed
his warning, Ralph must needs risk his own life.

In spite of the seaworthiness of the lightkeeper's
dory, Ralph did not believe Degger was seaman
enough to handle the boat in a black squall.  On him
might rest the burden of the couple's rescue from the
tempest that threatened.

He snubbed the skiff's painter to the mooring
buoy.  The motor-boat was in readiness for
immediate use.  He cast off the mooring hawser and went
forward to turn the wheel.  The spark caught the
first time he threw the wheel over.  The exhaust
coughed sharply.  Ralph eased on the engine and
seized the spokes of the steering wheel as the
propeller blades began to revolve.

The *Fenique* swam out into the open cove, and he
headed her for the points of the double reef.  The
mouth of sheltered Clinkerport Bay was filled with
racing, foam-crested waves, the slate-hued sides of
which were veined with yellow.  It was a wicked-looking
patch of water into which Ralph steered the
motor-boat.

Above the thunder of the breakers on the rocks
and the roar of the surf along the shore he could
now hear the high whine of the coming squall.  The
black cloud seemed suddenly to have expanded into
a smothering mantle over both shore and sea.

As he steered the motor-boat around the out-thrust
rocks, the black squall burst.  The dory had
not escaped the peril of it.  Lorna and Conny had
got up the kedge, and now Degger was at the oars
tugging vainly to drive the dory shoreward.

"The poor fish!" was Ralph's rather futile comment.

A good boatman would have known instantly
that to head into the wind was a perfectly useless
undertaking.  There was a short mast and a sail
lashed under the thwarts.  To step the mast and
spread a hand's breadth of canvas, so keeping the
dory before the wind and to outrun the waves that
were already beginning to climb, was the seamanly
thing to do.  Just as Ralph had feared, Degger was
doing what most surely would bring the girl and
himself into jeopardy.

"Ought to be a law against fellows like him ever
getting into a boat!" muttered Endicott, increasing
the speed of his own craft when clear of the point.
"He's lost one boat already.  You'd think that
would satisfy him.  And to lug Lorna along with
him——"

Ralph might have been somewhat unfair in this
criticism of Degger; but he was much worried for
Lorna Nicholet's safety.  Under the increasing
strokes of the propeller the *Fenique* began fairly to
bound over the waves.  She shook all through her
length when her propeller blades plunged out of the
water.  She was only "hitting the high spots" when
she came into view of the two in the dory.

Lorna screamed in satisfaction at sight of the
*Fenique* with Ralph standing in her cockpit.  It was
a cheering sight.

But Conny missed his stroke as he glared over
his shoulder to see the approaching rescuer.  A wave
slapped aboard the dory, half filled it, and dragged
one of the oars from Degger's hand.

Lorna screamed again, this time in actual fear.
She was waist deep in the sea that had come inboard.
Degger showed no white feather, although he was
awkward in getting into the stern with the remaining
oar.  The dory had begun to swing broadside
to the bursting seas, and their situation was indeed
perilous.

Ralph shouted a command that the two in the
dory did not hear.  Degger knew of but one thing to
do.  He saw the dory in danger of being swamped
in the trough between two waves, and he plunged
the oar into the sea to right her.  The next instant
another wave came inboard, the impact of it all
but throwing him on his face in the bottom of the boat.

The dory began to settle under this weight of
water.  Their submersion seemed to be at hand.





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.. _`TROUBLED WATERS`:

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   CHAPTER XII


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   TROUBLED WATERS

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Each succeeding wave was likely to slop over the
gunwale and add to the cargo of salt water already
shipped by the dory.  She was squattering down like
a wounded duck, and seemingly quite as helpless.

Degger was able only to cling to the steering oar,
and that was a most futile thing to do.  Lorna seized
the bailer and threw the water out as fast as she
could.  But one person could not bail as fast as the
sea came inboard.

The *Fenique*, meeting the cross-seas as Ralph
Endicott steered her down upon the wallowing dory,
rolled enormously, but her owner knew the craft's
seaworthiness.  Her water-tight compartments, bow
and stern, would keep her afloat even if the cockpit
filled and she became quite unmanageable.

The dory was fairly water-logged.  That indeed
was the salvation for the moment of her two passengers.
The dory would not turn turtle while it swam
so low in the sea.

Lorna was at last thoroughly frightened.  It
was not that she had never been in equal peril.
Once, when they were half-grown, she and Ralph
had been swept out to sea in a never-to-be-forgotten
tempest, and had taken refuge upon the Quail Shoal
lightship.  That was an occasion to be remembered
in very truth!

But the girl had not experienced at that time this
terrible sinking feeling of helplessness that she now
endured.  It was born in her mind that it had been
her perfect trust in Ralph Endicott that had buoyed
her up on those other occasions when they were in
peril together.  She felt her own helplessness at the
present time, and in Conny Degger's face she
marked nothing but an equal fear.  Degger
possessed none of Ralph's initiative nor any degree of
his cool courage.

She was face to face with death.  She could not
swim to the shore in such a sea as this.  Indeed, no
swimmer could live in it.  If Ralph in his
motor-boat did not overtake them soon, Lorna believed
there was little hope for Degger and herself.

She continued to bail desperately.  The water in
the boat rose against her breast and almost choked
her.  The chill of it made her gasp.  Dimly she
saw Degger struggling with the oar.  She looked
away at the plunging *Fenique* with Ralph standing
amidships and clinging to the wheel.

"Ralph!  Oh, Ralph!" she cried aloud.

The words were driven back into her throat by
the gale.  Degger's wildly glaring eyes betrayed his
complete panic.  His very soul had turned to water.
It was mere muscular reaction—like that of a dead
man—that caused him to cling to the oar.  He was
positively transfixed with terror.

The motor-boat plunged awkwardly toward the
water-logged dory.  Its bow seemed aimed to ram
the smaller craft amidships.  The girl stopped
bailing.

If the motor-boat plunged upon them, what could
save the two in the dory?  Lorna stretched her arms
out to Ralph, Conny Degger released the oar,
ashen-faced and trembling.

Ralph's voice (how full and unshaken it seemed!)
came down the wind to them:

"Stand by to grab the rail!  Look out for
yourself, Degger!"

He threw the steering wheel over and lashed the
spokes to hold it steady.  As the *Fenique's* bow
swerved off from the floundering dory, Ralph
sprang upon the roof of the cabin and flung
himself along its slippery surface to reach Lorna's
out-stretched hands.

"Hold hard, Lorna!" he shouted.

The motor-boat slid past the dory.  Ralph fairly
snatched the girl out of it.

Astern he heard an awful cry.  Hugging Lorna
tightly in the embrace of his right arm, Ralph looked
back.

Conny Degger had missed the *Fenique's* rail, but
he had gripped the bight of a rope trailing
overboard.  He was being towed in the sea; dragged
through the bursting waves rather than over them.
His precarious situation was not to be derided.

A curling sea toppled over their heads and fell,
a smashing weight, upon the *Fenique*.  The
motor-boat staggered under the impact of the blow.  The
cockpit was awash as Ralph stumbled down into it
with Lorna in his arms.

The girl struggled out of his grasp.  She seized
the rail, gripping it with both hands.

"Conny!  Save him!" she shrieked.

At this juncture her anxiety for Degger seemed
to mark a deeper interest than Ralph had suspected
she felt for the man.

But Ralph had first their ultimate safety to think
of.  He leaped for the wheel and relieved the strain
under which the *Fenique* labored.  He payed off
carefully until the motor-boat began to ride the
billows more buoyantly.

When he stoppered the wheel again and turned
to aid Degger, Lorna was creeping aft with the
evident intent of laying hold of the rope to which
the man clung.  But she did not possess the strength
to drag him inboard.

Ralph set her aside with a fending arm and seized
the rope.  With a long haul and a heave, he brought
the gasping Degger under the rail of the motor-boat.

As the craft rolled, Ralph leaned over the rail
and seized the half drowned Degger just as the
latter's grip slipped from the rope.  While the rail
dipped to the running sea the rescuer heaved him in-board.

Then Ralph leaped back to the wheel and righted
the motor-boat again.  When she was once more
headed right, flying ahead of the blast, he glanced
over his shoulder.  Lorna was on her knees in the
bottom of the boat with Conny Degger's head in
her lap.  The tableau was somewhat startling.

Of course, if she really cared for the fellow——

Then what Tobias Bassett had said about its being
necessary for Lorna to marry a wealthy man flashed
into Ralph's mind.  Degger certainly was not
wealthy.  Ralph had reason to know this to be a fact.

If the Nicholets were in financial straits and
looked to Lorna to make a moneyed marriage, the
girl had picked the wrong partner in her match-making.

Ralph did not feel any scorn for Lorna in this
supposition.  He only pitied her.  Determined as she
was not to marry Ralph, Endicott knew she must
be forced by family pressure to accept the next best
marriageable possibility.  But he was sure Lorna
was misinformed regarding Degger.

Of course, the latter believed the Nicholets to be
wealthy.  He was, Ralph was confident, nothing
more nor less than a fortune hunter.  That his old
friend and this Degger were mutually mistaken in
each other's financial affairs was not a situation
from which Ralph could extract any amusement.
Not at all!  He hated to see Lorna waste any of her
thought—perhaps a measure of her confidence—upon
such a character as Degger.

"She has gone through the wood and picked up a
crooked stick, after all," Ralph reflected, while
maneuvering the motor-boat.  "I didn't think she was
such a little fool!"

There was some bitterness in this expression of
his thought.  Although he had no wish to marry
Lorna (or so he almost hourly told himself) Ralph
Endicott felt a certain proprietorship in the girl
because of their years of intimacy.  Had she been his
sister he believed he would have felt the same.

When Degger learned that Lorna would have no
dowry, he would leave her flat.  He was not a
fellow to really fall in love with any girl.  He was
too much in love with himself, was Conny Degger.

Ralph looked around again.  The man was
recovering, and Lorna had drawn away from him.  She
was saturated as well as Degger, and Ralph saw
now that she shook with the cold.

"Come here, Lorna, and hold the wheel.  Just as
she is.  There!  I'll get you something to put on."

Ralph drew out his keys and unlocked the cabin
door.  He found a heavy pilot-cloth coat and made
the girl put it on.

"If Degger wants anything let him look around
for it," Ralph said, not altogether graciously.

Lorna flashed him an inquiring glance from
under her wet curls.  Was it possible that he was
showing jealousy of Conny Degger?  In spite of
their perilous position, she was amused by this suggestion.

That they were by no means out of danger was
evident.  The sea was running high, the wind still
blew, and driving rain flattened the tops of the
waves and beat upon the voyagers on the *Fenique*
most viciously.

The motor-boat was still running before the gale.
Seaworthy as she was, Ralph did not dare put back
for the harbor's mouth.  Lower Trillion was the
nearest port they could hope to make in safety.

It was too stuffy and uncomfortable in the low
cabin to attract the girl.  Besides, one felt safer
outside with the seas running as they were.

She looked at Conny Degger's face again.  Its
expression declared so plainly his panic that she
turned her gaze away quickly.  Never again, Lorna
told herself, would she be able to look at that young
man without remembering his cowardice.

Ralph however did not understand this.  He had
mistaken the natural pity the girl showed Degger for
a much more tender feeling.

Endicott had no suspicion that Lorna had been
playing Degger all the time for the express purpose
of making Ralph himself feel slighted.  It wickedly
delighted the girl to feel that she was making her
old chum jealous.

This possibility Ralph would not have admitted
in any case.  Professor Henry Endicott and the
other members of his family were constantly
hinting at a contract between Ralph and Lorna.  Of
late more than a little had been said to him regarding
the girl's association with this Degger.  Why
did Ralph not put a stop to it, they inquired.

Although he denied to himself that he felt any
jealousy, he had begun to believe that it was his
duty to separate Conny and Lorna.  He was not
so lacking in humane instincts as to wish that Conny
had lost his grip on the rope when he was overboard
so that the difficulty would have been quite satisfactorily
settled; and yet the thought flashed into his mind.

As Ralph conned the course of the plunging
*Fenique* he likewise conned the problem of how to
get rid of Conway Degger without inspiring in
Lorna's breast a greater liking for the fellow than
he believed she already sustained.

They raised the Lower Trillion life-saving station
and drove on for the mouth of the harbor.  A can
buoy marked the channel and a deep-mouthed bell
in a bracket on the end of the stone pier tolled
intermittently.  Ralph skilfully steered into the calm
pool behind this breakwater.

"Some traveling," he observed, when he had shut
off the engine and looked at his watch.  "Forty-five
minutes from the light.  The old tub never made
better time, even in a flat calm."

"Are we safe at last?" gasped Degger, sitting up.

"Just as safe as though you were at home and
in bed," rejoined Ralph rather bruskly.

"What shall I do?" Lorna asked.  "I look a fright."

"Why, Miss Lorna," Conny said, quickly regaining
his spirits, "you'll have time enough to dry
your things in the cabin.  We'll be here for hours,
I suppose."

"*We* may," Ralph said quickly.  "But Lorna can
go home by land.  I'll find somebody with a flivver
to take her up to Clay Head."

"Oh!" exclaimed Degger.  "Then I guess I'll
go with her."

"Guess again," Ralph rejoined.  "I need you."

"What's that?" ejaculated the other.

"We'll start back in the *Fenique* just as soon as
the wind hauls off a little.  She's fluttering now."

"Do you think for one moment that I would risk
my life outside in this dinky little craft again
unless it is calm?  I guess all these motor-boats are
alike—as unsafe as they can be!"

"Oh, I'll not start back for the light until all
danger is over," Ralph told him quietly.  "The
clouds are breaking.  In a couple of hours it may
be all right.  And we must pick up Tobias's dory
and tow it in."

"Of course!" Lorna said cheerfully.  "I had
forgotten that."

"Say!" exclaimed Degger loudly, "the skipper's
dory can drift to the Bahamas and back again, as
far as I am concerned.  I wouldn't trust myself
outside again to-day——"

"Then who will pay Tobias for his boat?"
demanded Ralph sharply.

Lorna had been about to suggest this very
point—although more diplomatically—when Ralph
blurted out his question.  The scorn expressed on his
face and the fire in his eyes stirred her to some
defense of Degger's selfishness.

"Of course *I* will pay Mr. Bassett," she said
decisively.  "It is my fault that we lost the dory.  I
asked Conny to take me out in it.  I will pay
Mr. Bassett if it is lost."

"It isn't going to be lost if I can help it," growled
Ralph.  "You can't sink one of those dories very
easily.  I believe I can find it, if we go back before
night.  Tobias is fond of that boat, too."

"Well, find it, if you are so set on doing so,"
snarled Degger.  "I refuse to risk my life."

"You are a lot keener on saving your life than
anybody else, I imagine," Ralph rejoined scornfully.
"I shall need somebody to help when I catch
the dory, and you're elected."

"You can't bully me, Endicott!" cried the other.
"I don't like your manner, anyway."

"That makes me sad," drawled Ralph.  "I'm going
to weep over that—when I find time.  But we'll
have a try for Tobias's dory first."

"I won't go with you.  You can't make me.  I
will accompany Miss Lorna."

"We'll see about that," was Ralph's rejoinder.
He turned to the girl.

"I'll signal the station.  Perhaps Zeke Bassett
can get off, and he will take you up in his car.  He
can find a boat to take you ashore.  I don't want
to beach the *Fenique*."

"That's all right, Endicott.  You need not bother
about Miss Lorna," put in Degger.  "I'll attend to
her transportation to Twin Rocks."

Lorna had hesitated to speak while the young
men quarreled.  Slowly however her expression of
countenance had hardened.  She turned from Degger
and asked Ralph abruptly:

"Do you really think you can find the dory?  Will
it be afloat so long?"

"Oh, yes.  Hard work to sink one of those boats.
With somebody to help me I'm almost sure to
recover it."

"You needn't look to me to help you," sneered
Degger.

"I'll go back with you," Lorna said quickly.  "I
can manage the *Fenique* while you fish for the
dory."

"Miss Lorna!  You won't think of such a thing!"
Degger cried.

She ignored him.

"I'll go below and light a fire, Ralph.  My things
will be dry in an hour.  You put on this coat, or
you'll catch cold," and she slipped out of the
pilot-coat.

"Not me," said Ralph easily.  "Let Degger put
it on.  He'll be cold riding up to the light in that
open car of Zeke's."

Lorna dropped the coat on the bench and without
looking again at Degger opened the cabin door and
slipped below.  Degger's face displayed his chagrin.
Ralph chuckled audibly, turned his back on the
fellow, too, and shouted shoreward.

The coming of the *Fenique* had been marked by
the lookout in the cupola of the life-saving station,
and the very member of the crew of whom Ralph
had spoken, Zeke Bassett, now appeared upon the
sands.

"Got your car handy, Mr. Bassett?" called Ralph.
"Got a passenger for you to take to the Twin Rocks
Light—and beyond."

"Sure, I'll take him," was Bassett's reply, seeing
that Ralph indicated Degger.  "Got enough of the
briny, has he?  I'll come right out in Sam's skiff
for him.  You had some weather comin' down,
didn't you, Mr. Endicott?"

"'Some weather' is right," agreed Ralph.  "But
she's clearing now, don't you think?"

"Sure," said the surfman.  "Them black squalls
don't really amount to nothin'—after they are over."

Ralph turned to Degger again.  The fellow was
recovering a measure of his usual confidence.  He
put on a somewhat uncertain smile.

"If you all think the trouble is over, I don't know
but I might go back with you after all."

"I *do* know that you won't!" Ralph retorted.
"You get into that skiff, Degger, when Bassett
comes out for you."

"Say! who are you bullying, I'd like to know?"

"I'm telling you.  I did pick you out of the sea, but
I don't have to keep you aboard here any longer
than I wish to.  You'll go ashore now."

"Oh, yes!  That is the kind of fellow you are,"
snarled Degger.  "You've had it in for me ever
since I borrowed some of your loose change back
there at Cambridge.  I haven't forgotten it—don't
think!"

"I thought you had," was Ralph's mild sarcasm.

That did not even cause Conway Degger to blush.
He still spoke heatedly.  "I presume you expect me
to fall down and worship you for saving my life."

"Not *you*," sighed Ralph.  "Gratitude I am sure
is not your besetting sin."

"Oh, you're only jealous," sneered the other.
"Anybody can see that.  And you think you'll have
a better time alone with Lorva aboard than you
would if I went back to the light with you."

Ralph started for him.  Then he halted, holding
himself in.  If there was a fight here on board the
motor-boat Lorna must surely be aware of it.  He
bent on Conway Degger a look that warned him
that he had gone far enough.

"I know just the sort of scamp you are, Degger,"
he said in a low voice.  "I should not have let you
hang around as you have.  Your rep at college was
enough."

"How about your own?" sneered Degger.  "There
was that Cora Devine—how about *her*?"

"Well, how about her?" rejoined Ralph, with
unmoved countenance.

"You try to interfere in my affairs," Degger said
furiously, "and somebody will hear all about that
Devine girl—believe me!"

"I don't just get you, Degger," Ralph returned
calmly.  "But if for no other reason, that threat
would make me promise to interfere—and to some
purpose."

"You——"

"Listen!" commanded Ralph, with a gesture that
silenced the oath on Degger's lips.  "When Zeke
Bassett takes you as far as the Twin Rocks Light,
you pack your grip and go on with him to
Clinkerport.  I don't care how far you travel beyond
Clinkerport.  But if you are still at the Light when I
get back there, I'll thrash you out of your skin!
Believe me, Degger, I mean it.  I hope you will be
unwise enough to wait for me at the Light.  You'll
be glad enough to go after I give you what you are
suffering for."

He turned to catch the loop of the painter Bassett
tossed him, and drew the skiff alongside the
motorboat.  Degger did not even hesitate.  He stepped
down into the small boat, shaking with the cold, if
not with fear.  He scorned Ralph's pilot-coat.  The
surfman grinned up at Ralph, nodded, and pulled
back to the strand.

Ralph Endicott had taken the bit in his teeth.
He was determined to run certain matters his way
from this time on!





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.. _`CROSS PURPOSES`:

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   CHAPTER XIII


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   CROSS PURPOSES

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An odor of coffee was wafted through the cracks
around the cabin door.  In a little while Lorna
called him.

"I've made a hot drink, Ralph," she said.  "Just
as soon as I get my clothing dry you must come
down and change."

"Thanks, Lorna," Endicott said, accepting the
cup of coffee.  "But I don't need to.  I didn't take
a header into the briny as you did.  You'd better
put on my oilskins.  Your dress won't be fit to
wear."

He had removed his shoes and socks and rolled
up the legs of his trousers.  In this free-and-easy
costume he could the better get about the wet boat.
He swabbed out the cockpit and set the waterproof
covered cushions on their edges to dry.  He wiped
off the machinery with a handful of waste, and tried
the spark.  The mechanism of the *Fenique* seemed
to have suffered but little from the battering of the
heavy seas.

The clouds scattered quickly.  The sun appeared
again, low hung in the west and of a
golden-red—prophesying that old weather-wise doggerel:

   |   "Red at night
   |   Sailors' delight."
   |

The slate-colored seas outside the harbor still ran
high, but they heaved now without breaking into
foam.  Their rumbling thunder against the
breakwater was more subdued; no longer did the fierce
insistence of the black squall mark the sound of
the surf.  The brief tempest had winged its way
out to sea.

"Shall we start soon, Ralph?" asked Lorna,
appearing from the cubby in the mannish apparel he
had suggested.

"If you are not afraid that it is still too rough."

"Nonsense!  I'm not afraid with *you*," she said
with a frankness that secretly pleased him.  She
seemed quite unconscious that her words marked a
comparison of Conway Degger and Ralph.  She
added: "The *Fenique* is a good boat."

"We'll try it, then," Ralph said cheerfully and
without looking directly at her.

But she was worth looking at!  With her glossy
curls banded with one of Ralph's old neckties that
she had found below, her dark and glowing face
was more piquant than usual.  The oilskins
swathing her figure made it seem veritably boyish.

She, too, was barefooted, and her tiny, high-arched
feet were as white as milk.  Ralph looked
at them shyly; but Lorna seemed quite unconscious
of his scrutiny.

They did not speak of Conway Degger.  Yet
Ralph thought—it was a poignant flash in his
mind—that the girl had been just as unconsciously frank
with Degger as she was with him.  Was she not
too old now to play about with men, like the little
tomboy she was wont to be?

Never until Degger had come into their life had
this thought ruffled Ralph's tranquillity.  Surely
Lorna Nicholet was a woman grown.  She should
leave off childish things.

Yet she was such a bewitching morsel of a girl!
Ralph moved nervously.  He cast another glance at
those wondrously white, blue-veined insteps.

She was so slim, yet perfectly formed!  The
ankles sticking out of the rolled-up legs of the
oilcloth trousers were wonderfully sculptured.  She sat
on the bench with her ankles crossed before her, for
all the world like a thoughtless boy.  Nevertheless
her sex-charm took hold upon Ralph Endicott's
senses as it never had before.  "Why," he told
himself, "what a sweet wife Lorna would be for the
man who wooed and won her!"  It was sacrilege
for a fellow of Conny Degger's kind to be accorded
even the most innocent association with her!

"She's nothing but a child in thought," Ralph
told himself.  "She's had too much freedom.  Or
have I grown up in this last year while she has
remained just what she looks to be—a little, winsome
child?"

Ralph Endicott should have looked twice, perhaps.
As he turned determinedly away the girl shot him
a roguish glance from under her tumbled curls.
Then she drew in the tiny feet, and the voluminous
trouser-legs fell over and hid them.

Ralph did not understand the new feelings
stirring within him.  Without another word or glance
he started the engine and steered the motor-boat for
the narrow entrance to Lower Trillion Harbor.

The sea was extremely choppy at the harbor
mouth.  The motor-boat danced about, her
propeller wiggling wildly out of the water more than
half the time.  But Lorna expressed no perturbation.
She only clung to the rail with both hands,
and when a billow chanced to break and dash a
bucket of water over her, she laughed aloud.

"Plucky kid!" thought Ralph with pride.  "There
never was a girl to beat her—never!"

Yet he had by no means forgotten how unkindly
she had treated him.  There was that time back
there in the late winter when they had been cast
upon the hospitality of the lightkeeper and his
sister.  Ralph could not overlook that occasion.

"If she thinks she can pick me up and throw me
away again, like an old glove and just as she pleases,
she's a lot mistaken," the young man told himself.
"I believe Lorna is a born flirt."

He could not really harden his heart toward his
little chum.  But he told himself he was not blind
to her faults.  He had always excused her
waywardness, even of late.  And now what Tobias had
said about the Nicholets' financial trouble made
Ralph feel even more consideration for the girl.

Of course Miss Ida and John Nicholet were
particularly desirous that Lorna should marry Ralph,
especially in view of the family's misfortune.  And
if Ralph did not marry her the Nicholets might
make it very unpleasant for Lorna.

"I'll say they will," sighed Ralph.  "She doesn't
know about their poverty, poor girl.  They are
covering it up all right.  But it is going to put us both
in a mighty tight corner.  Lorna can't marry a
poor man in any case.  Why! that is preposterous
to consider even.  But if she doesn't favor me—and
heaven knows she doesn't—how will she ever square
it with her family?  They have never given her a
chance to meet the right chaps.

"Great grief!  Do I want to marry Lorna or not?
I wonder!"

He cast another glance at her over his shoulder.
She still sat on the bench.  She had shaken the
curls over her face, and her red lips were pursed in
a most adorable pout.

Ralph sighed hugely, shrugged his shoulders, and
looked forward again.  It certainly was a puzzle!

Suddenly he saw something that brought a cry
from his lips.  Lorna jumped up and ran to him,
clinging to his arm and pressing close against him as
she looked over his shoulder.

"Oh! do you see it, Ralph?" she cried.

He pointed.  The dory heaved into view again
on another billow—a dark patch upon the
slate-colored sea.

"Can we catch it?" breathed Lorna in his ear, a
curl brushing his flushing cheek.

"To be sure," and he moved aside.  "You take
hold here.  She doesn't kick much.  Steady now!"

"Oh!" she pouted, "I can manage the old wheel
well enough," and she crowded in beside him.

She had rolled up the sleeves of his storm jacket,
and her little brown hands gripped the wheelspokes
in a most capable fashion.  Ralph stepped back and
allowed her to take his place.  He grew cool again
and grinned to himself.  She certainly was one
plucky girl!

He had no idea that he had overlooked a chance
that perhaps would never be offered to him again.

He got a bucket from below and then coiled
down a length of halyard and held the end of it
in readiness as Lorna brought the *Fenique* rubbing
alongside the wallowing dory.

Ralph went over the side, carrying the rope and
bucket with him and stood knee deep in water in
the dory's bottom.  He bent on the line and
gestured to the girl to bear off so as to drag the dory
astern of the motor-boat.  Then he went to work to
bail out with the bucket.

This was a hard fight at first, for the waves were
still boisterous.  Every now and then one broke
over the dory and came near to filling it as full as
it was when Ralph got aboard.

But the young fellow persevered.  If he possessed
one characteristic stronger than another, it was
stubbornness.  At this juncture it proved to be a
virtue.  He plied the bucket steadily, and at last
lowered the water in the dory so that he could afford
to take breath.

"Good boy, Ralphie," shouted Lorna, down wind,
and he looked up to see her elfin face all asmile
again for him.  He waved his hand cheerily.  "Shall
I tune her up a little?" she asked.

"Little at a time, Kid!  That's the boy!"

He had spoken to her that way ten years before
when they were in the middle of some adventurous
escapade.  Lorna flushed and turned away her face
again.  More than a pout expressed her vexation
now.  Ralph did not show a proper appreciation of
her "grown-upness."  She had been for the moment
too kind to him!

So after that, and when he had bailed the dory
completely and had come inboard, Lorna snubbed
him.  Her fluctuating attitude certainly puzzled the
young man.

"Now what have I done?" he secretly wondered.

But as she left the wheel to him without speaking
and went to sit down alone in the stern of the
*Fenique*, he did not urge conversation upon her.
They sailed into Clinkerport Bay, and so around to
the cove beside the lighthouse, both about as
cheerful as had been their wont when together during the
past few weeks.

Tobias came down to the shore to hail them.

"I give it as my opinion," the lightkeeper said,
"that you sandpipers air all lackin' in good sense.
'Tis a mystery to me how you come to get raised to
the age you be without getting drowned a dozen
times over!"

"I was born to be hung," Ralph told him.  "The
sea isn't wet enough to drown me."

"But you've no business riskin' Lorny's life in
your tom-fool v'y'ges."

Ralph did not even bother to deny the lightkeeper's
charge.  He snubbed the motor-boat to the
mooring buoy and then sculled Lorna ashore in the
dory.  She still wore his oilskins and was
bare-footed, but carried her dress over her arm.

"I'll run up to the light to dress," she said.  "In
any case I must see Mr. Degger for a moment."

.. _`"I'll run up to the light to dress," she said`:

.. figure:: images/img-138.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "I'll run up to the light to dress," she said.

   "I'll run up to the light to dress," she said.


"Your eyesight will have to be pretty average
good, then," drawled Tobias.

"Why?" she asked, hesitating.

"He's left."

"Why, he was with us down at Lower Trillion!"

"Ya-as.  I know.  He come back up here with
Zeke in the automobile, changed his clothes, packed
his sea chist, and went on with Zeke to Clinkerport.
Heppy's fair put out.  She'd made a heap of
fishballs for supper.  Cal'late you an' Ralph better
stop an' help us eat 'em, Lorny."

"Thank you.  As Mr. Degger has gone I will go
home immediately," the girl said.  "Good evening,
Mr. Bassett."  She did not even cast a scornful
glance at Ralph.

"Oh, sugar!" was Tobias's comment.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A VARIETY OF HAPPENINGS`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XIV


.. class:: center medium

   A VARIETY OF HAPPENINGS

.. vspace:: 2

Ralph remained at the lighthouse and did justice
to the fishcakes.  Miss Heppy was "all in a stew,"
as Tobias said, over the sudden departure of the
boarder.

"I'm fair troubled that he wasn't satisfied with
our table," the good woman said.  "Fishballs and
brown loaf and clam chowder and johnnycake and
baked beans Saturday night and Sundays, is pretty
tryin', I do allow, to them as ain't used to it.  We
never do have a piece of fresh meat."

"Oh, sugar!" chuckled Tobias.  "Don't belittle
your fodder, Heppy.  You air a mighty good cook
as fur as you go.  If you had all kinds of fancy
doo-dads you wouldn't know how to cook 'em, you
know you wouldn't."

"What do you s'pose cookbooks was made for,
Tobias Bassett?" demanded Miss Heppy.

"I cal'late they make good pipe-lights," rejoined
her brother, suiting his action to his word as he
stood at the mantel after supper and rolled himself
a spill of a page of the culinary guide in question.
"Come, Ralph, le's go up and see if the light is
burning bright.  'You in your small corner, an' I in
mine.'  That allus seemed a cheerful sort o' hymn
to me.

"Huh!" he added.  "Got your own little packet
of coffin-nails?  That Degger feller was always
havin' one o' them things stuck in a corner of his
mouth."

Ralph promptly threw away the cigarette and
filled his pipe from Tobias's sack of tobacco.  The
lightkeeper led the way, chuckling.  When they
reached the lamp room the old man turned a curious
eye on his young friend and bluntly demanded:

"Tell us all about it, Ralphie.  I see the mention
of our ex-boarder stirred you up.  What made him
in such a hurry to leave us?"

"Don't tell Miss Heppy," begged Ralph, "but I
guess it is my fault that she's lost her boarder."

"You ought to have a leather medal for bringing
it about," declared Tobias.  "I certain sure was
glad to see him go.  What happened?  He and
Lorny got out in my boat while I was asleep.  I
can't be about and stirrin' to watch the weather for
'em *all* the time."

Ralph briefly narrated the adventure while Tobias
listened, puffing at his pipe and nodding his head.

"I cal'late Lorny's got something to thank you
for, then?" he suggested.

Ralph laughed harshly.

"You saw how she acted when we came ashore.
Did she seem overpoweringly grateful?"

"Oh, sugar!" chuckled Tobias.  "What chance
did you give her to fall on your neck and tell you
how much she thought of you?"

"Now, Tobias Bassett!  I don't want any girl
to fall on my neck.  Least of all Lorna Nicholet."

"Ain't ready yet to sacrifice yourself' for the
good of her family?"

"I won't see a fellow like Conway Degger fool
her," growled Ralph.  "I will break up his game all
right.  But I tell you Lorna would not marry me
on a bet."

"Oh, sugar!  She's something of a sport, Lorny
is.  I cal'late you ain't ever made her that proposition?"

"Really, I don't have to wait for a ton of coal to
fall on me to take a hint," Ralph said, but looking
away from the amused lightkeeper.

"No?  I dunno 'bout that," muttered Tobias, who
found his matchmaking with this rather dense
young fellow somewhat uphill work.  "I'd like to
see Lorny get a good fellow with as much money
as you've got, Ralph, and almost as much sense."

"Huh!"

"And that Degger don't fill the bill."

"If he doesn't let her alone——"

"Yep.  That's all right.  But in removing him
from the scene you don't give Lorny no other
play-toy.  And she's been used to having a chap at her
beck an' call all of the time.  You know that."

"But, Tobias!  She doesn't want me.  She has
shown plainly enough that she cares nothing for me."

"Oh, sugar!  I don't see how it is that you young
fellers understand so little about womenfolks."

"To hear you talk!  And you not even married!"

"That's why," rejoined Tobias slyly.  "I cal'late
I understand 'em too well.  Now, s'posin' Lorna
was a gal you'd just met and you was stuck on her?
S'posin' you wanted to make a good impression on
her—eh?  How would you go about it?  S'posin'
you was really fallin' in love with Lorny?"

Ralph slowly flushed.  The smoke from his pipe
choked him—or seemed to.  He coughed and turned
from Tobias again.

Actually he was seeing in his mind's vision a
tiny, milk-white, blue-veined foot sticking out of
the leg of a pair of oilcloth overalls.

.. vspace:: 2

But Lorna Nicholet possessed dignity, too.  Nor
did she have always to wait on the ruffling of her
temper to show it.

Miss Ida chanced to suffer an infrequent
headache on this evening and there were guests at
dinner, although it was quite an informal affair.  An
hour after she had run barefooted and in Ralph's
suit of oilskins, along the beach and up the path to
the house on Clay Head, Lorna, in a perfect dinner
toilet, slipped into the seat at the head of the table
after her father and his guests were seated.

There are raveled edges at every dinner to be
hemmed.  The perfectly served meal is usually the
one over which the hostess has worried her nerves
to the raw.  There was a new maid—of the usual
kind one gets at the seashore—and Lorna was
obliged to cover her deficiencies and carry on at the
same time a spirited conversation with the women
guests.

The men were seated at her father's end of the
table, and Lorna sensed early in the meal that this
was a semi-business gathering.  The wives had been
brought along to make the occasion seem less like
a board-room wrangle.

Now and then Lorna heard a few words of the
business discussion that went steadily on from
cherry-stone clams to black coffee, like an organ
accompaniment to the chatter of feminine voices.

"But we can't count on Endicott."

"What is the matter with the fellow?  He was
strong for the proposition a year ago."

"Usually Henry Endicott will at least listen to
plans for a public improvement."

"Wrapped in some new invention, like enough."

"Those experiments of his must cost him a pretty
penny."

"And they bring in no dividends," was the
conclusion of John Nicholet.

It was these observations coming to her ear that
caused Lorna to seek her father in his den after the
guests were gone.  She rustled in and perched
herself upon the broad arm of his smoking chair and
set, as usual, a moist kiss upon the apex of his bald
crown.

"A very satisfactory evening—yes, very satisfactory,"
said John Nicholet.  "Let me see.  Where
was your aunt, child?"

"Headache, daddy.  I believe that is more often
than not a feminine excuse for escaping a dry-as-dust
dinner.  I don't blame Aunt Ida.  I do think
that your business friends' wives are the most
unentertaining people!"

"Bless us!  Are they?  I had no idea.  Really,
pet, it was a business conference."

"So I gathered," Lorna said.  "What was it all
about, daddy?"

"Just a scheme for making two dollars grow
where only one grew before.  And I think it will
succeed."

"Without Professor Endicott's cooperation?" she
asked.

"Bless us!  Do you—ah, you 'listened in,'
rogue!" he accused, shaking an admonishing finger
at her.  "Keep a still tongue about it, please, for
the present."

"Surely.  But I was interested——"

"Of course.  Of course," said her father.
"Especially when you heard the name of Endicott.  If
your Ralph had any money of his own (which he
hasn't, for it is all tied up in trust funds, I
understand) I would let him in on this instead of his
Uncle Henry."

Lorna had gone red and looked vexed at his
mention of "her Ralph."  But she was still curious.

"I suppose Professor Endicott really manages the
whole Endicott estate, daddy?"

"Oh, yes.  It is all in his hands.  And I do not
understand when we offer him such a bang-up
investment why he doesn't come in."

"Could it be possible that he is short of funds,
daddy?"

"Of ready cash, you mean?  Why, I have always
understood that the Endicott securities were so
placed that they brought in a continual stream of
dividends.  Conservative in the extreme, yet safe
investments.  Otherwise, how has Henry managed
to run that family in such an extravagant way and
to pour money into his experiments as well?"

"Couldn't that be the very reason why he does
not enter into this investment that you have offered
him?" ventured Lorna.  "Perhaps the Endicott
fortune is depleted to such an extent that he has no
surplus for investment."

"Bless us!  Do you know that to be a fact, daughter?"

"I do not know anything about it.  It may be
only gossip.  But it is reported that Professor
Endicott has wasted the family fortune."

"Dear me!  You don't mean that, Lorna?  That
would be a catastrophe.  What does Ralph say
about it?"

"I have never spoken to Ralph about such
matters," said Lorna, a little stiffly.

"No, no.  I presume not.  Such a sordid thing
as money does not interest you youngsters.  And
in any case, if Ralph didn't have a penny to bless
himself with, we can be thankful that your money
is well placed and you and he need not worry."

Lorna got off the arm of the chair quickly.  She
stamped her foot.

"Daddy, I tell you I have no intention of marrying
Ralph Endicott!"

"Bless us!" gasped her father.  "If Henry has
made ducks and drakes of their money and Ralph
hasn't a penny, who will marry the boy if you
don't?"

.. vspace:: 2

Amos Pickering waved a flabby hand to attract
the attention of the lightkeeper while yet the
monster-headed horse was a long way from Miss
Heppy's flower-beds where Tobias was sunning
himself with his pipe.

"Here comes the *Daily Bladder*," remarked
Tobias, speaking to his sister, who was inside the
lighthouse.  "Now we'll l'arn whose punkin is the
biggest."

He arose slowly from his seat and went down
the sandy slope to the road.  Amos had a paper for
the lightkeeper, but he was bursting with news himself.

"Ye ain't got no boarder no more, I understand,
Tobias," the rural mail carrier began.

"You understand correct," agreed Tobias, biting
on his pipe stem.  "An' I give it as my opinion that
Heppy maybe just about broke even on his board—if
anybody should drive up and ax ye, Amos."

But the mail carrier brushed this financial
consideration aside.  There was the canker of gossip
eating on his inquiring mind, and he blurted out the
subject at once:

"I didn't just know whether you run that feller
out, Tobe, or whether 'twas his fight with Ralph
Endicott that sent him kitin'."

"His fight with Ralph?" questioned Tobias with
pursed lips.  "Did they fight?"

"So I'm told.  Didn't you hear about it?" asked
the eager Amos.

"Not as I know of."

"Why, so they tell me down to Little Trillion.
Over that Nicholet gal.  You know, Tobias, she's
been playin' fast and loose with them two fellers all
summer."

"No.  I didn't know that, neither," declared the
lightkeeper, puffing more rapidly on his pipe.

"Wal, now, you know, Tobe, she's got them two
fellers on her string.  It come to a head, they tell
me, an' Endicott licked this Degger to a fare-ye-well,
put him ashore at the Lower Trillion life
saving station, and sailed away with the gal on that
motor-boat of his'n.  They tell me they was gone
all night, nobody knows where—heh?"

For Tobias had dropped his pipe and his eyes
suddenly blazed.

"I know all about that, Amos," he said sternly.

"Ye do?  I thought ye didn't."

"I know it ain't so.  Ralph went out after Lorna
and that Degger in his motor-boat when they was
in danger of being drowned as dead as Pharaoh's
hosts.  He put Degger ashore at Lower Trillion
'cause the feller was scare't.  He brought Lorna
back here less'n an hour after Degger arrived in
Zeke Bassett's car.  That's the truth on it.  Who's
tellin' this dirty story about town, anyway?"

"Wal, now, Tobias, mebbe it is nothin' but a pack
o' lies.  They was a-tellin' of it at the post-office.
That Degger is stoppin' at the Inn.  He an' a feller
named Lon Burtwell.  Mebbe you've seed him
about town, off an' on, this summer?"

"Go on," said Tobias, ruefully scrutinizing the
broken pipe he had picked up.

"An' they said that Degger said he'd had a row
with Endicott.  He said Endicott had sailed away
with the gal.  Intimated mebbe they'd *e*-loped.
Degger said Endicott did just that with another gal
once, when he was at college.  There was a scandal
about it."

"And I can see there's some scandal about this,"
Tobias rejoined reflectively.  "Wal, Amos, dates is
dates, and you can't fool the clock.  I met Ralph
and Lorny when they come ashore, and it was just
in the shanks of the evening, 'fore supper.

"I don't reckon Ralph ever laid his hand on that
Degger yet; but if he hears this story I shouldn't
be surprised if there was a ruction.  I knowed that
Degger didn't have no more morals than a clam worm."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`DECISIVE ACTION`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XV


.. class:: center medium

   DECISIVE ACTION

.. vspace:: 2

It was impossible that such a story should be
wafted about the community without reaching
Ralph Endicott's ears.  Lorna might never hear it,
but Ralph's association with the longshore folk was
much closer than that of most of the dwellers on
Clay Head.

In spite of the Endicott pride and a large measure
of dignity for so young a man—which Lorna
sometimes scoffed at—Ralph was not considered at all
"stuck up" by the natives.  He was quite at home
on fishing smack or clam flat.  He could hold his
own in any work or rough sport with the younger
men of Clinkerport.  And, in addition, he could be
depended on at any time to lend a hand.

For this very trait of which fellows of Degger's
kidney had taken advantage at college, Clinkerport
folk respected him.  And the individual who
brought to Ralph the unkind gossip that the mail
carrier had repeated to Tobias o' the Light, thought
he was doing Ralph a favor.

"'Course, we don't b'lieve nothing like that of
you and Miss Nicholet," the gossip-laden tongue
concluded.  "And Amos Pickering says that Tobias
Bassett says that you an' the gal was back at the
Light from Lower Trillion an hour after Degger
got back.

"But you know how such stories spread.  The
truth's a cripple while a lie wears the seven-leagued
boots!  An' this Degger does say that you had
trouble over another gal up there where you went
to college——"

"Where is Degger keeping himself?" demanded
Ralph, breaking into his informant's story at this
point.

"Why, he an' Lon Burtwell air around together
a good deal.  You know Burtwell?  He's some kind
of a promoter—or suthin'.  I dunno but he's buyin'
up cranberry bogs.  There's his car standin' over
yon'.  He and Degger rides around together a good
deal."

Ralph waited, his face rather blue looking, his
eyes smoldering.  After a time he saw Conway
Degger come out of the hotel.  He was with a dark,
sleek-looking man.

They got into the touring car, the dark man,
whom Ralph knew to be Lon Burtwell, settling
himself behind the steering wheel.  Ralph stepped into
his own drab roadster.

The other car passed him, heading out of town
on the road to Harbor Bar.  Ralph pushed the
starter.  Then he let in his clutch.  The roadster
wheeled into the wake of the bigger car.  Both left
town at an easy pace.

Whether Degger looked back and saw that they
were followed and by whom, or for some other
reason, as soon as they were clear of the town the
bigger car's speed was increased.  It whirled away
in a cloud of dust, and the roar of its muffler could
have been heard for miles.

Ralph stepped on his accelerator and the
low-hung roadster darted up the road as though shot
out of a gun.  There was no county constable by
the way to time either of the cars.

The start Burtwell's car had gained in the beginning
kept it well ahead for the first ten or twelve
miles.  The smaller car, however, was of racing
model, and Ralph was a speed demon.  He finally
forced the nose of his machine almost under the
rear axle of Burtwell's motor car and hung there
with bulldog persistence.

Degger knew the pursuer was there, as was shown
by his climbing upon the seat and looking over the
crushed-back hood of the car.  He motioned Ralph
away.  If the bigger car had to slow down there
might be a collision.

But Endicott knew exactly what he was about.
He wanted to worry the driver of the big
automobile.  His was the speedier machine of the two,
and he knew how to handle it to a hair.  As
Burtwell slowed down, Ralph shut off speed accordingly.
The road was narrow here, and he waited for a
wider stretch of it before proceeding with a plan
he had.

"Get back!" yelled Conny Degger, gesticulating
with his hand.

Grimly Endicott held to his course.  Burtwell
slowed still more.  They came to the wider piece
of road for which Ralph had been waiting.

He pulled out from behind Burtwell's car and
went past like the wind.  There was less than a
mile on which to maneuver, and it was a lonely
piece of road.

For twenty seconds the roadster dashed ahead
with a thuttering roar of its exhaust.  Then Ralph
shut off, applied the brakes cautiously and, just as
he was stopping, turned the car squarely to block
the road.

Burtwell's horn emitted a scared squawk.  He
came to a stop with clashing gears and Burtwell
himself spouting profanity.

"What do you mean, you crazy fool?" he bawled,
hopping out from behind the wheel when his car
had stopped with its radiator almost touching the
mudguard of Ralph's roadster.

"I have no business with you, Burtwell," Ralph
replied, carelessly tossing his gloves and the cap and
mask into his driving seat as he stepped from his
own car.  "My business is with Degger."

"What kind of a hold-up is this, anyway?"
demanded Burtwell blusteringly.  "Do you want to
talk to this fellow, Conny?"

"I haven't got a bit of use for him," declared
Degger, remaining in the seat.

Ralph's smile was grim enough.

"I've only one use for you, Degger," he said.
"I'm going to mop up a part of this road with you.
Get out and take your medicine."

"What's this?" snapped Burtwell.  "You ruffian!
Get your car out of my way and let us pass, or I'll
show you something altogether new."

"Keep out of this, Burtwell," advised Ralph
quietly, yet never losing sight of the promoter.  "I
am going to give Degger the thrashing of his young
sweet life."

"What for?" demanded Burtwell.

"He knows.  Perhaps it is because I don't like
the color of his tie—or the cut of his coat—or that
hat he wears.  In any case, it is going to be just as
good a thrashing as though I had the best reason
in the world——

"Ah!  Would you?"

Burtwell's hand had gone to his hip and he started
to draw something from his pocket.  Ralph stooped,
leaped forward, and drove his right shoulder into
the fellow's midriff as he wound his long arms
tightly about his waist.  Endicott had not played
tackle on the scrub team for nothing!

The breath was driven out of Burtwell with an
explosive grunt.  Ralph wrenched the weapon from
his hand, stood up, and threw the fellow full length
in the dust.

"That will be about all for *you*," he said sharply.
"A pretty little automatic."  He tossed the weapon
over the nearest fence.  "Now, Degger, get out of
that car.  Or are you packing some such plaything
as your partner?"

He leaped to the side of the automobile and
seized Degger by the shoulders.  The fellow
screamed as Ralph dragged him out over the door.

"Put up your fists, Degger," commanded Ralph,
setting him staggeringly on his feet in the road.
"Defend yourself!  Whether you fight, or don't
fight, I am going to do my best to change your face
if I can't your morals."

"You brute!" bawled Degger, growing white.

"That won't save you," Ralph declared, and
struck a blow that, landing upon Degger's forehead,
knocked him clear across the road.

"Get up and take it!" exclaimed Ralph fiercely.
"Or shall I come after you?"

But the blow had roused every ounce of fight
there was in Conny Degger.  He bounded across
the road and swung his right hand high above his
head.  Just in time Ralph saw there was a stone in
it.

He dodged, and the missile sailed over the
roadside fence.

"Good!" shouted Ralph, and, leaping into the
fray, struck again and again.  "I don't—much
care—how you fight—as long—as you—do fight!"

Each punctuation was a punch delivered.  A
dozen healthy blows landed about Degger's head.
He was already groggy.  He began to yell for
Burtwell to help.

"Get something!  Out of the tool box!  Knock
him out!" he shouted.

Ralph had not overlooked the possibility of
Burtwell's coming into the fight from that angle.  The
man had scrambled to his feet and was doing
exactly what Degger begged him to do.  He was
rummaging in the tool box.

At this moment Degger received a terrific blow
on the jaw.  He sank under it, and his eyes rolled up.

Ralph caught him before he could fall, wheeled
with him in his arms and heaved him up just as
Burtwell started with a heavy wrench in his hand
for the common enemy.

"Didn't I tell you to keep out of this?" Ralph
panted, and with a great heave of his shoulders
flung the almost senseless Degger into Burtwell's
face.

The two went down together, and neither
immediately tried to rise.

Ralph went to his car, looked back over his
shoulder, and with a flash of teeth and a bitter grin
demanded:

"Got enough?  You, Degger, know what this is
for.  If you don't put a bridle on your tongue after
this, better put many a mile between us.  For if I
come after you again I won't let you off so easy."

He got into the car, started it, backed it around,
and shot up the road on the return journey to
Clinkerport before his two victims were on their
feet.

Ralph was not entirely unmarred.  When he had
backed his roadster into the stable behind the
bungalow that served the Endicotts for a garage, he went
into the washroom and bathed his bruises and the
cut above his right eye.

There was room in the stable for his small car
and the family automobile.  The remainder of the
floor space had been turned into a laboratory and
workshop by Professor Endicott.

The latter caught sight of his nephew before he
could plaster up the cut.  He opened the door of
the washroom, and, standing there, a tall, sapling-like
figure in his white smock, stared rather grimly
at Ralph.

"Another smash-up?" he asked.

"No, sir.  The car isn't hurt.  Just a little trouble
with a fellow."

"With whom, may I ask?"

"That Degger."  For Ralph was nothing if not
perfectly frank.

A smile wreathed Professor Endicott's lips.  He
was an austerely handsome man with abundant hair
which was gray only at the temples, and a smoothly
shaven face.  His eyes saw all there was to be seen
through amber-tinted glasses.

That he kept much to himself, seemed not fond
of society, and was wholly wrapped up in his
experiments, made Professor Endicott seem less
human than he really was.  His sense of humor was
by no means blunted.

"So you finally awoke to the presence of the
worm in the apple?" he suggested.

"Degger has a dirty mouth.  I had to stop it,"
muttered Ralph.

"It went as far as that?"

"Say! how am I going to tell Lorna who she shall,
or shall not, associate with?"

"You should have a right to."

"Let me tell you, Uncle Henry, Lorna is not a
girl to be bidden in any matter.  No man will ever
dominate her."

"You used to," said the professor, with a sudden
smile.

"Yes.  When we were kids.  But no more.
Believe me, Lorna is a young woman who knows her
own mind and means to have her own way."

"Even with the man she marries?"

"She has no intention of marrying me."

"Don't you mean, Ralph, that the lack of
intention is on your side?" said the professor, his brow
bent sternly.  "The fault lies at your door, young
man.  There has been a well understood arrangement
for years——"

"Between the families—yes," interrupted Ralph.
"But Lorna and I never agreed.'

"How can you talk so childishly?" said Professor
Endicott in much the same tone Miss Ida Nicholet
used with Lorna.  "It is too late to hedge now,
Ralph.  Be a man.  Fulfil your family obligations.
If the girl seems indifferent it is because you have
not been sufficiently loverlike.  Can't you see?"

"I see well enough; but you do not," his nephew
returned bluntly.  "I am quite sure Lorna cares
nothing for me in that way.  And I am not at all
sure that I wish to marry her."

"Yet you interfere with this Degger——"

"If she was my sister I'd do that.  He is a
scurrilous scoundrel."

"Of course," was Professor Endicott's thoughtful
comment.  "I presume Lorna will attract plenty
of such fortune hunters until you and she let it be
publicly announced that you are engaged."

Ralph's expression changed.  He wagged his
head in a regretful negative.

"No, uncle, I think not.  Degger, even, was bound
to learn in time that the Nicholets are not as well
off as they are counted."

"What?  What's that?" demanded the professor,
startled.

"Haven't you heard anything about it?"

"That the Nicholets have lost money?"

"*All* of their money.  So I understand.  I bet
Lorna's father has been speculating—and with her
money and Miss Ida's as well as his own."

"Great heavens, Ralph! this is not a joke, is it?"
gasped his uncle.

"I don't see anything to joke about in the loss of
one's fortune.  Either it is so, or it is not so."

"John Nicholet is visionary.  He was at me not
long ago to join in one of his financial schemes.
I could not be bothered.  Besides, I told him plainly
I needed all my ready cash for these experiments
I am making.

"I—I—Ralph!  If this is *true*—if our neighbors
have sustained severe losses—surely you would not
break off with Lorna because of that?  What if she
has no dowry?"

"Uncle Henry!"

"Of course not," said the professor hurriedly.
"We have plenty of money, Ralph.  There will be
enough for you and Lorna.  The little girl never
need feel the pinch of poverty."

"But suppose she will not have me in any case?"
cried the younger man.  "I can't carry her off to the
minister's and marry her, willy-nilly."

"Pooh!  Pooh!  Cave-man tactics are quite out of
date.  You are a most unromantic chap, Ralph.
Why don't you try to make the girl like you?  And
surely she *must* marry somebody with money.  It
would be a calamity if she secured a penniless
fellow like that Degger.

"It is your duty, Ralph, to fulfil the plans made
by the two families for your welfare and the girl's.
Under the disturbing circumstances you speak of,
it is all the more important that you and Lorna
come to a prompt understanding.  Suppose they—Miss
Ida, for instance—should believe for a
moment that because of their misfortune we
were—er—unwilling to have the engagement announced?
Why, Ralph, the Endicott name would be forever
disgraced!"

"Huh!"

"If Lorna's fortune has been unwisely invested
by her father—and Miss Ida's money, too—something
must be done about it!  Something certainly
must be done!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`POISON`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XVI


.. class:: center medium

   POISON

.. vspace:: 2

So near did Tobias Bassett's matchmaking
schemes come to naught that had he known it he
would have—in his own words—"let go all holts."

It seemed that his intimation to Ralph and Lorna
regarding the supposed loss of their respective
fortunes was a bubble that was bound to be punctured.
For Professor Henry Endicott, in spite of his
seemingly self-centered existence, possessed a proper
share of kindliness, and considered the Nicholets'
financial troubles as his own.

He seldom left his own premises.  Between meals,
and sometimes until late into the night, the
professor lived in his laboratory, reading and
experimenting.  The white smock he wore while thus
engaged had become much more familiar to him
than evening dress.

Yet after dinner on this evening Ralph was
surprised to see his uncle, arrayed in the prescribed
garments for an evening call (and rather rusty they
were, for Mrs. Mallow, the housekeeper, knew little
about grooming a man, and their old valet, Jerome,
was purblind and fairly tottering with age), march
across the two lawns to the Nicholet house.

Ralph himself was seriously considering the
journey which he had already hinted to Lorna he
purposed taking.  He was not saying anything about
it at home, for he feared his Uncle Henry and his
Cousin Luce would object.  He was determined,
however, not to waste the entire summer in loafing
about Clay Head and the Twin Rocks Light.

Ralph planned for this escape from home
entanglements just as another and lighter-minded young
fellow might have schemed for some forbidden
spree.  He packed his steamer trunk in secret.

Professor Endicott came to the dimly lit veranda
of the Nicholet house, which overlooked the starlit
bay.  The white beam of the Twin Rocks Light was
flung far seaward.  Its illumination did nothing to
abate the pale rays of the stars which glittered on
the ruffled water of the almost land-locked harbor.

A figure in white, quietly swaying in a basket
rocker, leaned forward to distinguish the man's
features.

"Henry!  Professor Endicott!  Come up.  You
*are* an unexpected caller."

"Er—yes, Miss Ida.  I am not very neighborly
in my habits, I acknowledge.  So busy—always.
You know.  Er—is John in his room?"

"My brother has gone to Boston," said Miss Ida,
pushing a light chair toward him with her neatly
slippered foot.  "Will you sit down, Professor
Endicott?"

"Thanks, Miss Ida.  Has John gone for any
length of time?"

"He could not tell me how long he would be
away.  But he did say he might be detained for
some days.  Did you wish to see him particularly?"

"Yes.  I did, really.  But of course I can wait
for his return," Henry Endicott added hastily.
"There is nothing troubling him in business, Miss
Ida, is there?" he finally blurted out.

"No.  Not that I know of," was the slow reply.

"I fancied the last time John spoke to me he was
in some business difficulty.  Nothing of—er—importance,
of course.  But I was so deep in the theory
of an experiment at the time—ah, perhaps I did
not pay sufficient attention.  Of course you would
know, Miss Ida?"

"My brother confides a good deal in me," said
the woman placidly.  "I believe he has under way
some new business deal.  Perhaps it is that you
mean."

"Perhaps that was it," returned Endicott.

How could he come out bluntly with this
suspicion Ralph had put in his mind regarding the loss
of the Nicholet fortune?  He could not do it!

He uttered a few commonplace remarks.  He
was vastly disturbed, and even a téte-à-téte with
Miss Ida did not calm him.  It was on the tip of
his tongue all the time to venture upon the ground
of financial difficulties.  Yet it was quite plain to
the professor's observation that Miss Ida was not
after all in her brother's confidence regarding this
very serious matter.  If outsiders were informed of
the disaster that threatened or had overtaken the
Nicholets, the head of the family had managed thus
far to hide it from the other members thereof.

Miss Ida was quite unaware of any present or
coming disaster.  The professor desired greatly to
get hold of John Nicholet.  He finally said:

"When John returns, tell him to come and see
me."  He rose from his seat.  "I really wish to talk
with him.  Perhaps there is something I may be
able to do——"

His words trailed off again into silence.  He said
good-night and descended the steps.  When his
figure was only a dim outline across the lawn, Miss
Ida sighed.

A dainty person in a shimmering frock came
lightly to her side from the darker end of the porch.

"What did the professor want, Aunt Ida?"

"I really cannot imagine," Miss Ida said, quite
composedly.

"But didn't he seem disturbed—more than usually
difficult?"

"'Difficult' does express it, Lorna," said Miss
Ida.  "He said he wished to talk with your father."

"On business?" Lorna asked with some eagerness.

"Yes.  He intimated as much.  But why——"

"Oh, Auntie!" exclaimed the girl.  "I am afraid
it is true!  I told father."

"What did you tell him?  What are you talking
about?" asked Miss Ida Nicholet in her most placid
manner.

"I believe Professor Endicott is in financial
difficulties.  They say he has lost his money—has quite
ruined the family."

"Lorna!"

"Yes.  I told father.  I wish he were at home
now.  He is so full of this new business deal that
he must have forgotten what I told him I had heard
about the Endicotts.  I believe that is what is
troubling Ralph so much—makes him go mooning
about as he does."

"Indeed!" ejaculated Miss Ida.  "Are you quite
sure that it is not your treatment of the boy that
causes his moodiness?"

"Oh, dear, Aunt Ida!  Ralph Endicott does not
care how I treat him.  I wish you could have heard
him when we were coming up from Lower Trillion
the other day in his *Fenique*.  Called me 'kid'!  Girls
mean nothing to him.  At least, not *this* girl," and
she laughed airily.

"But, Lorna," said her aunt, "can it be possible
that this tale you have heard is true—about the loss
of Henry's money?"

"Well, Aunt Ida, how did the professor impress
you just now?"

"As acting very strangely—even for him.  And
his peculiar manner did not seem to arise as usual
from his habitual absent-mindedness."

"That is what I thought.  Of course the poor
old fellow always does have a 'lost, strayed, or
stolen' way about him——"

"Why, Lorna!  Professor Henry Endicott is not
old—not at all!" admonished Miss Ida heatedly.

So near did Tobias Bassett's scheme fall through.
Had John Nicholet been at home the fanciful tale
of financial disaster, at either the Nicholet or
Endicott side of the big lawn, would have been exploded!

As it was, the next morning, before Miss Ida
could make up her mind to go to Professor Endicott
and put a plain question or two, the latter had
plunged into a new series of experiments from
which the family did not dare to try to recall him
under any circumstances.  And on the professor's
part, he had quite forgotten the Nicholets' financial
troubles.

Ralph "fiddled about," as Tobias Bassett said, as
uncertain in his direction as a crab.

"I give it as my opinion," the lightkeeper observed
to Miss Heppy, "that the boy can't make up his
mind whether to go about or keep on the main tack.
He is as onsartain as April weather."

"I do hope he ain't sick," said his sister.  "Maybe
he's comin' down with something."

"Oh, sugar!  There ain't nothing the matter with
that fellow's health," chuckled Tobias.  "All he's
sickenin' for is *girlitis*—got it the worst way.  Only
he don't know it."

Nor was it thought of Conny Degger that
disturbed Ralph's mind.  At least he did not fear that
individual's approach to the Clay Head or the Twin
Rocks Light.  He did not, however, take into
consideration the possibility of Lorna's meeting the
treacherous Degger at a distance.

One must occasionally shop.  An entire summer
could not pass without the need of renewal in the
Nicholet household of clothing and domestic
necessities.  Clinkerport stores did not carry much variety
in any merchandise.  So Lorna started early one
morning, driven by Jackson, the Nicholets' gardener
and chauffeur, for the Big Town.

It was when she was returning and was still
several miles on the far side of Clinkerport that Lorna
spied a familiar figure walking ahead of the
automobile in the road.  She leaned over the back of
the driver's seat and spoke to Jackson:

"That is Mr. Degger ahead of us, Jackson.  Stop
when you reach him.  I wish to speak to him."

They were almost upon the pedestrian before
Lorna saw the bandage about his head and that he
carried his left hand in a sling.  The noise of the
stopping car made him look around.

Ralph had certainly fulfilled his promise.  He
had so greatly changed Conny Degger's facial
appearance that only from the rear was he to be easily
recognized.

Besides his swathed forehead he had one rainbow-colored
eye and a bruise on his cheek that gave him
the appearance of carrying what the children call
an "all-day-sucker" in that side of his mouth.  When
he opened his lips to speak to Lorna the absence of
two teeth made an ugly gap in an otherwise perfect
upper set.

"Mercy's sake!" gasped Lorna.  "What has
happened to you, Mr. Degger?"

For the second time since she had known him,
Lorna gained a look right into the very soul of the
fellow.  She had seen him display cowardice in the
face of danger.  She scorned him for that, yet
realized that he was a landsman and—unlike Ralph
and herself—was unused to the more boisterous
phases of the sea.

Here was something different.  He did not sneer.
It was a positively wolfish snarl that he displayed
in reply to her question.  The blood rushed into his
face, making the whole of it almost as dark as
though his bruises were a complete mask.

"So you haven't heard the glad news?" he lisped
through his missing teeth.

"What do you mean, Mr. Degger?" she demanded.
"Get in here.  I wish to speak with you.
Oh! is your arm broken?"

"My finger.  When I hit him," said Degger, with
a harsh laugh.  "I guess he carries the mark.
Haven't you seen him?-"

"Seen whom?"

"Endicott."

"I don't understand," murmured Lorna.  "I have
not spoken with Ralph for two days.  You—were
you fighting with him?"

"I tried to defend myself," snarled Degger.  "He
caught me unaware.  I had no idea he was such a
brute."

"Oh!"

"He'll come to you and brag about it, all right,
when time has erased the few marks I put on him.
I fought back the best I could.  But he gave me no
real chance—none at all."

"What did Ralph attack you for?" the girl asked,
her practical sense coming to the fore.  It was not
easy for her to believe that Ralph Endicott had
been so unfair as Degger declared.

"Oh, we had words," was the latter's hesitating
reply.

"Over what?"

He looked at her from under lowered lids.  The
color receded from his face.  The corners of his
lips curled in a wolfish smile.  He was not a pretty
sight.

"It was nothing you would care to hear about,
Miss Nicholet," was his apparently evasive reply.

She knew he desired her to urge his confidence.
It would have been wiser had she refused to be thus
baited.  But curiosity is a most irritating complaint,
and Lorna was not immune.

"I want to know what you quarreled about,
Mr. Degger," she said.  "I know you and Ralph had
words when you left us aboard the *Fenique* down
there at Lower Trillion.  You were angry, or you
would not have gone away from the light without
bidding any of us good-bye.  I think you two men
are very foolish.  Fighting and quarreling.  Like
dogs!  It is most disgraceful.

"And if I thought," she added, "that you and
Ralph quarreled about me——"

He flashed her another lowering glance.  His
smile now was most malicious.

"No, Miss Nicholet," he said quite truthfully,
"your name was not mentioned between us."  Then:
"Our difficulty arose over quite a different person."

"Yes?"

"I was a fool!" he exclaimed with apparent anger.
"I tried to do somebody a favor.  I thought I might
be able to show Endicott wherein he was wrong.
Never will I try again to point out his duty to a man!"

Lorna listened with growing amazement.  This
certainly was a new side to Degger's character!

"Just what do you mean?" she asked wonderingly.

"Well, I do not feel myself bound to secrecy.  It
is Endicott's affair.  I only tell you what is common
knowledge.  There was a girl Endicott was chasing
after more than a year ago."

"Indeed?" said Lorna stiffly.  "I do not believe
I care to hear——"

"Well, you wanted to know what the row was
about, didn't you?" he snarled.  "I have mentioned
Cora Devine before to you.  I thought it was
something of a joke then.  But since I have found out
that Endicott treated her very shabbily.  She was a
silly girl, I guess—one of that kind that believe
everything a fellow like Endicott tells her.  And she
probably knew he was rich, too."

"Oh!" gasped Lorna.

"It's a sordid piece of business," said Degger,
ruminatively.  "Whether he really did take her
away from her folks or not, I don't know.  But she
needs help now, and I heard about it.  I put it up to
Endicott and—well, you can see what I got for my
pains," he concluded with a bitter laugh.

Lorna was shaken by his words.  She was
disgusted and horrified.  Ralph Endicott to be
connected with such a sordid affair as this that Degger
intimated?  She could scarcely believe it.  She
thought she knew Ralph so well!

"I cannot imagine Ralph doing such a thing as
you suggest, Mr. Degger," she said gravely.  "I
think I know him quite as well as anybody—better
than you do, for instance——"

"I don't doubt it," interposed Degger, grimly.
"But a fellow is sometimes quite different away
from home—and at college—from what he is among
his family and friends."  He laughed harshly.  "Oh,
Endicott knows the girl well.  See here!  This he
tore from his address book and threw at me when
he said he'd got through with her—well, you can
look or not as you please," as Lorna turned her
face from him.

He had dragged from his pocket the crumpled
leaf of a memorandum book and offered it to her.
In spite of herself the girl could not refuse to look
at it.

She recognized a leaf of the little red book she
had often seen in Ralph's possession.  Yes!  That
was his writing.  She would know it anywhere.
Boldly Ralph had set down:

.. class:: left white-space-pre-line

   "Cora Devine
     "27 Canstony Street
       "Charlestown, Mass."

.. vspace:: 2

Lorna was not likely to forget that name and
address.  A flame of anger shot all through her
trembling body.  She did not realize that Degger
was watching her with sly delight at the mental
pain he caused her.

"I would not have believed!" she murmured.

"Oh, Endicott is sly—dee-vilish sly," chuckled
Degger.  "But I guess Cora Devine has been
causing him some worriment of late.  She wants money.
She's been nagging him for it, like enough.  That
is what made him so sore, I suppose, when I tried
to say a good word for her to him.

"Oh, well!  I was a fool.  I assure you, Miss
Nicholet, I've washed my hands of them both.  If
the girl finds a shyster lawyer to take up her case,
Endicott will sweat.  Let him.  He deserves to."

"Now, I'll get down here, if you don't mind,"
added the fellow, as they came to the Outskirts of
Clinkerport.  "Thanks for the lift.  I've had my
lesson, I have.  I'm going to mind my own affairs
strictly in the future.  I'm sorry for the Devine girl;
but she'll have to fight her own battles as far as
Endicott is concerned.  Good-day, Miss Nicholet."

Lorna could not even find voice to tell Jackson to
drive on.  But he did so on his own initiative while
Lorna sat very upright in the tonneau of the car,
clutching that leaf of Ralph's address book in her hand.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`REAL TROUBLE`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XVII


.. class:: center medium

   REAL TROUBLE

.. vspace:: 2

Many a Paul Revere has ridden through New
England hamlets since the original courier of that
name and fame saw the lights twinkle in Old
North's steeple.  None ever carried more exciting
news to the rural folk than Zeke Bassett in his
motor car brought to the Twin Rocks Light early
on this summer morning.

For two months the life saving crews were
excused from duty at the stations.  Only the captain
of the crew remained on guard at the Lower
Trillion station.  These two summer months Zeke
usually spent with Tobias and Heppy at the Light.

Occasionally Zeke made an odd dollar taking a
passenger to and from the railroad station.  On
this morning he had driven a neighbor to the early
train—"the clam train"—that stopped at
Clinkerport at 5:30.  When he came back he scattered
along the shell road driblets of news that was
destined to flash over the countryside in wide excitement.

Zeke kept his car under Ezra Condon's shed down
the road, but he stopped before Miss Heppy's flower
garden, where she was weeding, to tell her the news.
He startled her so that the lightkeeper's sister fell
back in the sand, trowel in hand, her broad face
paling slowly under the peak of her sunbonnet.

"Zeke!  You don't mean it's true?" demanded
Miss Heppy in a smothered shriek.

"Cross my heart, Cousin Heppy!" declared the
young man.  "There's a crowd around the door
already—and it's shut.  They'll be howlin' there like
wolves b'fore noon."

He started the shaking car again, and it wheezed
away.  Miss Heppy was several moments getting
upon her feet.  All strength seemed to have left her
limbs.

She tottered into the lighthouse.  Tobias was up
in the lamp room polishing the brasswork.  She
might have called to him, but it did not seem to her
that she could lift her voice sufficiently to make him
hear.  Weak as she felt bodily, she started to climb
the spiral stair.

That climb was an unforgettable experience for
Hephzibah Bassett.  The higher she climbed the
lower her spirits fell.  In all her long life disaster
had never looked so black and threatening before
her as it did now.

For many years she and Tobias had worked, and
she had scrimped and saved, against that "rainy
day" that is the dread of most cautious souls of
middle age.  Each dollar added to their slowly
growing hoard had seemed positively to lighten the
burden of fear of old age on Miss Heppy's heart.

Tobias frequently called her "Martha."  She
admitted she was cumbered by many cares.  She
believed they had been very real, those troubles she
saw in the offing.

And here, of late, had come the unexpected good
fortune—a blessing long hoped for, yet never really
believed possible by either Miss Heppy or her
brother.  A few hundred dollars from the estate of
Cap'n Jethro Potts would have delighted them.  But
six thousand dollars!  The gain of that sum had
been quite outside their imagination.

Altogether to their joint account in the
Clinkerport Bank their bankbook showed now just a few
dollars over eight thousand—to these plain
longshore people an actual fortune.

And now——

Miss Heppy panted her way up the last few steps.
Ordinarily her flesh would have caused her to more
than pant.  Her face would have been as red as a
sunset.

But it was positively a pallid countenance that
appeared to Tobias as he briskly polished
brasswork and whistled a wandering little tune through
his teeth.  He did not look at her at first as she
appeared through the hatchway; but he recognized
her step.

"I give it as my opinion," he said reflectively,
"that if I had to puff and blow like a ship's
donkey-engine, comin' up them stairs, I wouldn't come aloft
no oftener than I could help.  What's sprung a leak
now to bring you 'way up here, Heppy?"

"Tobias!  Tobias!" gasped Miss Heppy.

"Oh, sugar!  Take your time.  Get your breath.
If it's bad news I'd just as lief not hear it at all.
If it's good news I've found that expectation is a
sight more satisfying than fulfilment most times.
I can wait——

"Dad fetch it, Heppy! what's the matter o' ye?"

She had fairly tottered into his arms.  She hung
to him, sobbing and gasping for breath.  Tobias
staggered under her weight.  It was a minute or
more before Miss Heppy could make audible her
trouble.

"Tobias, it's gone!"

"What ye lost?  Them false teeth again?  I
knowed——"

"Tobias, it's worse than that.  It's the money!"

"What money?"

"Our money, Tobias!  All our money!  Uncle
Jethro's legacy and all!"

"Oh, sugar, Heppy, you been dreamin'?  You
know that money's safe in the bank," he urged.

"But it ain't safe.  The bank ain't safe.  We've
been robbed!" she cried, her voice rising to a thin
shriek.

"Heppy!  What ever do you mean?  That dratted
Arad Thompson!  You don't mean to say he's got
away with it?  And in that wheel chair?"

"It isn't Arad Thompson!  Oh, it isn't him!"
wailed his sister.  "The bank has been robbed!
Burglars!  Last night!  Every penny of cash in it!
A hundred and forty thousand dollars, so Zeke says!"

"My soul and body!" murmured the lightkeeper
reverently.  "A hundred and forty thousand?  My!  My!"

"The bank's closed——"

"Course it is this time in the morning.  Them
bank fellers don't work the morning tide—never."

"But there's a sign on the door.  'Tisn't going to
be open.  Our money's gone!"

"Say!" ejaculated Tobias, his brain beginning to
function, "a hundred and forty thousand dollars
oughtn't to break the Clinkerport Bank—nor yet
Arad Thompson.  We'll get our money——"

"'Tain't likely.  Not all of it.  We'll have to
stand our sheer of the loss, Tobias.  If *'twas*
burglary!  Think of it!"

"Oh, sugar!" exclaimed her brother, seating her
on a stool.  "You needn't never mind about that.
I'm thinking of it all right.  I can't think of nothin'
else.  Who'd you say told ye?"

"Zeke."

"Cal'late it's pretty straight then.  I give it as
my opinion he ain't no false alarm.  Well!  Well!"

He started for the stairway.

"What you goin' to do, Tobias?" sobbed Heppy.

"I cal'late to change out o' these ily clo'es and go
to town.  Zeke will stand by ye.  I got to know the
wust, as the feller in jail for murder said when they
interduced the hangman to him."

Miss Heppy could not follow him at the
moment.  The promptness of the old seaman soon put
Tobias in a presentable suit—though not the funeral
garments before described.  He got away before
his sister was able to descend the stairs.

Zeke appeared.  Tobias put a question or two
and learned that the disaster was all Heppy had
said.  A hundred and forty thousand dollars was
indeed a great fortune for Clinkerport people.  Nor
was it a small slice of the bank's capital.

"They tell me, Tobias," Zeke said, "that
Mr. Thompson had called in a lot o' money just lately
from small loans and sech, so't the bank could make
an investment that he cal'lated would yield a much
bigger return.  Somebody must ha' knowed this for
a fac', to have busted the vault door open at jest
this time."

"Oh, sugar!" observed the lightkeeper.  "They
don't mean to say it's what them city detectives that
you read about call an inside job?"

"Gosh blame it!  Of course it was done inside.
How'd they git to the vault door otherwise?"
demanded Zeke.

Tobias grinned.  He asked:

"Did they bust the door with dynamite, or did
they open it fair an' proper by workin' out the
combination of the vault?"

"I dunno.  They busted it open an' got the money.
That's all I know."

"Wal, you stay here and stand by Heppy.  I'm
going to town to see about it," Tobias concluded.

"Don't you want my car?"

"No.  I cal'late somebody'll be along to pick me up."

In fact the lightkeeper's sharp eye had already
descried a bustle about the Nicholet garage.
Jackson had the car out.

When he reached the road gate of the Nicholet
property, the car was just sliding down into the
highway.  Lorna waved him a friendly hand from
the tonneau.

"Am I lucky enough to catch you going to town,
Mr. Bassett?"

"I cal'late," said Tobias grimly, "the luck ain't
all on one side."

"Do get in," she said as Jackson brought the
automobile to a throbbing halt once he was on the
highway.  "I want to talk to you, anyway.  What
do you suppose is the matter with Ralph Endicott?"

"Huh?  Oh, sugar!  Why don't you ax me to
explain this here fourth dimension they talk so much
about?  I can easy tell how wide, high, and thick
Ralph Endicott is," and his eyes twinkled despite
his inner trouble.  "But I can't tell you the *why* of
him.  That's beyond all nater."

"Then you do not really know why he has gone away?"

"Oh, sugar!  He *has* gone, has he?  I'd
disremembered.  He did bid me an' Heppy good-bye
night b'fore last."

"He went away with his trunk yesterday
afternoon.  Jerome told me nobody knew at the house
where Ralph was going.  They did not dare tell
Professor Endicott, for he was completely
submerged in some experiment and had locked the
laboratory door.  Ralph tucked a note under the door
when he left."

"You don't say?"

"Did he not explain to you, Mr. Bassett?"

"Not a word."

"Nor to us.  He came over and bade us good-bye
just before he left, in a very formal way.  I did not
get a word with him alone.  Aunt Ida asked him
where he was going, and he said he could not tell
just where he would finally bring up.  Tobias Bassett!"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"I believe Ralph has gone away to get a job of
work and is ashamed to tell us."

"If it's honest work he ain't no call to be ashamed."

"Too proud to tell us, then," flashed the girl.

"That sounds more likely."

"Anyway, he's gone!"  She could not hide
something besides vexation in her voice.  Disturbed as
Tobias was by his own trouble, he marked this fact.
He believed his matchmaking scheme, as far as
Lorna was concerned, was working!

"Hard work never hurt nobody."  He firmly
believed this fallacy.  "And Ralph is rugged and
capable."

"But he has not been trained to any kind of
work," cried the girl with anxiety.

"Why ain't he?  He can do most anything any
other fellow can on a ship.  And he's got a good
idea of navigation into the bargain.  He favors the
sea, too."

"A sailor!"  There was dread more than disapproval
in Lorna's tone.  She had never forgotten
Miss Heppy's explanation of her own fear and
hatred of the sea.  She repeated: "A sailor!"

"No.  A mate.  Then a skipper.  A lad like
Ralph can soon work up——"

"And is that all his college training can do for him?"

"College l'arnin' won't hurt him none for a
sea-farin' life," said Tobias complacently.  "He can
aspire to walkin' the bridge of one o' them big
liners.  You hafter be part dancin' master as well
as navigator to sit at the head o' the captain's table
on one o' them floatin' palaces.  Ralph would shine
there."

"Oh, Mr. Bassett! he would not be so foolish,
would he?  I wish I had offered to lend him some
money—enough money to straighten out the
family's affairs."

"Do you cal'late what I told you I'd heard
whispered about the professor foolin' away their money
is so?" asked Tobias slyly.

"Oh, yes.  Father is away just now.  Professor
Endicott came to the house to find him, and he
seemed in great trouble.  He as good as let the cat
out of the bag."

"That he was broke?" ejaculated the startled
lightkeeper.

"Yes.  Something like that.  To Aunt Ida."

"Oh, sugar!" murmured Tobias.  Then: "Guess
we're all in the same pickle."

"What do you mean?" asked Lorna, a little
startled by the sudden change in the expression of
the old man's countenance.

"Ain't you heard?"

"Heard what?  I have heard nothing at all
startling."

"Didn't your folks have any money in the Clinkerport Bank?"

"Only Aunt Ida's household account.  A matter
of a few hundred dollars.  Why?"

"You're terrible lucky, I cal'late."  Tobias sighed
and shook his head.  "You kin afford to lose that
much."

"Why! what do you mean?" she repeated.  "What
has happened to the bank?"

"Been robbed.  Burglars.  Last night.  Said to
have cleaned out the cash.  And the bank's shet up
tight."

"Mercy!"

"Heppy's purt' near done up.  She——"

"But you won't lose your money, will you?  You
and Miss Heppy?"

"I cal'late.  And we never had a mite of fun out
of it.  Heppy wouldn't hear to our making no
splurge with that legacy we got from Cap'n Jethro
Potts.  It's a judgment on us, I believe.  I might
have got me that silver-banded pipe I've always
wanted."

She looked at him with understanding.

"You never would have smoked it, Tobias Bassett."

"Well, I could have hung it up over the mantel,
couldn't I, for an ornament?  Oh, sugar!  My
doughnut always did have the biggest hole!"

"But if the bank has been robbed——"

They came into the head of Clinkerport's main
street as she spoke.  Their gaze swept the
thoroughfare as far as the bank building which stood
directly beside the post-office.

A crowd—really a throng for Clinkerport—was
gathered in front of the bank's door.  The stores
were deserted while the excited people milled before
the barred windows and grated door of the bank,
and more were coming on foot and in vehicles from
all directions.

"I cal'late folks is some stirred up," observed
Tobias, as he proceeded to get out of the car.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A CLUE`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XVIII


.. class:: center medium

   A CLUE

.. vspace:: 2

Coatless men and bareheaded women made up
the excited company before the Clinkerport Bank,
while shrill-voiced children circled the outskirts.  It
was like a circus or a street-fair day for the youngsters.

But among the adults there were grave faces.
This disaster was a very real one to many who had
scrimped and saved—like the Bassetts—for a bank
account.

The Clinkerport Bank was a "one man
institution."  If Arad Thompson had mismanaged it, or
had not taken sufficient precautions against
burglary, the result might be a lasting blow to the
community.

These people were not familiar enough with law
and with banking affairs to understand why the
Clinkerport Bank should be closed if the institution
itself—and Arad Thompson—had not "gone broke"
through the robbery that was reported.

"What d'ye think of it?  What d'ye think,
Tobias?" demanded Ezra Crouch of the lightkeeper
when the latter approached the scene.  "Ain't it a
shame—a rascally shame?  That Arad Thompson——"

"I hadn't heard tell that Arad burgled his own
bank.  Did he, Ez?"

"Wal, no.  I dunno as he did," admitted the
much-wrought-upon Mr. Crouch, who had never
deposited a dollar in the bank in all his shiftless
career and probably never would.  "But Arad's
responserble, ain't he?"

"I cal'late," agreed Tobias mildly.  "Guess we
better give him a chance to straighten things out——"

"I guess you ain't heard much about it, Tobias,"
interrupted the busy-tongued Ezra.  "Something
mighty funny about this robbery.  Arad called in
all the money he could an' seemed to get his
cash-drawer crammed with it, jest so's 'twould make a
good haul for these burglars.  A hundred and forty
thousand dollars!  My!"

"Does seem a whole lot o' money to take chances
with," admitted Tobias.

"Huh!  And why does Arad, fust-off, telegraph
to some feller they call a 'bank examiner' and get
him down here on the airly train?  And why does
he shut the bank up as tight as a herrin' can and
put a sign on the door?  That's what *I* want to
know."

"Time'll tell.  I wouldn't get excited if I was you,
Ez," advised the lightkeeper soothingly.

"Wal, that Arad Thompson——"

"I know.  We got to watch him—and that wheel
chair.  Where is he?"

"Inside.  In his office," snorted Ezra Crouch.

"Smokin' twenty-five cent *see*-gars an' takin' it
easy."

"Looks suspicious," agreed Tobias, his eyes
twinkling.  "These times it does seem as though a
feller *must* have come by his money dishonest if he
smokes quarter cigars.  Hullo, Mr. Compton!"

Compton kept one of the general stores.  He was
a bald-headed, keen-eyed man.  His smile was rather
grim as he acknowledged the lightkeeper's greeting.

"Good-day, Tobias.  What you and Ezra doing?
Going to get a rope and pick out a good tree for a
necktie party?  To hear some of these folks talk
you'd think Arad had robbed his own self."

"How was it done?" asked Tobias.

"Plain to be seen.  Back window forced from the
outside.  They must have worked a long time on
those window-bars, to saw 'em through.  But they
opened the safe by learning the combination."

"Get out!"

"Fact.  Didn't hurt the lock none.  Either they
knew the combination 'fore they started in, or they
was smart enough to puzzle it out."

"They knowed the combination because they
knowed it," snorted Ezra Crouch cryptically.

"But where was the watchman?" Tobias asked.

"Doped," said Compton.  "You know Bill
Purvis?  Good man, but never any too smart.  Always
keeps his lunch basket and bottle of cold tea on a
beam under the shed back of the post-office.
Everybody in town knew 'twas there and that Bill took a
snack about 'leven o'clock, or a little later.

"They drugged his tea last night, and he woke
up under the shed just before four o'clock this
morning.  He see the bank window open and the
bars bent up and he ran to Arad's house.  Arad
telephoned a message to the telegraph operator at
the station, who put it through for this bank
examiner, before he even tucked his shirt in, so they
say."

"Yep," ejaculated the suspicious Mr. Crouch.
"Looks mighty like Arad knowed the bank had
been robbed, spang off!"

"He could easy guess it," said Compton, with a
dry chuckle, "considering the look of that back
window."

"I see," said Tobias.  "Nobody ever could
accuse Arad Thompson of being slow."

"Oh, he's smart enough," sneered Ezra.  "That's
what we all air worried about."

The lightkeeper asked the storekeeper:

"Mr. Compton, haven't they found any of them
there clues ye read about?  Burglars always leave
clues, don't they?"

"There's the open window and the sawed bars,"
returned Compton.

"Huh!" sneered the sparrowlike Ezra, "they
couldn't very well take 'em away with them, could
they?"

Tobias gave him no further heed.  He was "studying."

"Mr. Compton," he said again, "I've noticed
them winder bars.  They are master thick."

"You are right, Tobias."

"Nobody could saw through one of them—not
with a meat saw—in a short time.  And I have read
that them sort of saws is made out o' watch springs.
Mighty flimsy they must be.  'Twouldn't be like
cutting cheese with a dull knife."

"I believe you, Tobias."

"If Bill Purvis," went on the lightkeeper reflectively,
"went for his lunch about 'leven, then them
burglars couldn't have been sawin' on the bars much
before midnight.  Humph!  Let's go 'round there
and take a squint."

Tobias and the storekeeper, with Ezra Crouch
tagging them, entered the lane between the bank
building, which was built of cement blocks, and the
post-office, which was a frame structure.  The
window in question overlooked a stableyard at the back.

"I give it as my opinion," said the lightkeeper,
"that them burglars couldn't have worked here till
after Bill was dead to the world in that shed yonder.
Else he'd have seen 'em."

"You're right, Tobias."

"And look at them bars," continued the lightkeeper.
"Ha'f as thick as my wrist.  How'd you
like to stand here—on a flimsy box, 'tis likely—and
saw away at them two bars?  For how long?  I
cal'late 'twas something of a job.  'Twould take
more'n *one* hour—nor yet *two*!"

"Uh-huh!" agreed the storekeeper.

"And then they crawled in and worked on the
door of the vault, and got it open.  Well, well!
That must have taken some time, too.  And they
got clean away with the money before four o'clock?"

"They worked quick," said Compton.

"But they couldn't work quick sawin' them bars.
That would take just so much time, however smart
they was."

"Well?"

"Why," said Tobias, "I don't see how they could
have done it all in one night."

Ezra Crouch laughed raucously.  "O' course they
done it last night," he said.  "If they'd cut the bars
before, somebody would have seen it."

"Not so sure," Tobias rejoined.  "I give it as
my opinion that they must have worked here
before—mebbe on several nights.  Almost sawed through
the bars and smutched dirt over the cracks to hide
'em.  About all they had to do last night was to
force the bars apart after Bill was asleep.  And then
they got in and worked on the safe."

"But why didn't Bill Purvis see 'em the other
nights?" Compton wanted to know.

"Like enough because he was sleeping like he was
last night," Tobias rejoined promptly.  "Nobody
had to drug his tea.  You always see Bill Purvis
wanderin' around before folks go to bed.  But
who ever kept tabs on him after 'leven or twelve
o'clock?  I cal'late Bill rolled out of the hay this
morning 'bout his usual time and found the bank
robbed."

"I swanny!" murmured Ezra.

"It might be like you say, Tobias," agreed Mr. Compton.

"Yes.  It might.  Huh!  What's this?"

The lightkeeper stooped and picked something
out of the sand just under the forced window.  It
was a small, flat, gold penknife.  There were a few
gold links attached to one end.  It had been torn
from a watch chain.

"I give it as my opinion," murmured Tobias,
"that it was scraped off as the feller worked his way
in over that winder-sill.  I reckon, Mr. Compton,
here is a real clue."

"Huh!" muttered the doubting Ezra.  "I don't
believe Arad Thompson ever wore that dinky little
thing."

"Oh, sugar!" exclaimed the amused lightkeeper.
"I don't guess Arad was anywhere hereabout when
the burglars crawled in at that window.  And he
never wore this here doo-dad on his watch chain,
nohow."

He shook his head, staring at the penknife
reflectively.  He had seen that knife—or one much
like it—before.  In whose possession?

"Cal'late I better see Arad about this," he said
finally.  "When the perlice come to take holt on
this case, Arad will want to give them all the help
he can."

"Then," said Compton, the storekeeper, with
growing admiration, "you don't believe this robbery
was done by nary couple of burglars that come to
town last night and got clean away before morning?"

"I don't know about their getting away," said
Tobias.  "Maybe it would be well to look about to
see who's missing.  But these burglars must have
been in town some time and knowed all about the
bank and Bill Purvis.  No doubt o' that, Mr. Compton."

"Wal," croaked Ezra Crouch, his eyes like big
porcelain buttons, "who's gone away since last
night?  *I* dunno, 'less 'tis old Miz Janey Ring that's
gone down to Harbor Bar to visit with her darter-in-law."

"Oh, sugar!" snorted Tobias.

"And it ain't sure they got away by train," said
the storekeeper.  "Who has gone out by boat, or
left in an automobile?"

"That's what I say," Tobias observed, still
staring at the gold knife.  "Maybe them burglars ain't
left town at all.  No tellin'.  Humph!  I cal'late I'd
better give this to Arad."

He walked to the side door of the bank—the door
opening on the lane—and punched the button.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`SUSPICIONS`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XIX


.. class:: center medium

   SUSPICIONS

.. vspace:: 2

Lorna Nicholet was some time doing Miss
Ida's marketing on this morning.  When she finally
came out of the butcher's shop and started for her
car she observed Conny Degger sitting on the Inn
porch.  The young man threw away his cigarette
and started up, evidently intending to greet her.

To tell the truth, Lorna was sorry to see Degger.
Just at this time she did not crave any conversation
with him.  Had Jackson not stepped out of the car
and crossed over the way to join the crowd before
the bank, she would have given Degger a very curt
"good-morning" and told the chauffeur to drive home.

She did not know, however, that she had any
personal reason for snubbing Degger.  She sighed,
and as he raised his cap nonchalantly, she offered
him a polite smile.

"At last something has struck Clinkerport to wake
it up, Miss Lorna."

His bruised face was much more presentable, but
the two missing teeth made his smile sinister.  Lorna
had found no opportunity to question Ralph about
that fight before he had gone away.  She knew but
one side of the story, yet, somehow, she failed to
make herself believe that Degger's tale had been
exact.

The insinuations—more, the direct accusation—Degger
made regarding Ralph and the Devine girl
seemed less reasonable the more Lorna thought
about it.  She had known Ralph ever since she had
known anybody.  He was chivalrous by nature,
generous to a fault, kindly of motive, and always the
gentleman.  Might not these very attributes of
character have led him into some entanglement with a
designing girl that the latter was now trying to take
advantage of?  What Lorna so well knew of
Ralph's character did not fit the college reputation
Degger gave him.

Lorna's ready tongue replied with little hesitation
to Degger's remark:

"What a dreadful thing!  If the depositors have
to lose any of their money——"

"Oh, if the bank officers were up to date they
carried burglary insurance enough to cover the loss."

"But a hundred and forty thousand dollars!"

Degger's eyes twinkled.  "Some haul—I'll say it
is!" he agreed.  "Those yeggs must have been vastly
astonished when they found all that in the safe.  No
wonder they did not stop to tinker with the
post-office."

"Oh!  Have they discovered already who did it?"

"Why," laughed Degger, "of course the bank
people and the local police are running around in
circles.  But it is easy to understand that a crack
like this was made by a bunch of yeggs who
probably came into town last night on a hand-car.
Usually such gangs tap both the bank and the post-office
in such a burg as this.  But the bank yielded such
a harvest they left the P.O. alone."

"Did nobody see or hear them?"

"I did not, anyway; although I was up half the
night with a toothache.  I expect I'll have to run
up to Boston to see my dentist.  He's put a crown
on a tooth that is kicking up rusty.

"I was up, as I say, more than once during the
night doctoring that tooth.  But the Inn is on this
side of the street, and our rooms—Lon Burtwell's
and mine—are at the back of the hotel.  If those
yeggs had used dynamite to blow open the vault
door I imagine I wouldn't have heard it."

"My!" said Lorna, much interested after all,
"I hope the poor people won't have to lose their
money.  Just think!  All the money Tobias and
Heppy Bassett had in the world was in that bank."

"Yes?" said Degger carelessly.  "But the fact
that the bank examiner is here and has taken charge
doesn't mean anything particular.  The depositors
needn't be so frightened, I guess.  But of course the
bank officers can't be held wholly accountable for a
burglary."

"But you said——"

"They should have carried burglary insurance
sufficient to cover the cash in hand—yes.  And the
Clinkerport Bank probably does belong to the
American Bankers' Association, so that the best detectives
in the country will be sent out after the yeggs.

"Still, and nevertheless, every bank burglary is
not satisfactorily explained nor the burglars
captured.  And for a small institution like this, it is a
big loss."

"I am thankful we didn't have much on account
here," said Lorna reflectively.  "I don't know about
our neighbors on Clay Head.  Perhaps the Endicotts——"

"That hard-boiled egg, Ralph Endicott, will be
half crazy if he's been nipped by this," sneered
Degger.  "If he had money in the bank I wonder he
isn't over here now, roaring about it."

Lorna's manner changed.

"Ralph is not at home," she said rather tartly.
"He has gone away."

"Indeed!  When did that happen?"

"He went yesterday."

"Not so early, I guess," Degger rejoined
confidently.  "I saw him here last evening."

"In town?"

"Yes.  Fact is, I saw him twice.  Once about
nine and again an hour or so later.  I was sitting
on the Inn porch and saw him pass the bank and
post-office on the other side of the street.  He went
slouching by under the trees there."

"Why, Mr. Degger, I thought he left town in the
afternoon."

"If he did he came back again.  Of course, I did
not speak to him.  But I am not likely to make a
mistake in identifying him, wherever I see him.
And he couldn't have got out of town after I saw
him, come to think of it, until this morning.  Not
by train; for there are no trains in either direction
after the time I saw him.  That's sure."

"That is strange," murmured Lorna.  "I am sure
the family thought he had gone——"

She noted the oddly curious gaze Degger had
fixed upon her face, and she halted.  She felt
uncomfortable.  She wondered what it meant—this odd
performance of Ralph's.  She wished Jackson would
return to the car.  But somebody did break away
from the excited crowd before the bank and cross
the wide thoroughfare toward the automobile.

Ezra Crouch's bald face shone with curiosity and
his glance shifted from Degger to the girl in the
car.  The tale that Degger himself had told about
town, implicating Lorna Nicholet and Ralph
Endicott, had been a choice morsel under Ezra's tongue.
He thought the present situation pregnant of
further gossip.

"He, he!  Ain't this a queer set-to?" he wanted
to know.  "Those folks that have lost money think
they can *talk* it back into their pockets.  I can tell
'em——"

"Haven't they any idea who the burglars were,
Mr. Crouch?" interposed Lorna.

"Not the fust idee.  'Nless it's Tobias.  Tobias
is sharp.  He's found the only clue, as they call it,
that's been found so far.  But that Arad Thompson——"

"What has the skipper found, Ezra?" asked
Degger, lighting another cigarette.

"A gold knife.  Found it right under that winder
where the burglars sawed through the bars."

"A gold knife!" repeated Lorna with interest.
"They surely did not use such a tool to cut the
window bars?"

"Bless ye, no, Miss Lorny!  But 'tis evident—an'
so Tobias says—that one o' the burgulars tore it off
his watch chain when he scrambled in over the
winder-sill."

"Oh!  It was a gold penknife?  And he wore
it on a watch chain like——"

Again she halted in the middle of a sentence.  She
paled and then flushed, flashing a sly glance at
Degger.  He seemed not to have noticed what she said.
He was not even looking at her.

"Oh!" she whispered again, and was glad that
Jackson saw her waiting and that he hurried back
to the car.

"Good-day, Mr. Degger.  Good-day, Mr. Crouch,"
she said, as Jackson got in and started the engine.

Lorna did not show Degger her face again.  She
continued to think about that gold penknife that had
been found under the bank window.  Ralph
Endicott wore such a knife on his watch chain.  And
Degger said he had seen Ralph in town last
evening—long after he was supposed to have left
Clinkerport by train.

Of course, any thought linking Ralph with the
mysterious penknife was ridiculous.  It could not
be that the most evil-intentioned tongue would
dovetail Ralph's movements with the Clinkerport Bank
robbery.  Yet—Lorna did not trust Conway Degger!

What would Degger say, in his sneering way, if
he learned the Endicotts were impoverished and
that Ralph probably had very little money left?

Ralph had been seen by Degger in the village late
the previous evening—too late to have left town
by train thereafter.  Suppose that awful Devine girl
was pressing Ralph for money and threatening to
disgrace him if he did not produce it?

Was that why Ralph had left home so suddenly
and mysteriously?  Did he fear disgrace?  Was it
because he could not satisfy Cora Devine, and so
close her lips?

If Degger's story of Ralph's misstep should be
true!  Supposing Degger knew Ralph was being
hounded for money he could not pay, what would
he say if Ralph was in the most remote way linked
by suspicion to the bank robbery?

.. vspace:: 2

Tobias Bassett meanwhile had gained entrance to
the bank after some parley with Rafe Silver,
Mr. Thompson's Portuguese servant.  Arad Thompson
had been skipper of a smart bark in his youth and
had brought Silver back from Fayal with him on
one of his voyages.  Silver was a grim little man,
black as aged mahogany, thin-lipped and gray of
hair, wearing tiny gold rings in his ears.

"This ain't nothing to do with my money, Rafe,"
Tobias said.  "You tell Arad Thompson I have
something to tell him about them burglars."

So, after a time, the lightkeeper was admitted.
Two pale-faced and scared looking clerks were at
the beck and call of the bank auditor.  The other
employees of the institution, like the general public,
were shut out of the building.

In the railed-off enclosure he used as an office, and
where he met the bank's customers, Arad Thompson
sat in the wheel chair, in which he spent most of his
waking hours, before his table-topped desk.

He was a big-bodied man, his torso quite filling
the wide-armed chair.  His withered limbs were
hidden by a soft robe, the upper edge of which was
never allowed to fall below his waistline.

He was a handsome man of a patriarchal cast of
countenance, his genial expression enhanced by
waving silvery hair and a heavy beard of the same
color—that silvery hue which revealed the fact that
originally the hair of head and face had been jet
black.

With his ruddy cheeks and sharp gray eyes, the
bank president gave abundant evidence of possessing,
aside from his crippled limbs, a healthy body and
a thoroughly alert brain.  Arad Thompson had been
studying a little red-covered memorandum book.
He laid it aside as Tobias came near.

"Well, Tobias," he asked directly, "what is it?
I can answer no question about the bank or its loss
until the bank examiner makes his report."

"Not to say I ain't anxious for me an' Heppy's
money—for I be.  But I will say, Mr. Thompson,
that 'tain't about that I want to see you."

"So Rafe tells me."

"I was wandering around back of the bank there
just now with Silas Compton.  We looked at the
winder where them bars was sawed.  I give it as
my opinion, Mr. Thompson, that them burglars
didn't saw them bars in two in one night—nossir!"

"I had thought of that, Tobias," said the bank
president patiently.

"Don't look like it was just a gang of burglars
that come in here last night for the first time and
happened to hit it lucky."

"No.  I am convinced they had advice, if not
assistance, in turning the trick."

"Maybe you got your suspicions of who helped
'em?" said Tobias shrewdly.

"If I have I'm not going to tell you, Tobias."

"I don't want you should—nossir!" said the
lightkeeper.  "I'd just as lief not know.  But I am
going to show you what I picked up under that
winder just now.  Compton and Ez Crouch seen me."

The bank president sat up straighter.  He flashed
a glance at the little red book.  Then he looked
again at Tobias.

"What is it?"

The lightkeeper brought his hand out of his
pocket and displayed the gold penknife.

"You picked that up under the window?"

"Yes."

"Any mark on it?  Anything whereby the owner
can be identified?  Do you know, Tobias, who it
belongs to?"

"Oh, sugar!" declared Tobias.  "It might not
have been lost by one of the burglars.  Then
again——"

Thompson took the knife, opened the blade, and
turned the little toy over and over on his palm.

"Of course," he murmured, "there might be a
dozen men wearing things like this on their watch
chains——"

"Not here in Clinkerport," interposed Tobias.

"No.  That's so.  But there is no identifying mark."

"Look at the chain.  Drefful fine links, but awful
strong."

"It is platinum.  An expensive chain.  Not likely,
after all, to be worn by many."

"That kind of narrows suspicion down, doesn't
it?" said Tobias with some eagerness.

"It must.  A platinum watch chain costs a deal
of money, Tobias.  There must be an excellent
watch at the other end of the chain.  No ordinary
person would be likely to wear such an ornament.
These burglars——"

"Maybe they stole it," suggested Tobias.

Thompson looked at the red book again.  He
wagged his bushy head, and sat, tight-lipped and
thoughtful.

"That is possible," he finally agreed.  "But if
the knife and the few links of chain can be
traced——"

"'Tis a clue," Tobias said.  "Looks like
somebody might be in this job who wasn't just an
ordinary burglar.  Heh?"

"I'll allow that, Tobias."

"Well, that is all I had to tell you, Mr. Thompson.
I reckon you'll give the knife to the city detectives
when they come?"

"Naturally.  I will put all possible clues into their
hands," the bank president rejoined, glancing again
at the little red book.

"Course, there may be nothing to it.  But who
else could have lost that knife there without making
talk about it—advertised the loss, as ye might say?"

"True," agreed Thompson.

"Probably it belongs to somebody who is kind of
a fancy dresser.  No ordinary longshore clam digger
would own such a thing.  I give it as my opinion
that it might have been lost by some feller—whoever
he was—that has been hangin' around the port
long enough this summer to l'arn all them burglars
wanted to know about the bank, and the watchman,
and all.  Heh?"

"Sounds reasonable, Tobias."

"I cal'late.  And he must be one of the summer folks."

"That is so, too.  Whom do you suspect, Tobias?"

The lightkeeper grinned.  He wagged his head.

"Oh, sugar!" he said, paying Arad Thompson
back in his own coin.  "If I am suspecting anybody,
I ain't going to tell you, Mr. Thompson.  Nossir!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`PUT TO THE QUESTION`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XX


.. class:: center medium

   PUT TO THE QUESTION

.. vspace:: 2

Tobias had more than satisfied his curiosity in
coming to town.  His discovery of the gold penknife
was the sum of the assistance he could give Arad
Thompson, the bank's president, at this time.  His
interest in the burglary, however, continued to be
keen; but he went back to the Twin Rocks Light
soon after noon.

He could take little cheer to Heppy.  For just
how much the depositors of the bank must suffer
because of the loss of the hundred and forty
thousand dollars, Tobias had no idea.  Nobody with
whom he talked seemed to know.  All were pessimistic.

"Looks like something was the trouble besides
just the burglary," croaked one bird of ill-omen,
perched like a buzzard on the horse rack before Silas
Compton's store.  "Else Arad would have sent for
some cash from somewhere and gone on with business,
same as usual.  This shutting the bank tight's
a drum——"

"They say it's the new bankin' law done it,"
interposed somebody.

"Dunno.  Don't look right.  If the bank's rotten
we'd ought to have a chance to get what money we
can out of it."

"That's right!  'Fore we lose it all."

"Guess it's all gone by now," groaned another.

"Say!" observed Tobias, after listening to this
talk for some time, "I give it as my opinion Arad
Thompson is a purty slick citizen.  He was smart
to get that bank examiner here—no two ways about
it!  Otherwise there would have been a run on the
bank.  We'd all have been crazy to try to get our
money."

"Why shouldn't we get it?  It's our'n."

"Wal," Tobias said slowly.  "I don't s'pose Arad
can call all his loans in on the dot.  Nossir!  Why
should we expect him to pay us just whenever we
want it—all in a lump?"

The lightkeeper could study out the reason for
the bank president's attitude and logically come to
the conclusion he did.  Arad Thompson knew
Clinkerport folk well.  Suspicion would be rife in any
case and the moment announcement was made of
the robbery many would rail against his management
of the bank's funds.  The president was taking
no chances.

Without a penny of cash left in the bank, the
depositors would have been clamoring at the cage
windows like wolves had the doors not remained
barred.

There were those people, too, who had "inside
information."  There are always these "know-it-alls"
in every community.

"No use trying to smooth it over, Tobias,"
whispered one of these to the lightkeeper.  "There's
something fishy about Arad's bank.  I ain't got a
cent in it—never would put any in.  I always have
had my suspicions of Arad Thompson.

"But Phil Henry is my next-door neighbor, an'
Phil Henry is cashier.  He ain't been let into the
bank this morning no more than the other officers.
And Phil told me that right lately Arad's been
getting his hands on all the cash he could.  Mebbe he
did have as much as a hundred and forty thousand
there."

"Wal?" proposed Tobias, unshaken.

"Drat it all, Tobe?  Don't you see?  Or won't
ye?  Mebbe there ain't been no real burglary at all.
Looks funny.  They say the vault door was opened
on the combination.  That 'twasn't busted."

"Huh?"

"Arad just *says* there was a burglary.  S'pose
he'd arranged for somebody to saw them bars on
the sly and bust the winder-lock and drug Bill
Purvis's tea?  Heh?  S'pose Arad robbed the bank
hisself?"

"Oh, sugar!" murmured Tobias.  "That's what
they all say.  Why don't you suggest something new?"

"All right!  All right!  Don't you believe it,
Tobe," said his acquaintance.  "You will remember
what I told ye when you don't see hide nor hair of
your money again."

"I don't see it now," confessed Tobias rather
ruefully.  "But I still have hopes of Arad's being pretty
average honest."

He found Heppy one of the most pessimistic of
all those affected by or interested in the bank
burglary.  She was actually ill.  Whether it was the
excitement or the over-exertion of climbing the
lighthouse stairs to the lamp room, the woman gave
every indication of bodily as well as of mental
illness.

She sat in her rocking chair before the kitchen
stove, weaving back and forth, and sobbing.  When
she raised her head to look at her brother as he
entered, he was actually startled by her appearance.

"Oh, sugar, Heppy!  What's the matter o' ye?"

.. _`"Oh, sugar, Heppy!  What's the matter o' ye?"`:

.. figure:: images/img-212.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "Oh, sugar, Heppy!  What's the matter o' ye?"

   "Oh, sugar, Heppy!  What's the matter o' ye?"


"Did—did you get our money, Tobias?" she gasped.

"No, no!  O' course not.  Things have got to be
straightened out."

"Did you see Arad Thompson?"

"Yes.  I talked personally with him, Heppy."

"What did he say?" urged the woman.

"Why, he couldn't say nothin' yet.  Not till the
bank's books was gone over.  It's bein' done."

"Tobias, that's only an excuse.  We'll never see
a penny of our money again!"  And his sister broke
into passionate sobs.

"Dad fetch it!" ejaculated Tobias, "I give it as
my opinion that there ain't never been such a
unanimity of opinion on one subject in this community
since Noah stepped ashore from the ark.  You folks
have got it all settled that Arad Thompson is so
crooked that he can't lay straight in bed.  Oh,
sugar!"

It was a very gloomy afternoon and evening at
the Twin Rocks Light.  The men got what little
supper there was.  Heppy went to bed still weeping
and with a hot brick at her feet.

"An' I give it as my opinion, 'Zekiel," said the
lightkeeper to the younger man, with frank disgust
in his tone, "that Heppy can think with that hot
brick just as good as she can with her head.  There
ain't no mortal sense in her fussin' and fumin' the
way she does."

"But, Tobias! if the money is gone?"

"Oh, sugar!" snorted Tobias.  "Mourning over
it won't bring our money back.  If we've got to
lose it, we've got to—that's all."

"But—eight—thousand—dollars!"

"I know.  You say it like 'twas eight hundred
thousand.  But neither sum seems to mean so much
to me—not re'lly.  I sure won't lose no sleep over
it—nor ary meal o' victuals, if I can help it.

"'What can't be cured must be endured,'"
repeated this longshore philosopher.  "I never re'lly
felt that I had much part nor lot in our savings.
Once I was in New Bedford when some whalers
was paid off after a four-year cruise.  A drunken
boat steerer stood on the corner of the street an'
fed silver dollars into the mouth of a sewer till
the police stopped him.

"Puttin' money in the bank always seemed to
me something like that, 'Zekiel.  You see it go in,
but where it goes to, an' what happens to it, is like
what the Scriptures says about the ways of the
Almighty—they are 'past finding out.'"

"Huh!" said Zeke.  "Looks like we know what's
happened to this money.  'Twas stole by somebody."

"Oh, sugar!" murmured Tobias.  "Is that any
satisfaction?"

Tobias Bassett had refused to admit to Arad
Thompson that he had any suspicion as to the
identity of the owner of the gold penknife he had found
under the bank window.  Nor did he have such suspicion.

It was merely that the old lightkeeper felt that
sometime, somewhere, he had seen such a toy worn
on a watch chain by somebody he knew.  Unlike
Lorna Nicholet he did not remember that Ralph
Endicott owned such an ornament.

The young woman rode home from her marketing
expedition in a very anxious condition of mind.
One moment she mentally castigated herself for
considering at all the suggestion that the penknife might
be Ralph's property.  The next instant the suspicion
would attack her from another angle and his
possible connection with the bank burglary would
expand until she was fairly terror-stricken.

If Ralph had been seen in the town the previous
evening by other eyes than those of Conway
Degger!  If Ralph had seemed to leave Clinkerport in
the afternoon, how explain his later presence there?

If Degger thought he could cast any reflection
upon Ralph by reporting his observation of the
latter in town the night of the burglary, of course he
would do so.  There was no doubt of that in
Lorna's mind.  She had no longer any illusions
regarding the character of Degger, no matter how
much she might disapprove of Ralph.  Degger was
Ralph's enemy, and a bitter enemy indeed.

Innocent men have fallen under the burden of
false accusation, often and again.  Several things
seemed to yield circumstantial evidence connecting
the bank robbery with Ralph Endicott, ridiculous
as such evidence must be to the minds of those who
really knew him.

If the penknife was his—or like the one he wore!
If he really had returned to Clinkerport secretly last
evening!  If it was a fact that Cora Devine was
hounding Ralph for money!  And if, as Lorna
supposed, the Endicotts were in financial straits and
Ralph was without funds!

These suppositions and possibilities wrought upon
the young woman's mind until, when she arrived
home, she found it almost impossible to hide from
the family her perturbation.  Her father had not
yet returned from Boston.  Had he been at home
she would have put her fears and suspicions before him.

For, after all, John Nicholet bred a greater
confidence in his daughter's mind and heart than did the
self-repressed Miss Ida.  With the latter Lorna
could not bring herself to discuss the mystery of
Ralph Endicott's affairs.

She gave to her aunt the bald statement of the
bank's loss, and that was all.  But Lorna felt that
she must search and find all she could that might
explain the mystery which, like a haze, surrounded
Ralph's absence from home.

She went to Jerome, the Endicott's doddering old
servant whom the professor's "Cousin Luce," who
was supposed to preside over the household, was
forever threatening to pension off.

Miss Ida had scornfully stated that "Lucy Markham
ran the Endicott house by fits and starts—the
fits being frequent and the starts but seldom!" a
statement which was scarcely a libel.  If Cousin Luce
did not feel like leaving her bed, or had a more than
usually interesting novel to read, she remained
unseen by the family, sometimes for a couple of days.
But the family somehow muddled along without her.

Ralph was too old to lose much by the lack of
system in the home.  And of course Professor
Endicott did not even notice when household matters
went wrong.  The children helped each other, and
somehow were happy.

As it chanced, Mrs. Markham was not visible
when Lorna made her appearance at the Endicott
house.  Whether it was a new novel or a twinge
of rheumatism that kept Cousin Luce in her room
Lorna did not inquire.  An interview with
Professor Endicott, had she wished it, was quite out
of the question, for he was deep in his experiments.

"Jerome," said Lorna to the old servant, "do you
know if Ralph lost that little gold penknife that he
wears on the end of his watch chain?"

"No, Miss.  I do not know.  Was it lately he
lost it?"

"That is what I wish to know.  *Did* he lose it?"

"I couldn't say, Miss.  He said nothing about
losing it to me."

"Then it is pretty sure he did not lose it before
he went away yesterday—if he lost it at all,"
murmured the young woman thoughtfully.  "You
would probably have missed it yourself, Jerome."

"I don't know about that, Miss.  I don't have
much to do with Master Ralph's things.  No, Miss.
Maybe Mrs. Malloy——"

But the housekeeper knew no more than Jerome.
Lorna dared go no further with her inquiries.  She
feared that she might rouse suspicion in the minds
of the servants.

She heard nothing more about the bank burglary
that day, or what was being done regarding it.
She spent a most miserable night.  By morning she
could not longer remain idle in the matter.  She
felt that she must confer with somebody and she
started for the Twin Rocks Light.  Lorna wanted
to learn if Tobias Bassett likewise suspected that
the gold penknife he had found belonged to Ralph.

Although the time was mid-forenoon, Tobias was
smoking his pipe on the bench outside the lighthouse
door.  And he wore one of Miss Heppy's voluminous
kitchen aprons.

"Why, Mr. Bassett! what is the matter?"

"Oh, sugar!  That you, Lorny?  I've been
promoted to be chief pot-walloper of this here craft.
'Zekiel is aloft, cleaning the lamp."

"But Miss Heppy?"

"She's abed.  I cal'late she's down for a spell o'
suthin', I dunno what 'tis, and I reckon she don't.
But whatever 'tis it's struck in."

"Tobias!  She is not really ill!"

"She's sick enough," he rejoined, shaking an
anxious head.  "Bein' sick is mostly in your mind,
it always did seem to me.  If your mind ain't ready
for doctorin' you manage to keep on deck and
muddle through somehow.  But once your mind gets
sick, you lose all holts.  And Heppy's lost all holts
this time, I do allow.  She thinks she won't never
see none o' that money we had in the Clinkerport
Bank again—never!  And it's just about scuttled
the ship for her—yessir!"

"But, Tobias! of course the bank isn't bankrupt.
There will be no great loss for each individual
depositor."

"We dunno that.  Dunno much of anything about
it.  I give it as my opinion that it looks queer.  And,
as I said afore, Heppy's gin up all hope."

"Oh, that is too bad!" Lorna said.  "I must see
her.  Is she alone?"

"Ain't no women folks around, if that's what
you mean.  'Zekiel and me air the whole crew and
afterguard.  The captain's forsook the ship."

Lorna hesitated before going into the lighthouse,
staring down at the rather despondent looking
Tobias.  She spurred her courage to ask:

"I am told that you found a penknife under the
bank window that may have been dropped by one
of the burglars."

"So I did," replied Tobias placidly.

"Do you really think it was lost by one of the robbers?"

"Likely.  Don't see how else it would have got there."

"Have you no idea who the owner is?"

The lightkeeper wrinkled up his eyes shrewdly
and stared at her.  He removed the pipe from his
mouth.

"I don't count a wide acquaintance among
burglars and such, Miss Lorny."

"But—but it might not belong to a burglar!"

"Sure enough.  Who do you cal'late it might
belong to?"

"Oh!" she exclaimed.  "I—I—why do you ask
that?"  Then, her eyes searching the highway in
the direction of Clinkerport, she cried: "Who is
this coming, Tobias?"

He turned from her to stare at the blue motor
car approaching.  He still held his pipe at a
reflective poise, for Lorna's evident disturbance of
mind had impressed him.

"Oh, sugar!" he murmured.  "This here is Arad
Thompson's car.  You don't s'pose he's come to
bring me and Heppy our money, do you?  It 'ud
please Heppy purt' nigh to death."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE RISING TIDE OF DOUBT`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXI


.. class:: center medium

   THE RISING TIDE OF DOUBT

.. vspace:: 2

Lorna Nicholet made no further comment,
waiting anxiously for the big blue limousine to
approach.  Surely it would stop before the lighthouse.

It did.  The door of the car opened.  But the
crippled Arad Thompson did not appear.  Instead,
a broad-hatted stranger in a rusty black suit stepped
out of the car.

"That's Rafe Silver driving, as usual," murmured
Tobias.  "But who is this fellow?  He ain't no
acquaintance of mine."

The stranger came promptly to the lighthouse
door.  He glanced sharply from the lightkeeper
sitting on the bench with his pipe to the young
woman in the doorway, and back again.

"You are Mr. Tobias Bassett?" was his opening
speech.

"I cal'late."

"Mr. Arad Thompson has sent me to you for
some information."

"I'm chock-full of it," rejoined Tobias easily,
putting his pipe between his lips again and waving
his hand.

"Confidential information," continued the man,
glancing again at Lorna.

"That's all right," said Tobias.  "This young
woman knows almost as much as I do, and a little
extry information won't hurt her a mite.  What
was you lookin' to find out?"

"My inquiry is in regard to the robbery of the
Clinkerport Bank night before last."

He threw back the left lapel of his coat with a
practiced gesture, revealing a glittering badge pinned
near the armhole of his vest.

"Oh, sugar!" murmured Tobias.  "A real detective?
I cal'late I'm pinched."

Lorna dropped a fluttering hand upon his shoulder,
but then saw that the old lightkeeper was still
smiling cheerfully.

"You fire ahead, Mister."

"Did you ever see this knife before you picked it
up under the bank window?" and the detective
displayed the toy in his palm.

"Oh, sugar!  Can't say as I did.  And yet I
might.  Seems to me—wal, I cal'late I better say
no and be done with it.  I can't somehow seem to
place that thing," declared the lightkeeper, in deep
reflection.

He did not notice Lorna's expression of countenance.

"I hope you will not withhold your opinion,
Mr. Bassett," said the detective.

"You take it from me, Mister," Tobias rejoined
grimly, "I ain't going to refuse any information
that may lead to the recovery of the bank's money
and the arrest of the burglars.  Me and Heppy's
got an eight thousand dollar interest in the robbery,
as ye might say."

"You are prepared to help us, then, no matter
who is hit, are you?"

"I cal'late," agreed Tobias wonderingly.

The detective produced a little red-covered
notebook from his pocket.  He thrust it toward the
lightkeeper.

"Did you ever see this before?"

"I don't know.  Can't be sure that I ever did.
But, mebbe."

"This address book was found on a ledge right
by the vault door.  There seems to be no doubt as
to whom it belongs, for the owner's name in his
own handwriting is on the fly-leaf.  Mr. Thompson
is quite convinced of the ownership of the book, for
there are specimens of the same handwriting on file
in the bookkeeping department of the bank."

"My goodness!" gasped Tobias, staring at the
book but refusing to take it from the other's hand.

"This book could not have been on the ledge
where it was found at the time the bank closed day
before yesterday.  The vault door was opened on
the combination.  And the combination is written
on one of the pages of this address book."

"Oh, sugar!" murmured Tobias.  "Then you've
just as good as got one of the burglars, ain't you?"

"Oh, no!" gasped Lorna, cowering in the doorway.

The men did not appear to notice her agitation.
Tobias still smoked calmly.  The detective hesitated
for a moment before he fairly forced the red
memorandum book into the lightkeeper's hand.

"Look at it," he said.  "See that name on the
front page?  Do you know his handwriting?"

Lorna dared not look over the lightkeeper's
shoulder.  At first glance she had recognized the
red-covered notebook.  There might have been some
doubt regarding the ownership of the penknife; but
of the notebook—never!

"My soul and body!"

The pipe dropped from the lightkeeper's fingers
and was shattered at his feet.  He gave this no
attention.  He was staring, quite fascinated, at the
flyleaf of the little book.

"Doesn't the knife belong to the same person?"
asked the detective, with sharp insistence.

For once Tobias was ready with no reply.  He
fluttered the leaves of the book with unsteady
fingers.  The visitor continued:

"Mr. Thompson said you would know if anybody
did.  He says you are a great chum of this
fellow's—that he hangs about the lighthouse here a
good deal.

"Now, there is no possibility of the book's
having been left there before the vault door during
banking hours.  That fellow was never inside the
cage for any purpose whatsoever."

Tobias finally regained his voice.

"You don't mean to say you think he'd be foolish
enough to leave this book right in sight if he was
one o' them burglars?"

"But I tell you it was found there.  And you
yourself found the knife under the window.  Isn't
that his, too?"

"I wouldn't go so far as to say it was, nor I
wouldn't say it wasn't," announced the old lightkeeper
with emphasis.  "But it looks right senseless
for him to have left the book there—let's see where
you say he marked down the combination?  That
looks right silly, too.  If he knowed the combination
well enough to open the safe, why bother to write
it down?"

"There it is," said the detective, pointing, and
with emphasis.  "Those figures in pencil.  That is
the bank vault combination.  Or it was.  Of course,
it will be changed now."

"Yes.  I see.  Lockin' the garage door after the
tin Lizzie's been stole," commented Tobias.

He squinted a long time at the row of numbers
and letters written across the otherwise blank page.
He turned back a leaf or two, and appeared to study
the addresses written thereon.

"Yes," he muttered.  "Writ down in pencil.  All
the rest in ink.  He most always *does* carry a
fountain pen."

"No doubt about that knife being his, too, is
there?" insisted the detective eagerly.

"I couldn't say.  I give it as my opinion that I
shall have to think it over purt' serious afore I can
say one way or another."

"You don't claim," the detective said in some
heat, "that there are so many fellows around here
wearing platinum watch chains that you can't guess?"

"Oh, sugar!  I wouldn't take so much for
granted, if I was you, Mister.  I don't 'low ary one
o' them burglars belonged around here."

"How do you explain that address book?"
snapped the other.  "Left right on that ledge beside
the vault door.  And the combination written in it."

"Say, Mister," Tobias rejoined gravely, "seems
to me I ain't got to explain it.  You are the
detective, not me.  I've come across lots of things in this
world o' toil and trouble that I couldn't begin to
explain."

"You're stalling," said the detective harshly.
"That is what you are doing.  And it won't help
this fellow any.  Where is he?  Have you seen him
around here this morning?"

"I cal'late I ain't," said Tobias, shaking his head.
"Is it true what they say, that he's run away?"

A slow red climbed the lightkeeper's wind-tanned
cheek.  Even his hairy ear became inflamed.  Lorna,
who was watching him breathlessly, knew that this
dark flush signaled wrath—and Tobias was not
prone to lose his temper easily.

"Lemme tell you something, Mister Man," he
finally rasped.  "I give it as my opinion that you
air one o' them 'dead-sure' fellows.  You know
more than the Creator that made ye—or you think
you do."

"I'm here to investigate this burglary," interposed
the detective.

"Investigate all you dern please!" exclaimed
Tobias.  "But don't you come here and try to trip me
up, fur I'm purt' sure-footed.  I've gone as far as
I'm going to.  That is, until I know more than
I do now.  That there book probably belongs to
Mr. Ralph Endicott.  That leetle gold knife may belong
to him, too.  Further than that I can't and won't
say."

"They tell me down at the village that he's skipped out."

"I don't know nothing about that."

"Is that the house his folks live in—that second
one up there on the bluff?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'll go up there and see what they know
about him.  I guess I'll learn something."

"I cal'late you will," rejoined Tobias, with scorn.
"I cal'late that if you see Professor Henry Endicott
and tell him his nephew is a bank burglar you—an'
Arad Thompson, too—will l'arn more than you
expect.  I shouldn't wonder."

The detective tramped away across the sandflat.
Tobias secured his bandana and mopped his heated
brow.

"Oh, sugar!" he murmured.  "I ain't got no
business bein' all het up this a-way.  Won't nothing
come of it.  I give it as my opinion that fellow is
purt' near half a fool!"

"But Tobias!"

He started and looked around.  Lorna, pale and
red by turns, suddenly clung to his shoulder.

"Tut, tut!" the old man muttered.  "I'd forgot
you was here, Lorny.  Thought you'd gone upstairs
to see Heppy."

"I—I am going.  But I had to wait to hear what
that man had to say.  It's awful!  Ralph——"

"Ain't no sense to that," interrupted Tobias with
scorn.  "O' course not."

"But that knife.  It is his.  I'm almost sure it is!"
sobbed the girl.

"Oh, sugar!  Wish't I'd never picked it up,"
complained Tobias.  "Ain't nothing positive about it,
I tell ye.  I was too keen after a clue, I was."

"The book!  That is surely his."

"Wal—yes.  I cal'late.  But it don't look sensible
that he'd leave it there in the bank.  Somebody
picked it up, and put it there.  Sure!"

"Tobias Bassett! how do you explain the combination
being written in Ralph's address book?"

"Don't believe he ever wrote it there," the
lightkeeper replied doggedly.

"Why, Tobias?"

"Them figgers don't look like what Ralph makes.
I took a squint at some of his'n.  Of course, folks
writes diff'rent with a pencil from what they do
with a pen 'most always.  But, then——"

"Oh, Tobias! you are saying these things just to
try to convince yourself—and me—that Ralph is
not guilty."

"Oh, sugar!  I don't have to convince myself of
any such thing.  I'd have to try mighty hard to
made myself believe that he was guilty."

The young woman stared at him, her countenance
very much troubled.  She said at last slowly:

"There is no reason in your mind for a belief in
his possible guilt, Tobias Bassett?"

"Nary reason," he declared in amazement.

"How about his poverty?  If he is penniless?
Suppose he needed a large sum of money to save
him from trouble—from disgrace?"

"What the——"

The lightkeeper's eyes were staring—almost
popping out of his head!

"I know it sounds terrible," moaned the young
woman.  "But if the Endicotts have lost all their
money how do we know what financial trouble
Ralph may be in?  Oh! can't you *see*?  He might
have been desperately tempted.  I hate to think of
such a possibility.  But——"

She burst into uncontrollable weeping at this
juncture and, turning swiftly, ran into the house.
Tobias had started erect upon the bench.  It was
several moments before he could utter any comment.
Then:

"Now I have done it!" he ejaculated.  "I've gone
an' put my foot into it half-laig deep, and no
mistake.  I dunno.  Mebbe Heppy's right.  Enterin'
in where angels fear to tread has its dangers.  I
cal'late my matchmaking scheme was all right.  But
who'd have ever thought anything like this would
turn up?

"Oh, sugar!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`WHAT FRETS LORNA`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXII


.. class:: center medium

   WHAT FRETS LORNA

.. vspace:: 2

After some further consideration Tobias Bassett
came to the conclusion that the startling suspicion
regarding Ralph Endicott's connection with the
burglary of the Clinkerport Bank was no joke.

That Lorna should actually fear there was truth
in the accusation was disturbing enough.  But the
lightkeeper believed that by revealing to her his own
ill-advised deceit in the matter of the Endicotts'
financial situation, he could assuage Lorna's anxiety.

It seemed, however, that the public in general—and
Clinkerport folk in particular—were likely to
jump to the same conclusion that the bank
detective and Arad Thompson held.

"It looks right silly, knowing the Endicotts as
everybody about here does, and all," muttered the
matchmaking lightkeeper.  "But if ever that story
I told Lorny gets spread abroad——

"Oh, sugar!  Telling even a white lie is just like
dropping oil on a woolen garment.  It spreads, an'
spreads——

"I give it as my opinion that if ever Heppy hears
tell of my interferin' as I have in these young folks'
love troubles, I won't never hear the last of it.
Unless Heppy dies before I do—the Lord forbid!"

He sat there and watched the detective come away
from the Endicott bungalow after a while.  Rafe
Silver had turned the car about and waited for the
man at the foot of the lane.  From where Tobias
sat it looked as though the detective had not gained
much by his visit.

"I doubt if he even see Henry Endicott," considered
the lightkeeper, "he's that dissatisfied.  I'd
give something to know what that shabby looking
sleuth thinks he'll do now.  Trying to tie such a
thing to Ralph Endicott.  Oh, sugar!"

The big blue limousine went back to Clinkerport.
The inhabitants of the town by this time were in a
ferment.  Thirty hours had elapsed—or thereabout—since
the discovery of the burglary.  The bank
had not opened its doors nor had Arad Thompson
made a public statement.

Rumor and surmise scuttled through the narrow
streets of the port like thunder-frighted fowl.
Shopkeepers stood at their street-doors and housewives
on their side porches.  Gossip was rife and suspicion
was bound finally to pounce hawklike on some victim.

Who first tarred Ralph Endicott's name with the
brush of suspicion seemed a mystery.  Only Silas
Compton and Ezra Crouch had seen the little gold
penknife Tobias had found under the bank window.
The bank president had spoken to nobody save the
detective about the toy, and the sleuth was as
close-mouthed as a clam.

Yet when the latter arrived back at Clinkerport
the whole town seemed to know about that knife,
and most of the excited inhabitants were quite
positive that it belonged to Ralph Endicott.

"You kin believe it or not, as ye see fit," Ezra
Crouch was saying to a group of soap-box warmers
in Compton's store, "his going away the other day
was all a bluff.  Just a bluff.  He was back again
that night."

"Prob'bly.  If he was one of the burglars,"
commented the storekeeper.

"Of course he was one of the burgulars.  He was
like enough the ring-leader of 'em," declared Ezra.

"I never did like that feller much," breathed one
easily convinced listener.

"Too uppity," said another.

"All them Endicotts is proud as Punch," declared
a third.

"Here!  Here!" cried Compton.  "You fellers air
jumpin' at a conclusion that's got mighty leetle
evidence behind it.  Ye air grabbing at it just like a
snapper at a sandworm.  You ain't sure he come
back after he left town, bag and baggage, day 'fore
yesterday."

"Yes, I be," said Ezra, nodding.  "He was seen.
As late as ten o'clock that night.  Right here on
Main Street."

"Ye don't say!" was the excited chorus.

But Silas Compton was not so easily convinced.
He snorted and looked over his spectacles at Ezra,
balancing back and forth on his soap-box as perky
as any catbird.

"There ain't no sense in it," declared the storekeeper.
"What need of that rich feller robbin' a bank?"

"He ain't rich," cackled Ezra Crouch.  "It's his
uncle—that crazy inventor.  He's got all the money.
Not this boy."

"What's the difference?"

"A good deal, I cal'late," declared the confident
Ezra.  "Mebbe he had need of a lot of money that
his uncle wouldn't give him.  You know how them
college boys air.  Purt' tough, if ye ask me."

"But, my goodness!" gasped Compton, rather
balked by the other's confidence, "nobody ever heard
of anything like this against the Endicotts of
Amperly—nossir!"

"There's most always a black sheep in every
flock," replied Ezra, pursing his shaven lips.  "At
any rate, that there penknife Tobias found is his'n,
and they tell me the detective Arad Thompson sent
for is huntin' Ralph Endicott high and low."

This last was a fact.  The detective had stronger
reason than the finding of the penknife for making
inquiries about Ralph.  But the public did not know
about the address book—not as yet.

It seemed peculiar that after all the friends Ralph
was supposed to have made in Clinkerport, so few
of them were in the front rank, so to speak, at this
juncture.  Zeke Bassett returned to the Twin Rocks
Light that evening quite disturbed over this
surprising fact.

"Does 'pear," he said to Tobias, when he entered
the kitchen after putting away the car, "that
Clinkerport folks is about as faithful to their friends as
rock adders!  Talk about warmin' a viper in your
bosom, Tobias.  Ralph Endicott has warmed a
whole seine full o' vipers, seems to me.  I never
would have believed a nice feller like him could
have made so many friends that turned out to be
enemies when he got into trouble."

"Oh, sugar!" murmured the lightkeeper.  "I give
it as my opinion that Clinkerport folks is purt'
average human—that's all."

But his face was grim enough as he listened to
Zeke's further narration.  It seemed the local police
were working hand in hand with the detective, and
their main effort seemed to be along the line of
hunting Ralph and trailing his movements during
the few days subsequent to the burglary.

"I don't know how much they think they've got
on him," concluded the surfman.  "But just now,
before I come back, Gyp Pellet——  Know him,
Cousin Tobe?  Lives down to Peehawket."

"I know him," confessed the interested lightkeeper.

"Well, Gyp Pellet came up to town and told the
constable and this here bank detective that he'd
rented Ralph his catboat—the old *Gullwing*—early
on the morning after the bank was burgled."

"Yesterday morning?  Oh, sugar!  What was
Ralph doing down to Peehawket Cove?"

"Got me.  Gyp says he seen him walkin' up the
railroad tracks carrying a heavy bag about
daybreak.  O' course, everybody says he had the bank's
money—or part of it anyway—in that bag.  They
kind of figger he and the other burglars went down
the railroad on a hand car, and separated somewhere
below Peehawket.  Ever hear such foolishness?"

"It listens purty foolish," admitted Tobias.

"Gyp says Ralph was terrible anxious to get away
in the *Gullwing*.  Ye know that old cat ain't wuth
the new caulkin' Gyp put into her seams this spring.
And you bet he held out for his price, seein' Ralph
was in need.  He didn't exactly say how much he
stung the young feller; but if he don't never see that
old tub again, I reckon he don't cal'late to lose
much."

"What do you s'pose Ralph is up to?" sighed
Tobias.  "He put out yesterday morning from
Peehawket Cove, did he?  And Gyp ain't got no idea
where he went?"

"Says he tacked southerly after he got outside.
Beyond that Gyp declares he don't know a thing."

"Wherever Ralph is, I hope he's moored safe
to-night," muttered the lightkeeper.

He rose and went to the door, peering out into
the darkness.  The wind was moaning in the
distance while the deeper bourdon of thunderous
breakers on the reefs added to the audible threat of
the elements.

"We're going to have a humdinger," said Tobias,
with fuller assurance, returning from the door.
"And if that boy went to sea in that leaky old tub——"

The door from the stairway was pushed wide
open and Lorna Nicholet came into the kitchen.
Her countenance was pale and there was a deep
smudge under each eye.  But the eyes themselves
were very bright—perhaps tear bright.  And yet she
was not a girl who often wept.

She carried a tray on which was a teapot, crusts
of toast, and part of a glass of jelly.  Before she
spoke she set the tray upon the Turkey-red cloth
that always covered Miss Heppy's table between
meals.  Indeed, Zeke, making ready to go aloft for
a look at the lamp, was first to ask:

"How's Cousin Heppy?"

"She managed to eat a little supper.  She is quiet
now," Lorna said.  "Is the bank matter settled?
That is what is worrying Miss Heppy.  If her
money is lost——"

"Oh, sugar!" muttered the lightkeeper, while
Zeke shook his head.

"Arad Thompson ain't let out a peep," the surfman
declared.  "I don't suppose he wants to shoulder
all the loss.  I don't know anything about the
law on it."

He went out to the stairs and closed the door
behind him.  Lorna turned like a flash upon the
old lightkeeper.

"Tobias Bassett!" she ejaculated, "what is it now
about Ralph?"

"Heh?"  She had managed to startle him that
time.  "Why, Lorna, I don't know——"

"What has happened to him?  I heard you say
something about his going to sea.  What do you
mean?"

"Why, there's a story that he went out from
Peehawket Cove in a catboat yesterday morning.  But
we don't know what he went for, or where he's
gone."

"I heard you say it was an old tub.  If he is out
there and there is a storm coming up, what is going
to become of him?"

"Oh, sugar!  Ralph's a good sailor.  You know
he is.  He wouldn't likely run into no danger.
When he see the storm coming he'd run for it
somewhere.  Sure!"

"And where would he run, if he knew that the
police were looking for him in every port up and
down the Cape?" demanded the young woman.

She brought out the question pantingly and one
hand clutched at her bosom.  Tobias stared.  That
Lorna Nicholet should display such abundant
emotion puzzled him.

"Good glory, Lorna!" he gasped.  "Air *all* women
alike?  You talk about Ralph just the same as
Heppy does about our money.  Ain't a spark o'
hope in either of your hearts, I don't believe.  You
talk like you was sure Ralph is mixed up in that
burglary."

"He is, isn't he?" she demanded with sharpness.
"At least," she supplemented, "he is accused."

"I never thought, Lorny," the lightkeeper
rejoined gravely, "that you'd go back on an old friend
this-a-way.  Why! if Ralph's friends are going to
believe such tommyrot about him, no wonder
strangers—as ye might call 'em—air so fickle."

"What do you mean, Tobias Bassett?  Haven't
we reason enough to be suspicious of him?"

"I can't see it, Lorny."

"Why!  That penknife!  And that address book!
What of them?"

Tobias shook his head, puckering his lips thoughtfully.

"And see how he has acted!  Going off without
telling anybody where he is bound, or what he
means to do.  Oh! even if he isn't guilty, I've no
patience with him."

"I kin see that," admitted Tobias reflectively.

"There is more than that.  You know there is!"
cried Lorna, on the verge of tears at last.  "He—he
has lost his money and he may be desperately in
need of some for—for a certain purpose.  How do
we know what temptation he may have been under
these last few weeks?  I—I feel condemned!  I
should have offered to help him!"

She said it wildly, and fairly ran out of the
kitchen again before Tobias could recover his
powers of speech.  On the stairway she stopped to
wipe away her tears.  Were they tears of rage, or
of actual fear for Ralph Endicott's safety?  Lorna
could scarcely have told had she been asked.

In her pocket was a crumpled bit of paper—a leaf
torn from that very address book which now seemed
to be plain evidence against Ralph Endicott.  He
had torn it out in anger and thrown it at Conny
Degger—the page on which was written Cora
Devine's address.  The very thought of that girl
stabbed Lorna to the heart!

For, deny it as she would, Lorna was jealous.
She was enraged that a girl of that character could
attract, even for a little while, a man who had been
*her* friend.  With all his faults, Lorna had always
considered Ralph manly and decent.  That he should
have found entertainment—even for a brief time—with
a girl of such character!

It did not enter into Lorna's consideration that
the only testimony she had as to Cora Devine's
character came through Conny Degger.  And at the
present moment she would not have taken Degger's
word as final on any subject.

What she thought she knew, however, had
festered in Lorna's mind until it discharged nothing
but evil suspicion against Ralph.  Shrewd Conny
Degger had said just enough to turn Lorna's milk
of human kindness acid.  At least as far as Ralph
was concerned.

She finally climbed the stairs to Miss Heppy's
whitewashed cell.  The old woman had fallen
asleep at last.  She sobbed now and then into her
pillow, like a heart-broken child.

"Poor Miss Heppy!" the girl murmured.  "The
loss of that money spells tragedy for her.  It is
almost the greatest blow that could have befallen her."

But she was not exactly thinking of Miss Heppy's
trouble—not in particular.  She sat down at the
little table on which stood the shaded lamp.  There
was a bottle of ink on the table with a penholder
and a rusty pen in it.  There was a cheap box with
"Elite Writing Paper" ornately printed on it.  She
took out a sheet of paper and an envelope.

Very slowly, and with much thought between
phrases, Lorna wrote a letter and addressed it to
"Miss Cora Devine, 27 Canstony Street, Charlestown,
Mass."  Afterward, Miss Heppy having
fallen deeper into sleep, Lorna turned down the
wick of the lamp and crept out of the room.

There was nobody in the kitchen when she
descended the stairs, Tobias having joined Zeke
Bassett in the lamp room.  Lorna slipped into her
jacket and wound a veil about her head.  Outside
the boom of the surf and shrieking of the wind
frightened her.  A fierce storm was gathering.  If
Ralph was out in a small boat in this hurricane——

She fought her way across the sands and climbed
the bluff.  There was a light in Jackson's room
over the garage.  It was not yet ten o'clock, and a
mail train went through Clinkerport just before
eleven.

She called to the chauffeur.  He came down
immediately and was only too willing to do her errand.
The letter was to be stamped for special delivery and
was to be mailed on the train.





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.. _`MORE THAN WEATHER INDICATIONS`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXIII


.. class:: center medium

   MORE THAN WEATHER INDICATIONS

.. vspace:: 2

August seldom breeds such a gale along the Cape
Cod coast as this threatened to be.  At that date
the Life Saving Service was administered more
economically than it should have been.

But duty is a high mark—and always has been—to
the men in this service.  The threat of this mounting
gale called the Lower Trillion crew together on
their own responsibility.  Not long after midnight
Zeke Bassett left the Twin Rocks Light, got out his
little car, and ran down to the station to see if the
captain had need of him.

Zeke returned for early breakfast at the light and
to get some of his chattels that he needed.
Hurricane signals were out all along the coast, and
although Captain Edgar of the Lower Trillion
station would not send out beach patrols, he was glad
to have his crew within call.  The wind was out of
the northeast and had already spun the gauge to
sixty-five miles an hour.

"We've been overhauling the gear and soaking up
the old lifeboat since mid-watch," said Zeke between
huge mouthfuls of Tobias's johnnycake and fried
pork.  "I dunno why the Service don't give us a
power boat.  They've got one at Upper Trillion.
But there's a whole flock of millionaires up there
that have got influence with Congress.  Huh!"

"I give it as my opinion that money does have
some influence sometimes."

"Say, speakin' of money!  That reminds me.
Jefferson Gallup—he's Number Six on our crew—gave
us a different line on that Endicott boy this
morning."

"Oh, Ralph?"

"Yes.  Seems he did go to sea in the *Gullwing*.
Jefferson was out with his brother-in-law in the
sloop fishing, and they spied Endicott and the cat
going out and coming in last night.  He was
hanging around the jaw of Cape Fisher.  He's a good
sailor, Jefferson says."

"I cal'late," agreed Tobias, wagging his head.
"But what was he doin' out there?"

"Course," said Zeke, reflectively, "at that time
Jefferson Gallup hadn't heard a word about the bank
burglary.  Comin' in they ran close to the *Gullwing*
and hailed Endicott—asked him what he was loafing
around there for.  He didn't 'pear to have no fish."

"And what did he say?" asked Tobias eagerly.

"Why, he shouted something about waiting there
to spy the *Nelly G.*"

"The *Nelly G.*?" repeated Tobias.  "Why, she's
a Banker."

"Yep.  Hails from New Bedford.  I heard tell
she was making an early start for the Georges.  And
it seems, from what Jefferson Gallup gathered, that
Ralph Endicott was cal'latin' on going with her."

"Oh, sugar!" exclaimed the lightkeeper.  "Of
course.  He's said to me more than once that he'd
admire to take a trip on one o' them haddockers.
But why didn't he go down to New Bedford and
board her proper?"

"I cal'late," said the sober Zeke, "that other folks
is goin' to ask that same question, Tobias Bassett.
If he boards that schooner he's got to abandon the
*Gullwing*.  And I bet he paid Gyp Pellet every cent
she's worth for the use of her.  Looks suspicious."

"There you go!" ejaculated Tobias, with heat.
"That boy never did value money.  If he wanted to
do a thing he'd do it, never mind if it cost him his
last cent."

"Wal," was the dry response, as Zeke got up
from the table, "if Endicott had in that suitcase
what folks say he had, I reckon it didn't cost him
his last cent to satisfy even such a hog as Gyp Pellet."

Tobias wagged his head and said nothing further.
He was more puzzled than ever now.  It did look
as though there was something peculiar about
Ralph's departure from home.

The old-lightkeeper would not believe anything
against the character of the boy he had watched
grow up and loved so well.  He knew Ralph Endicott
was not perfect; but he was "toler'ble sure," as
he expressed it, that Ralph was no bank burglar.

He was as anxious now over the absent youth as
Lorna was, and Lorna had spent a most unhappy
night.  She arose on this wild and turbulent
morning unable to hide from even the casual glance the
traces of tears and sleeplessness.

And Miss Ida's glance was never casual.  The
moment Lorna slipped into the breakfast room—a
wee bit late, perhaps—her aunt looked up from
behind the coffee percolator.  She was saying:

"I do wish John Nicholet would return.  All I
get is a scrawl here," she tapped the letter beside
her plate, "saying that he may be delayed a day or
two longer in Boston.  I am worried, Lorna, about
Prof—about the Endicotts.  If only Ralph had not
gone away I certainly would put the question to him
frankly.  If the family is in financial
difficulties——  What is the matter, Lorna?"

Her tone was sharp.  For once Miss Ida's calm
was fretted by her niece's appearance.

"Are you ill?" she cried.

"Why, no, Aunt Ida."

"What is the matter then?"

"I—I—oh, Auntie!  The Clinkerport Bank!
They say Ralph robbed it!"

"They say——  Are you crazy, child?"

"No, no!  It's true!"

"What is true?" demanded Miss Ida, her cheeks
actually reddening.  "Do you mean to tell me, Lorna
Nicholet, that you for one instant believe such a vile
calumny about Ralph Endicott?"

"But—but the police are hunting him.  He has
run away.  He hired a boat down at Peehawket
Cove and nobody knows where he has gone in it."

"What has that to do with the bank robbery?"
asked Miss Ida severely.

Finally Lorna recovered her voice sufficiently to
give a detailed account of the events connecting
Ralph's name with the burglary.  Miss Ida listened
with haughty impatience.  When her niece had
finished the spinster actually snorted—no other
word just expresses it!

"Lorna!  I think you are a fool," she declared.
"If Ralph told me himself he had committed a
burglary I should not believe it."

"You do not know what temptation he may have
had," faltered the girl.

She would not breathe a word regarding Cora
Devine and her fear that Ralph might have been
hounded for a sum of money that he could not
honestly obtain.  It was not that Lorna was really
convinced Ralph was a thief.  She feared that the
general suspicion that had settled upon him might
be supported by seeming evidence.  If he was
brought to arrest, what then?

Miss Ida arose from her seat, leaving her
breakfast almost untouched.

"I am going to see Henry Endicott at once.  He
must take me into his confidence, as John is not
here.  If this bitter humiliation comes upon him at
such a time—when he must be already overwhelmed
with trouble—no knowing what the result may be."

"But he is shut up in his laboratory.  He even
sleeps there.  You can't talk to him, Aunt Ida."

For once Miss Ida spoke impulsively.  Indeed,
she fairly blazed the reply at her startled niece.

"I am not afraid of Henry Endicott or of his
foolish orders about being let alone when he is at
work.  Once I might—well, this is a different
matter.  I am not a silly girl, I hope.  Henry Endicott
must be dragged out of his shell if need be!"

She made her exit, leaving Lorna wondering just
whom Miss Ida had referred to.  Was the "silly
girl" mentioned Miss Ida or Lorna?  Was it possible
that her aunt harked back to an incident of her
past association with Professor Endicott that Lorna
knew nothing about?

She finished her own breakfast hastily and then
got into her storm coat and boots.  She had promised
the lightkeeper's sister to go this morning and
put in order the living rooms in the light tower.
But when she stepped out of the side door and felt
the blast off the sea, Lorna was almost staggered.

The skyline, where it met and merged with the
sea, was blue-black in hue, and the slate-colored
clouds hung low.  Racing shoreward the lines of
white-maned waves seemed striving to overtake
each other—running a handicap that left the
observer breathless.  The thunderous crash of the
waves' recurrent breaking on the reefs was all but
deafening.  Lorna, beaten on like a leaf across the
sands, had never experienced such a gale—surely
not in midsummer—as this.  It was frightful!

The greater powers of both wind and sea were
unleashed.  Not a spar was visible on all the wide
expanse of tumbling sea.  The hurricane had been
long gathering, and the fishermen and other
seafarers were forewarned.

Yet this poignant thought smote Lorna Nicholet's
mind: Where was Ralph at this very moment?
If he had remained outside in that leaky catboat,
surely he had come to grief.  Even large vessels
must make plenty of searoom in such a gale as this,
and the *Gullwing* surely was not a seaworthy craft.

She staggered to the door of the lighthouse and
flung it open.  Tobias Bassett was puttering about
the stove.  There was a smell of scorched toast in
the air and the eggs he was trying to poach were
being cooked to rags in a saucepan of furiously
boiling water.

"My soul and body, Lorny!  I sartainly be glad
to see you.  I thought mebbe you wouldn't get over,
it's such a gale."

He did not notice her agitation, for his attention
was fixed upon the maltreated eggs.

"I could cook once for a crew of haddockers good
enough; but none of them was invalids.  An egg is
the loosest thing!  I vum! how d'ye make 'em stay
together, Lorny?"

But the almost breathless girl had that on her
mind that precluded her taking any interest in
culinary puzzles.  She leaned against the door she
had closed behind her, and gasped:

"What about Ralph?  Have you heard anything
more?  Do you know if he is safe?"

"Why, I cal'late he is," the lightkeeper rejoined
slowly, looking at her now with attention.  "I don't
know just why he put to sea out of Peehawket Cove
'stead o' going to New Bedford to jine the *Nelly
G.*——"

"To join the *Nelly G.*?" repeated the young
woman.  "What for?"

"Going to the Banks, I cal'late.  He let it be
known that he was waiting outside o' Cape Fisher
for the *Nelly G.* to come along."

"He is running away, then!" cried Lorna.

"What do you mean?" said Tobias, forgetting
the eggs entirely.  "You ain't got no reason, Lorny,
to think so bad of Ralph.  He didn't have nothing
to do with that bank robbery—nossir!"

"You cannot prove that, Tobias Bassett," she
cried wildly.  "You—you don't know all—all that
might have tempted him.  And he being without
money."

"Oh, sugar!" muttered the worried lightkeeper,
reddening like a schoolboy caught in a peccadillo.
Then: "I tell you there ain't no reason.  He ain't
poor."

"Why, Tobias Bassett! if Professor Endicott has
lost all his money——"

"But he ain't!  It's all torn foolishness.  I—I just
told you I'd *heard* 'twas so, Lorny.  And I did hear
it.  You know how gossip goes in Clinkerport.
Them story-mongers has had Henry Endicott ruined
financially because of his inventions a score of
times."

"But you told me——"

"Oh, sugar!  I didn't have no business to tell you
such a thing.  I never ought to have said it,"
stammered the lightkeeper.  "I was figgerin' that the
matter with you young folks—you and Ralph—was
that you both had too much money.  If you was
poor I cal'lated you'd begin to have pity for each
other and, as the feller said, 'pity is akin to love.'"

"Tobias Bassett, you deliberately deceived me?
Ralph Endicott is not poor at all?"

Her face was suddenly aflame.  Her eyes sparkled
with rage.  She stamped her foot.  Tobias had no
difficulty in keeping a straight face now.  In truth
he could not have called up a grin to save his life.

"That's just what I done, Lorna," he confessed.
"I cal'late I trimmed my sails purt' close to the
truth and no mistake.  Didn't just foresee this
difficulty, that's a fact.  But you disabuse your mind
right now of the idea of Ralph Endicott being
anything different from what he's always been—as
straight as a main stick and as clean as a whistle."

"But that penknife you found—and his address
book?" she gasped.

"I ain't trying to explain them.  I don't have to—just
like I told that detective feller.  I give it as
my opinion that somebody is trying to tie something
on Ralph.  But no evidence they could show me
would make me believe he was a bank burglar—nossir!"

Suddenly Lorna shrieked and ran at him.  The
old lightkeeper skipped out of her path with
surprising agility.

"Aw—now—Lorny!" he gasped, "don't be too
hard on a fellow."

"Tobias Bassett!  Those eggs!"

"Oh, sugar!  They be a mess, now, ain't they?"  And
he chuckled.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`UNDERSTANDING`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXIV


.. class:: center medium

   UNDERSTANDING

.. vspace:: 2

It is admitted that those eggs saved Tobias
Bassett from feeling the full weight of the young
woman's wrath.  And that is as well.  For the eggs
were by this time absolutely useless for any other
purpose.  One cannot poach eggs for twenty
minutes and pronounce them edible.

"And this toast!  What a black mess!" scolded
Lorna.  "The tea must have been boiling half an
hour, too.  Tobias Bassett, would you serve such
a meal as that to your poor, sick sister?"

"Oh, sugar!  I tell you I ain't no fancy cook,
Lorny.  I—I guess I'll go up and fill the lamp.
Zeke ain't going to be with us to-day.  My, my! hear
that wind, will ye?"

He was glad to get out of the kitchen.  That
young woman, he opined, was some spitfire!  But
he chuckled hugely as he clumped up the stairs.

"I dunno whether my matchmaking is so tarnal
bad, after all," he reflected.  "She was scare't Ralph
was in trouble because she does care for him—just
as sure as aigs is aigs."

Perhaps, too, it was better for Lorna that she had
to give her attention just then to the preparation of
a more dainty repast for the invalid than Tobias
could have furnished.

"Poor Miss Heppy!" she sighed.

Her thoughts reverted again to Ralph.  So, he
was not poor.  He did not deserve the pity she had
been wasting on him.  Or was it wasted?

The fact that he had possibly not even the reason
of poverty for entering into that scheme to rob the
Clinkerport Bank did not, after all, clear him of
suspicion.  Lorna could not—as Tobias Bassett
did—flout the evidence of the address book and the
penknife.  The atmosphere was not immediately
cleared of doubt.

The young woman did not know much about
judicial procedure or the laws governing circumstantial
evidence; but she was quite sure that Ralph
Endicott would have to explain away the discoveries
at the bank that pointed so directly to his
participation in the burglary.

And the curious thing he had done in leaving
town!  How explain that mystery?

He had evidently shipped his trunk and taken the
train himself for New Bedford; yet he had returned
to Clinkerport during the evening.  At daybreak he
was walking the railroad track at Peehawket Cove.
How had he got there from Clinkerport?

His putting to sea with the avowed intention of
hailing the banker *Nelly G.* capped the mystery.
Why had he not gone on with his baggage to New
Bedford and boarded the fishing schooner there?

"And why?  And why?  And why?" murmured
Lorna at length.  "I might ask myself these
questions from now till doomsday and be none the
wiser."

She shook her head sadly as she prepared Miss
Heppy's tray.  These puzzling queries were not
all—nor the greatest—that troubled Lorna Nicholet.

The young woman confessed in secret that more
than curiosity inspired her interest in Ralph's
association with Cora Devine.  Why should her name
and address have been in his notebook if he had not
a close acquaintance with her?

From the very first time she had heard of the
girl (and Conny Degger had mentioned her slurringly
in connection with Ralph's name more than a
year before) Lorna had felt secret jealousy.  But
never until now would she acknowledge it.

This phase of the mystery angered her.  It was
that which had caused her more than anything else
to doubt Ralph's honesty and good intentions.  So
she still wondered if he were not really in trouble
through the Devine girl and if this fact were not
behind his strange actions in leaving home.  Even
if he had no part in the bank burglary (and of
course he had not) Lorna could not absolve him of
possible disgrace.

In addition, Ralph might be out on the open sea
in this gale.  Whether he had stuck to the leaky
catboat during the night or had managed to board
the *Nelly G.*, Lorna feared for his safety.  She
hoped, however, that he had given up that wild
attempt to go to the banks with the fishing craft
and had made safe harbor before the hurricane had
risen to its present height.

The staunch tower of the Twin Rocks Light
fairly quivered in the blast.  Lorna could feel the
vibration of the spiral stairway as she mounted to Miss
Heppy's bedroom.

"What a dreadful storm!  What a dreadful
storm!" the lightkeeper's sister moaned when Lorna
came into the room.  "Dear-oh-dear!  Everything
seems to come on us to once't.  Feel this old stone
tomb a-tremble, Lorna!  When there's a storm like
this I always do dread trouble.  And we've all got
trouble enough now, I do allow."

"But, Miss Heppy, it may not be as bad as you
think," said the young woman, trying to speak
cheerfully.

"For love's sake!" was the rather tart rejoinder.
"I've give up all hope of ever getting our money
back.  I guess Arad Thompson ain't responsible for
burglaries.  And I should think you'd be pretty well
worrited yourself, Lorna, over Ralph Endicott."

"Oh!" gasped the girl in surprise.

"Yes.  Tobias was in here this morning and told
me what Zeke said.  Ralph—the foolish boy!—has
gone to sea.  And in such weather!  Oh, my dear,
I long since told you why I'd never marry one o'
these here longshoremen.  'Them that go down to
the sea in ships,' the Bible calls 'em.  Many of 'em
go down *under* the sea in ships—ah, yes!

"Lorna, you are right to give up Ralph Endicott.
Tobias says you ain't.  He 'pears to think you two
was made for each other.  But if Ralph is so determined
about seagoing I don't wonder that you give
him over."

"But, Miss Heppy!" cried Lorna, "I am not at
all sure Ralph cares particularly for me.  I—I think
he is all over that."

Miss Heppy, sitting up in bed with her nightcap
awry, stopped sipping her tea for a moment to look
over the cup at the younger woman.

"Be you blind, Lorna Nicholet?" she asked.

"Why, of course not!"

"You must be if you can't see that that boy is
crazy about you.  He goes mooning around here
like a stray pup.  I never did see anybody take it so
hard as he does."

"Take what so hard?" demanded Lorna, with
some exasperation.

"Your turning of him down the way you have,"
rejoined Miss Heppy more briskly.  "Now, don't
say you can't see it.  Ralph Endicott isn't one that
gets over a hurt easy.  His feelin's air deep.  Your
running about with Mr. Degger just about finished
Ralph."

"Why, Miss Heppy!" complained Lorna, "you
are very much mistaken.  He doesn't care anything
about me at all.  I know how he acts, I hope, when
we are alone together——"

"You give him his orders long ago, didn't you?"
said the shrewd old woman.  "I heard you.  Right
here in this lighthouse."

"Oh!  You mean that night we got stuck in the
snowdrift?"  The young woman flushed more
deeply.  "But I was angry.  We were both angry."

"Uh-huh!" rejoined her friend.

"And I told you long ago that I would not allow
the family to force me into a marriage that I did
not want and with a man of whom my heart did not
approve."

"I know—I know, my dear," said the old woman,
nodding.  "And I am not blaming you.  Besides,
I do think Mr. Degger is an awful friendly young man."

Lorna winced at this.  Her head was turned so
that Miss Heppy could not see her face.

"Somehow, Tobias don't seem to like Mr. Degger,"
went on the lightkeeper's sister.  "But I never
did think all the wisdom in the world was lodged
under Tobias's sou'wester.  No, indeed!  You have
a perfect right to say no to Ralph.  But that don't
keep me from being sorry for him, just the same."

"I am quite sure you are mistaken, dear Miss
Heppy," Lorna rejoined seriously.  "I mean about
Ralph's caring anything for me—in that way.  Of
course we are friends.  I—I should feel very bad if
I thought he was in danger."

"And he certainly is, my child, if he is out in this
gale," groaned Miss Heppy in her most lachrymose
manner.  "Ain't a mite o' doubt of that."

Lorna carried away the tray, urging the old
woman to remain in bed for the day.  Even if Miss
Heppy's illness was mostly of the mind, resting in
bed would do her more good than any medicine.
But Lorna was glad to have the work of clearing up
the house on her hands.  Bodily exercise eased *her*
mind.

Tobias Bassett kept strictly away from the living
rooms for most of the forenoon.  He knew himself
to be in bad odor with the black-eyed girl, who,
swathed in one of Miss Heppy's voluminous aprons,
briskly went about the homely tasks.

Tobias came down about noon for some tools.
He no longer looked sheepish, nor did he grin when
he beheld Lorna's very serious face.

"I give it as my opinion that this is the worst
summer storm we ever had," the lightkeeper said.
"I'm a-getting anxious, I am."

"Is there anything in sight, Tobias?" she asked
him fearfully.

"Meaning any sail?  I should hope not!  I don't
want to see no craft inshore with the wind in this
quarter—nossir!  I'm in trouble 'nough, as it is.
I never see the beat on it.  Just when Zeke is away, too."

"What has happened?" she asked.

"I'm 'fraid one o' the plates o' glass up there will
blow in.  The copper flange holding it is weakened—I
dunno but it's giving way.  Why! if that
should happen we couldn't mebbe light the lamp
to-night.  She'd blow out or explode."

"Oh, Tobias!"

"I've got to try to fix it," he said, finding the
hammer and cold chisel in the cupboard.  "But it
ain't no one-man job."

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"Wal, ye might.  If Heppy was only up and
about she'd give me a hand."

"I can help you just as well as Miss Heppy,"
Lorna declared with confidence.

She followed the old man up the spiral stairway
with lighter tread.  The higher they went the louder
in Lorna's ears sounded the pæan of the gale.  The
tower trembled through all its height.  The thunder
of the breakers down below was, too, a threatening
sound.

They reached the lamp room.  The wind seemed
to burst against the glassed front of the room.
There was such a creaking and rattling of joints
and of window frames that Lorna was actually
frightened.  She cowered for a moment at the back
of the room, her hands over her eyes.  If Ralph
was out in this awful storm!

"Here ye be, Lorny!" shouted the lightkeeper.
"See if you can give me a hand."

She ventured forward.  At first she scarcely
dared look out across the sea.  The spectacle of
lowering masses of cloud with the white scud flying
beneath and the foaming billows racing landward
shook the girl's very soul.  The drum-beat of the
breakers at the foot of the tower seemed to menace it.

"Oh! aren't we in danger up here?" she cried.

"I cal'late the old Light will stand some pounding
yet," Tobias grimly replied.

She read the words on his lips rather than heard
them.  She dragged her attention from the view
without to the work of repair that Tobias was
engaged in.  The pressure of her hand above and
below the point on the broad flange where he was
tapping was just the aid needed.

"That's it, Lorny.  You're as good at a pinch as
ary boy.  If we can keep this sheet of glass from
shaking out of the frame——"

"Oh, Tobias!" she gasped, "it is dreadful!  I
never imagined the power of the wind was so great."

"I cal'late this is some gale," he agreed.  "And if
the wind don't shift before the tide turns, the sea's
going to roll in here clean across the flats.  She'll
pour over the reefs in a reg'lar flood."

"Oh, never, Tobias!"

"I believe 'twill," he repeated.  "We're likely to
have such another high tide as we had in ninety-eight.
Our cellar was full then, and no mistake."

"Why, Tobias Bassett, there isn't any cellar to
this lighthouse."

"Oh, sugar!  So there ain't.  Ne'r mind.  It
would have been full if we'd had a cellar," he
chuckled.  "And this comin' tide may be like it.
It'll maybe wash out the shell road.  It did that
time."

"Then I would better hurry home.  I may be
marooned here all night if I don't."

"Wal, maybe so.  But you're welcome to stay,
and I guess Miss Ida won't worry none about ye."

When Lorna ran downstairs she felt, after all,
that she could not leave Tobias alone to fumble with
the housekeeping.  He had all he could do
unassisted to attend to the light.

"And poor Miss Heppy in bed," the girl
murmured.  "I'll get dinner for them anyway before
I go.  An invalid would fare poorly in this tower
to-day with only Tobias about."

No staples were lacking in the lighthouse pantry,
and Lorna was a capable housewife.  Her culinary
attempts might not match Miss Heppy's, but the
latter praised her willing helper.

"I dunno what I should have done without ye,
Lorna," she declared.  "I just felt as though I was
all in.  I couldn't lift a finger to help myself, nor
Tobias either."

"I am not sure that you shouldn't have a doctor,
even now, Miss Heppy," the younger woman observed.

"For love's sake!  What do I want a doctor
messin' with me for?  Doctors air for broken bones
and young children.  Common sense is the only
doctor I've had for a good many years.  And I
know as well as you do, Lorna, that there ain't
nothing re'lly the matter with me, only worriment.
I'm an old fool, and that's all there is to it!  But it
does seem as though I couldn't begin all over again,
saving the pennies and going without, and stinting
ourselves.  We'll end in the poorhouse, Tobias and
me, like enough.  Oh, dear, oh, dear!"

She concluded with a sob, and Lorna stole out of
the room.  There was nothing she could say that
would really comfort Miss Heppy.  She had, as
Tobias said, "let go all holts."  If the money was
actually lost, the young woman pitied Tobias as
much as she did Miss Heppy.  The latter was going
to be more lachrymose than ever.

"Perhaps Tobias is more than half right," Lorna
thought, as she bustled about her work.  "They
never have had any good of the money they scrimped
so hard to save; or of Captain Jethro's legacy, either.
Just knowing it was in the bank was no very great
satisfaction.  And now it *isn't*!"

She prepared a hearty meal for Tobias, who ate
gratefully but in a more serious mood than he was
wont to display.  He went up to the lamp room
again as soon as the meal was over.

"There don't seem to be any let-up in sight," he
told Lorna, "and I feel like I'd ought to be right on
the job, as the feller said."

She cleared away and washed the dishes.  All the
time the booming of the breakers and the crash of
the wind against the trembling light tower made
unhappy music in her ears.

She went to the door to look out.  The sand
barrens were being most viciously beaten by both wind
and spray.  She dreaded the walk back to Clay
Head.  When she went she thought she would
better follow the shell road even if it was much the
longer way home.  Not a moving object appeared in
the near-by landscape.

Suppose Ralph had boarded the fishing schooner?
It was now probably far out to sea.  Any craft
must make a good offing in such a hurricane to be
safe.

Ralph's possible peril kept recurring to the girl's
anxious mind.  The accusation that he had helped
in the bank burglary might, in the end, prove
ridiculous.  But his peril from the elements could not be
gainsaid.

Yes, she was angry with Ralph.  He had shown,
she thought, little appreciation of her personal
attractions that day when they returned in his motor
boat from Lower Trillion after the black squall.
Lorna had been in a tender mood that afternoon
and Ralph—he had practically ignored her!

That she had forbidden him to display any lover-like
attitude toward her did not enter into Lorna's
consideration.  There are times when even the
most practical young woman does not expect a man
to believe she means what she says.

In addition, the spectre of Cora Devine continually
rose in Lorna's thoughts.  There was a mystery
between Ralph and that girl.  It had to be explained
before Lorna could readmit her old friend to her
confidence.

When Lorna climbed the stairs once more to the
lamp room it was mid-afternoon, and she realized
that darkness would shut down very early upon sea
and land.  Already Miss Heppy's chickens had gone
to roost.  Lorna had beaten her way out to the coop
to feed them and found them cowering upon their
perches.  There was the element of threatening
disaster in the very air.

As she came up into the lamp room the turmoil
of the gale seemed to have increased tenfold.  One
could not have stood in safety upon the narrow
gallery outside the windows.

Tobias had his old-fashioned "captain's glass" to
his eye—an ancient telescope that had been round
the world on many a voyage—and held it focused
on a point some miles to the southward.

"What is it, Tobias?" Lorna asked, coming close
to him before he realized her presence.

"I give it as my opinion that it is a craft of some
kind, and she's making heavy weather of it.  But
I can't make out if it's a two-stick or a three-stick
vessel.  Seems to have lost some of her gear for'ard."

He allowed Lorna to take the heavy glass and
aided her to fix upon the exact spot where, now and
then, the masts of the laboring vessel heaved into
view.

"Is she in danger, do you think, Tobias?" Lorna asked.

The question was expressed in her countenance,
and Tobias nodded.  "Naterally!" he mouthed with
vigor.  "Any sort o' craft is in danger so near shore.
I warrant the boys air watchin' her down to Lower
Trillion.  She's about off their station now.

"Come on," he added, putting the glass away in
its beckets and starting for the hatchway.  "Let's
go below for a spell."  He did not want the girl to
watch that staggering, gale-buffeted craft out there.
"I feel sort o' famished for a cup o' something hot.
Heppy usually has her teapot on the stove about this
time, and she's gettin' me purt' near broke in to
liking that old maid's tipple," and he chuckled.

But when they descended to the kitchen Tobias
chanced to peer out of the window overlooking the
road first of all.  He ejaculated:

"My soul and body! what's come to pass now, I
want to know?"

Lorna ran to look over his shoulder.  The big
blue limousine belonging to the bank president had
just halted before the lighthouse.  The shabbily
dressed detective was getting out.

"Oh!" Lorna cried.  "What can he want here again?"

"I cal'late he thinks this is a bubblin' fount of
information," grumbled Tobias.  "Huh!  But maybe
we'll l'arn more than he does, Lorny."

They did.  The detective entered unsmilingly
when the lightkeeper opened the door.

"Have you heard anything more of that young
Endicott?" he asked Tobias, merely nodding to the
young woman.

"Wal, nothing that ye might call authoritative,"
the old man said slowly.  "There's rumors——"

"Yes.  We've run some of them down.  He was
mixed up in that break at the bank as sure as guns,"
the detective interposed with much assurance.

"Oh!" gasped Lorna, sitting down suddenly.

The man flashed a glance at her that seemed
questioning; but he continued to address Tobias.

"We have learned that he is a pretty shrewd
fellow—up to a certain point.  All these crooks fall
down at some place or another."

Again Lorna spoke.  "How dare you?" she
demanded, but under her breath.

The man gave her another swift glance but made
her no reply.  He went on coolly to Tobias:

"He planned his alibi with some smartness.
Shipped his trunk to a New Bedford wharf where a
fishing schooner called the *Nelly G.* was tied up.
Sent it on his ticket.  But he slipped off the train
and came back to Clinkerport in the evening.  This
was the night of the robbery, you understand."

"How do you know all this?" demanded the
young woman, with strong emotion.

"Well, the chap that first put me wise to it was a
fellow named Degger.  Stopping at the hotel in
town.  Oh, he knows Endicott well," added the
detective confidently.  "Went to college with him.
That's where the boys show up their real characters
oftentimes.  They're away from home and cut
loose from mamma's apron-strings.  This Endicott
certainly was a cut-up at Cambridge."

"So Degger says, eh?" muttered the lightkeeper.

"Oh, he only gave me the first steer.  I soon beat
up further evidence.  And, anyway, he was back in
Clinkerport late that evening," added the detective.
"He was seen by more than one.  It seems Endicott
had about five hundred dollars in the bank.  He
could not check it out over the bank counter so late,
but he got the postmaster to cash his check for that sum."

"Five hundred dollars?" murmured Tobias.  "Oh,
sugar!  That's a mort o' money to take with him
on a fishing v'y'ge.  Humph!"

"He's got more than that with him," said the
other grimly.  "But that's the reason he and his
friends didn't blow the post-office safe.  There was
nothing left in it but the stamps.  That young
sharper cleaned up all the cash the postmaster
happened to have on hand."

"Humph!" again repeated Tobias.  "So he did all
that, did he?  And then?"

"Don't fret," said the detective airily.  "We know
about everything he did in Clinkerport that evening
before the bank burglary.  Yes, sir.  He sent a
registered package—let's see?  Yes, here's the
address.  Do either of you know this woman?"

He thrust forward a card which he took from his
vest pocket.  Tobias did not offer to accept it, but
Lorna leaned forward and repeated aloud the name
and address:

"'Miss Cora Devine, 27 Canstony Street, Charlestown, Mass.'"

"There's always some woman mixed up in these
affairs.  This Devine girl is probably a crook's light
o' love.  I've put our Boston office onto her.  Oh,
we'll round up the whole gang before we get
through."

"How about rounding up the money that was
stole?" demanded Tobias with some disgust.
"Seems to me that'd be more to the p'int."

"Don't you worry about that, either, old scout,"
said the detective.  "We know where a part of the
money is all right—the biggest share of it in all
probability."

"Huh?  Where?"

"In that suitcase this gay young Endicott took
aboard that catboat down to Peehawket Cove,"
snapped the other.

"Oh, sugar!"

"And where is he and that catboat?" ventured
Lorna, in a very small voice.

"According to report, the catboat is a wreck down
there on what is called the jaw of Cape Fisher."

"Now, now, Lorny!" exclaimed Tobias, rising
suddenly and going around the table to the young
woman's side.  "Don't you believe it!"

"Oh, to the best of my belief," the detective
hastened to say, "Endicott abandoned the catboat.
Over the long-distance 'phone, by way of Harbor
Bar, I got the tip that Endicott did board that fishing
boat, the *Nelly G*.  I understand she is bound for the
Grand Banks.  That was his scheme for an alibi.
He thought himself pretty shrewd, no doubt.  But
we'll get him yet."

"You're sure o' that, be ye?" sighed Tobias.

"Well, I'd bet money on it," rejoined the man
with confidence.

"So he got aboard the *Nelly G.* after all?"
ruminated Tobias.

"He was seen to by two witnesses.  He had to
abandon the catboat, the sea was so heavy.  It was
just before dark last evening."

"Oh!" and the lightkeeper comfortingly patted
Lorna's shoulder.  "Then she's well on her way to
the banks.  Of course."

"Don't be too sure of that," said the detective.
"That is what brings me down this way.  I am on
my way to the Lower Trillion life-saving station.  It
is reported that the *Nelly G.* is in trouble somewhere
off there.  The wires are down, so that we could
not communicate with the station direct.  But a
fellow was up from Peehawket—that old fellow that
owned the catboat—and he came to the bank and
told Mr. Thompson."

"You mean to say," Tobias asked hoarsely, "that
the schooner's in trouble?  This schooner that Ralph
Endicott boarded?"

"That's what I'm trying to tell you.  What's the
matter with that girl?"

Tobias with flushed visage and angry eyes faced
the detective.  Lorna sat rigidly in the chair, her
eyes closed, her face pallid.

"What did Gyp Pellet say?  What's the matter
with the *Nelly G.*?" demanded the lightkeeper.
"She has been beating off and on all night and
to-day.  She has got distress signals flying.  I am going
down there to find out what it means.  I guess that
Endicott fellow won't get so far away, after all."

Tobias took both the small hands of the girl in
his big one.  He leaned above her, patting her
shoulder tenderly.  There was understanding in his
attitude, as there was at last in Lorna's heart.

She no longer could deny the truth.  Ralph Endicott
was in dire peril if the *Nelly G.* was threatened
with disaster.  And she could not hide the fact that
she loved him!





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.. _`ACROSS THE YEARS`:

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   CHAPTER XXV


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   ACROSS THE YEARS

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The Nicholets and the Endicotts had been sworn
allies for generations.  Their genealogical roots
were entwined in early Massachusetts Bay history.
Their forebears had perhaps helped each other
burn witches and slaughter Indians in the ancient
days.  Basicly the families were even now as
puritanical as the Sacred Codfish.

Yet under ordinary circumstances the Endicotts
and the Nicholets, although living side by side,
would seldom think of interfering in—or even
discussing—each other's private affairs.  New England
people are that way—the better class.  Without
being invited to do so Miss Ida would not have
concerned herself in the Endicotts' financial difficulties
except in this extraordinary situation.

The shocking story that Lorna had brought home—this
utterly preposterous accusation against Ralph—quite
startled Miss Ida out of the rut of usage.
Although she had been consulted in their trouble by
no member of the Endicott family, she felt that she
must offer sympathy and—if possible—assistance.
Although she seldom troubled her mind about
financial affairs—leaving those details to her brother—Miss
Ida was really the head of the Nicholet family.
The bulk of the family wealth was hers, as well as
the homestead at Harbor Bar.

She was in a position therefore to aid Henry
Endicott privately, were he in need—as she believed he
was.  The professor's awkwardness when he had
called on her several evenings previous, when he
had really come to offer his assistance to Lorna's
father, had served to convince Miss Ida that the
Endicotts were in need.

For years everybody who knew him had said that
Professor Endicott was wasting his substance in
experiments that would never amount to anything
of a practical nature.  Miss Ida herself believed that
he had frittered away much time and money since
resigning as a young man from the chair of
experimental chemistry in a mid-New England college.

Just what had happened twenty and more years
before this present date to drive the wedge between
Miss Ida and Henry Endicott no member of either
family knew.  A match that at the time was
considered eminently fitting had suddenly become
impossible.  That was all anybody—save the two most
interested persons themselves—ever learned about it.

It was years later, when Ralph and Lorna were
half grown, that Professor Endicott and Miss Ida
Nicholet began to agree on one important subject.
The two families should be united through Ralph
and Lorna.  The young people, they both said, were
made for each other.

That this statement had likewise been made *en
famille* about themselves when they were young,
Miss Ida and Henry Endicott perhaps had forgotten.
At least—as has been shown—neither would
admit to nephew and niece any good reason why the
latter should not fulfill the arrangement.

On this particular morning Miss Ida was not
thinking of her niece's opposition to being joined
with Ralph Endicott in wedlock.  She flung a shawl
about her shoulders and wound a knitted scarf
around her head to venture out into the gale.  A less
important errand than the one she had in view might
have caused her to hesitate on the side porch.  The
gale off the water was all but breath-taking.

On a day like this Mrs. Lucy Markham would not
leave her own apartment.  The children would be
in the playroom at the top of the house, as they could
not race the beaches below the clay cliff.  Professor
Endicott?

Miss Ida saw Jerome coming from the direction
of the stable and garage, the main part of which
building was devoted to the experimental laboratory.
So she did not go to the house, but halted
the old serving man on the walk.

"Where is Professor Endicott, Jerome?"

"He's in his study—I mean the laboratory, Miss
Nicholet.  He's just had me in to shave him, Miss.
Isn't this a dreadful morning?"

"I wish to see the professor at once, Jerome,"
said Miss Ida, and hurried on without rejoinder to
his question, such was her agitation.

When she turned the knob of the door the wind
drove both the door and herself inward with a crash.

"Hoity-toity!  What's this?" ejaculated the professor.

He stood at the sink with a towel in both hands,
wiping his face dry after applying the shaving
embrocation.  He stared at his visitor over this towel
as though she were an apparition.

"Miss Ida?  My goodness!  Let me shut the
door."  He sprang to it and put a sturdy shoulder
to the barrier, for he was no weakling.  "Do sit
down, Ida.  You are all out of breath.  What has
happened?"

He aided her to the swivel chair which stood
before the desk he sometimes used.  At first glance
Miss Ida's fingers itched to set it to rights.  It was
heaped with papers and books and retorts and
glasses, as well as a multitude of riffraff.

Professor Endicott stood off from her and stared.
He was without coat or vest.  There was a much
warmer expression in his eyes now that they were
not veiled by the shell-rimmed spectacles he usually
wore.

"What has happened, Ida?" he asked again.

"It is about Ralph," she told him, having
recovered her breath if not her tranquillity.

"Oh?  Yes.  Ralph," he murmured.

He looked puzzled, but he searched and found
among the papers on the desk an unfolded letter
("How could he place it in that mess?" was Miss
Ida's thought) and looked at it attentively.

"I found this tucked under the door after Ralph
had gone away, it seems.  To tell the truth, Ida, I
have been too deeply engaged recently to attend to
any exterior matters.  Let us see, when was it I
saw you last?  Has John returned from Boston?"

"No, John has not returned," she said coldly.  "I
know you have shut yourself up here.  I do not see
how you dare make a recluse of yourself.  How do
you know what is happening to your family?"

"Oh!  I——  There is Cousin Luce, you know."

"Yes.  I know and you know just how much of a
housekeeper and manager she is!" ejaculated Miss
Ida.  "It cannot truthfully be said that Lucy
Markham neglects your brother's family—and you.  For
she never in this world paid any attention to such a
duty.  How you expect the younger children will
grow up——"

"Oh, now, Ida.  They seem to get along very
well," he demurred.  "Healthy and happy and all
that.  And Ralph——  By the way, this letter now——  I
have neglected something which he reminds
me of in this.  But, believe me, these final
experiments have been most enthralling.

"You must know, my dear Ida, that I have been
associating myself with certain government
chemists.  They come to me when they can get no
further in their experiments.  We have finally completed
a chemical formula that will revolutionize the
expansion of balloons—if you know what I mean?  It
is a lighter and positively un-inflammable gas.

"My royalties will be rather large.  Not that I
have aided our government solely for a monetary
consideration," he added parenthetically.  "But
our income will be quite doubled by these royalties I
have agreed to accept."

"What?" gasped Miss Ida, so astounded that she
was more than abrupt.  "You say—you make
*money*—from these—these——?"

She stared around at the littered place.  Mentally,
on entering, she had called it a pig-sty!

"Oh, yes.  I have made quite a lot of money in
the past.  Much more than I ever could have
obtained from a salaried position.  But nothing like
these royalties from this last invention.  Of course,
it is commercial, in a way, and the Endicotts have
never been commercially inclined.  But, then——"

"Henry Endicott!" she breathed, "then you are
not in—in financial difficulties?"

"Financial difficulties?  Not at all!  Not at all!
Far from it, I may confidently say.  Indeed, my
dear Ida," and he flushed painfully, "I am so
situated that if you—if John——  That is, if you would
allow me, as an old and tried friend——"

"Well?" demanded Miss Ida, sitting very straight
in the chair and looking at him most uncompromisingly
it seemed.

"Why, I——  You see, my nephew says here," the
professor hastily went on, referring to the paper in
his hand.  "Ahem!  Let me see.  Yes.  'I am
going on a voyage with Captain Bob Pritchett on
the *Nelly G*.  No!  That is not the place.  Oh,
here: 'Look out for Lorna, Uncle Henry.  See her
father just as soon as he gets home.  If they need
help you know whatever I have they are welcome to.'"

Miss Ida rose to her feet in a flame of indignation.

"What under the sun does the boy mean?" she
asked haughtily.  "Such impudence!  Does that
mean, Henry, that Ralph has defaulted in the
understood arrangement that he and Lorna were to
marry?  I thought that it was entirely my niece's
fault that her engagement to Ralph was not yet
announced."

"Does that sound cold, Ida?" rejoined the professor
earnestly.  "The boy offers all he possesses
to help Lorna—and you—in your trouble."

"Our trouble!  What trouble?  I do not know
what you mean."

The professor broke through his restraint at last.
Ralph's letter fluttered to the floor.  He seized
Miss Ida's hands.

"There, there!" he said.  "We know all about it,
Ida.  Nobody can feel more sympathy for you than
Ralph and I.  I hoped to see John Nicholet and talk
it over with him.  It would have been easier—for
both you and me.

"This is something that you cannot bear alone,
Ida.  Let me help.  God knows I, like my nephew,
and for a greater reason, would gladly give you
every cent of my personal fortune——"

"Henry Endicott!" she finally gasped vehemently.
"Do you think we need financial assistance?"

But she did not withdraw her hands from his
grasp.  She looked into his face (she was almost as
tall as he was) with a strangely tender expression
flooding her own countenance.

"So the story goes, Ida," he said gently.  "Hasn't
John met with some heavy losses?  Or don't you
know about it?"

"Nothing of the kind!" she cried.  "It is ridiculous.
And you——  Why! we were told——  Where
could Lorna have heard it?  We believed you had
lost the greater part of your property.  I came over
here this morning to offer assistance.  I was afraid
you had shut yourself up here in this awful place,
worrying over your losses.  Oh, Henry!"

Suddenly he smiled.  Like Ralph's, the professor's
smile was a most winning one.  But it was not
wholly the warmth of that smile that drew the
woman closer to him.

"Ida," he said, in some wonderment, "would you
have done that for me?"

"We—we have been friends so many years, Henry."

The flush in her cheek was like a girl's, but she
did not drop her gaze.  She met his look squarely.

"So many wasted years, Ida," the man repeated softly.

"You don't seem to have wasted them after all,
Henry," she breathed.  "I only *thought* you were a
waster.  You know I always did despise any person
who, in this busy and needy world, was non-productive."

Professor Endicott glanced about the laboratory.
He shrugged his shoulders.

"All this is vanity, Ida," he said.  "Financial gain
is a very small part of life.  We have existed, you
and I, that is all—merely vegetated.  What we
should have had—what was meant for us—has been
lost.  We are bankrupt, Ida."

"No, no!"

His grasp of her hands relaxed.  Her left hand
stole up, up—across his shoulder and around his
neck.  She pressed against him and at last her gaze
fell.

"No, no!" she whispered.  "Not bankrupt, Henry.
It is not too late——"

A little later Miss Ida raised her head from the
professor's shoulder.  Her eyes were tear-drenched,
but her smile was warm.

"Henry," she said, "I had forgotten.  Do you
know that they accuse Ralph of helping to rob the
Clinkerport Bank?"





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.. _`HIGH TIDE`:

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   CHAPTER XXVI


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   HIGH TIDE

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Tobias Bassett for probably the second time in
his life (the first occasion was when Conway
Degger left the Twin Rocks Light) did not urge his
visitor to lengthen his call.  He followed the
detective outside the door, however, and watched Rafe
Silver get the blue limousine under way for Lower
Trillion.

"I hope I see the last of you in this neighborhood
right now," muttered the lightkeeper, referring to
the detective.  "You're a Jonah, that's what you are."

He went around to the exposed side of the tower
and faced the wind, sheltering his eyes with his hand
from flying spray and sand.  He peered seaward.

"It's comin'," he thought.  "I give it as my
opinion that she's going to be a humdinger of a tide.
Why, right now it's above usual high-water mark,
and 'tis still two hours and more to full sea.  It's
comin'.

"And that schooner—if that is the *Nelly G.* we
spied off to the south'ard—she's in a bad fix.
No doubt on't.  Oh, sugar!  I wish that gal hadn't
peeked through the old telescope and seen her."

He rather dreaded to return to the kitchen and
face Lorna.  Of course, he was free to admit, the
girl had not shown that she really loved Ralph
Endicott.  For old time's sake, he told himself, she
would be anxious for the young man's fate.  But
thus far she had not appeared as warmly interested
in the absent man as the lightkeeper wanted her to
be.  Yet, somehow, Tobias felt if actual peril
threatened Ralph, the girl "would take a tumble to
herself."  So he expressed it.

"Oh, sugar, yes!" he muttered.  "She don't know
just where she stands, that is all the trouble.  It
can't be possible them two young folks is going to
drift apart same as Miss Ida and the professor did
years ago—nossir!  *I ain't goin' to let 'em!*"

Just how he expected to bring about the
greatly-to-be-desired match he did not clearly see.  He had
stirred pity in Lorna's heart for Ralph when he had
suggested to her that the Endicotts had lost their
wealth.  Now that she knew this was not so, he
wondered if the reaction in Lorna's mind would be
disastrous for his matchmaking schemes.  Pity was
only akin to love sometimes.

"But, sugar!  It don't always work out right, I
do allow," grieved Tobias, wagging his head.
"Women air ornery, I vum!  Mebbe Lorna will
turn right around t'other way and blame Ralph for
what I done."

He returned to the kitchen therefore with lagging
steps.  Lorna was not there.  It was growing dusk
outside.  On a night like this he often lit the lamp
a little early.  He would do so now—and had reason,
with that craft he had spied wallowing in the offing.

He walked through the kitchen to the hall and
started up the spiral stairway.  He presumed Lorna
was with Miss Heppy.  But when he came to the
first landing he distinctly heard a sound from the
best chamber, the door of which was ajar.

He hesitated.  It came again—the sound of a
half-stifled sob and a murmured word.  The old
lightkeeper's heart was wrung with sympathy.  He
crept to the door.

It was Lorna.  She had flung herself down beside
the bed, her face hidden in her arms.  Her shoulders
quivered under the throe of her sobs.  She was
more wrought upon by emotion than Tobias had
ever before seen her!

Kindly impulse urged the old man to enter and
offer encouragement.  His better judgment, however,
held him back.  He quite knew Lorna's nature.
To display her deeper feelings in public had always
been abhorrent to the girl.

The emotion that racked her now, Tobias realized,
stirred Lorna's nature to its very dregs.  As
she rocked on her knees beside the bed, a cry burst
from her lips which held the old man back:

"God, bring him back!  Ralph!  Ralph!  Save
him, dear God, for—for I love him!  I love him so!"

The passion of tears that followed brought a
lump into the lightkeeper's throat that all but choked
him, while the salt drops stung his eyelids.  He
backed away from the bedroom door and tiptoed to
the stairs.

He mounted softly to the lamp room.  He felt
that he had somehow been indelicate in listening to
that cry of the girl's burdened heart.  He had looked
upon something which she had wished to keep
hidden—a secret that Lorna had heretofore denied.

Tobias's weather-blown face was puckered into a
very serious expression.  Used as he was to the sea
and sea-going, having taken a man's part in the
trade all his days, Ralph's peril aboard the *Nelly G.*
seemed a matter of course in his mind.  His sister's
inbred terror of the sea (shared by so many longshore
women) made little impression on Tobias
Bassett.

But the sudden revelation of Lorna's despair
shook his calmness.  He had loved her ever since
she and Ralph had toddled along the beach in
rompers, each clinging to one of his hairy, tar-stained
fingers.  Now that she had grown to beautiful
womanhood he was both fond of her and proud of
her and had always considered that her growth and
advancement was partly due to his watchful care
during the long summers she had played along the
beach.

Her deep concern now because of the gale and its
threat began strongly to affect the lightkeeper.
Under the depression of his discovery Tobias forgot
to exult that at least half his matchmaking plans
had come to fruition.  Lorna loved Ralph!

If that was the *Nelly G.* out yonder—and he
believed it was—and if Ralph was aboard her, what
could he do to avert a calamity?  Aside from his
personal feeling for Ralph Endicott, the thought
that Lorna was suffering, sobbing and praying in
that whitewashed cell downstairs fanned into flame
the lightkeeper's desire to help.

What could he do?

Tobias shook his head doubtfully.  He took down
the long telescope from its beckets against the rear
wall of the lamp room and went forward to the
great window.  He had tightened the broad flanges
that held the panes in place so that they no longer
rattled.  But there was no lessening of the voice of
the gale.  The rush of the wind past the vibrating
tower still sounded a threatening tocsin.

Tobias adjusted the spy glass and focused it with
practiced hand and eye upon the spot where the
tossing masts of the laboring vessel heaved ever and
anon into view.  There was some lower canvas set.
The craft was beating up the coast and was already
much nearer the lighthouse than when he had last
viewed it.

"She must be the *Nelly G.*," muttered the lightkeeper.
"Ain't no two ways about it.  But what
can have happened to her?  Bob Pritchett is a purt'
good navigator, I do allow.  I don't see, after he
picked up Ralph (that must ha' been arranged
between 'em by telegraph) why the *Netty G.* didn't go
kiting out to sea, this gale comin' so plain and all!

"It's a puzzle.  Mm-m!  Easy enough to see,
though, why the crew at Lower Trillion ain't done
nothing for her even if she is showing distress
signals.  Puttin' out their old lifeboat in the teeth of
this wind would be just about suicidal, I give it as
my opinion.

"Now, if she continues to beat up this way and
can claw off the Twin Rocks here, she might make
the mouth of the bay in safety.  Yep, I cal'late that
is what Bob Pritchett is figgerin' on doing.

"He couldn't make the breach at Lower Trillion.
It's too narrow.  But if he can win past these reefs
here and get into Clinkerport Bay, the *Nelly G.* will
be as snug as a bug in a rug.  That's whatever!"

The surges coming in over the reefs raised such
a clamor now that Tobias knew his fears for a high
sea would be realized.  He touched off the lamp,
early as was the hour, waited only to see that the
wick burned evenly, and then started below again.

As he went downstairs where the wind sounded
less boisterously, the rush of the boiling surf up the
strand and the sound of its retreat grew louder.  He
got into his slicker, buckled the throat-latch of his
tarpaulin hat, and ventured out of doors once more.
But he went no farther than the broad stone that
lay before the door.

Up past the lighthouse raced a waist-high roller,
to lap over the road and drain away into the
cattail swamp on the other side.  Its retreat tore away
a full line of Miss Heppy's cockleshells that
bordered the yard.  Again the sea rolled in, and like a
ravenous beast it tore and bit at the road's edge,
guttering and washing away the sand and
hard-packed shell in great mouthfuls.

"Dad fetch it!" ejaculated the worried lightkeeper.
"I give it as my opinion that we're going
to be purt' nigh surrounded by water afore this is
over."

The waves were rolling in across the sands
between the Light and the Clay Head.  The road to
Clinkerport would soon be shut off completely.

Tobias was aware that the door had been opened
behind him.

"Oh, Mr. Bassett!  That wave!  Look at it!
Why—why, I can't get home!"

"Cal'late you'll have to stay and throw in your
lot with me and Heppy," he cheerfully rejoined.
"But, sugar, Lorny!  I guess the Twin Rocks Light
will stand for a spell yet.  We don't need to worry."

As he turned, smiling broadly, he saw that her
face was haggard.  Her eyelids were inflamed, and
there were dark wales beneath the eyes.  She looked
at him pitifully.

"No, no, Lorny," he repeated, "we don't need to
worry."

She gestured seaward.  Her voice shook with
emotion.

"But how about those out there, Tobias?" she
whispered.  "The schooner!  What about her?"





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.. _`WHAT THE NIGHT BROUGHT`:

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   CHAPTER XXVII


.. class:: center medium

   WHAT THE NIGHT BROUGHT

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Hour after hour the billows rolled in over the
barrier of the Twin Rocks reefs and guttered the sands
and the highway beyond until the sea finally
breached through the shell road and spread, waist
high, upon the lowlands.  No such unseasonable
tide had ever before been marked by the natives of
the Cape.  Even the "great tide of ninety-eight" had
not reached this high mark.

Tobias remained with Lorna in the kitchen.  It
was useless for her to attempt to go home, even
when the water receded.  Tobias could not leave
the light to attend her, and there was nobody else
to accompany her to Clay Head.

So she set about getting their supper.  They
spoke of the tide and the wonder of it.  It was now
too dark to see anything at all in the direction of
the sea, save where that ray of light streamed forth
from the top of the tower.  It was quite impossible
even to observe the water boiling over the reefs.

"I give it as my opinion," said Tobias, "that them
that's got small craft in the Cove yonder will find
'em either smashed along the inner side of the rocks
or sunk.  I know my dory's sunk long ago."

"Oh, not your *Marybird* or Ralph's *Fenique*, I
hope!" cried Lorna.

"I put a spring on the motor boat's hawser,"
rejoined the lightkeeper.  "And the *Marybird* is
hauled up on the sand with a kedge out, bow and
stern.  I don't reckon she'll drag 'em, no matter how
high the tide is.  I would not want anything to
happen to Ralph's craft—nossir!"

But their minds—neither Tobias's nor the girl's—were
not fixed upon these things.  Secretly both
were concerned with the distressed fishing schooner,
the *Nelly G*.  What would this night that had now
shut down bring to that imperiled craft?

Immediately after supper Tobias went up to the
lamp again.  But he came down quickly.  He feared
that Lorna might follow him.

When she asked him if he had seen the schooner's
topmasts again, he shook his head.  It was true.  As
far as he knew she might have gone down already.
Yet he hoped.  If she was beached, or being driven
inshore, surely the crew of the *Nelly G.* would burn
Coston lights or send up signal rockets.

Tobias, of course, could not think of bed on such
a night as this.  And Lorna was far too seriously
wrought upon to join Miss Heppy upstairs.  The
lightkeeper suggested it, but she shook her head in
positive refusal.  She would keep watch with him.
Every hour the old man climbed the stairs and
searched the turbulent sea as well as he could by the
light of the steady ray of the lamp.  He owned no
night glasses, and unless the endangered schooner
came within range of the light's beam there would
be small chance of spying her.

He saw no signal rockets.  He could report
nothing at all when he returned to the kitchen where
Lorna continued to sit.  If there was any hope at
all, it lay in that fact.  The *Nelly G*. must still be
under control.  She might, even, have wore off and
made a greater offing.  Yet he scarcely believed that
possible with wind and tide as they were.

It was ten o'clock when the first startling incident
of this never-to-be-forgotten night occurred.  Full
sea was long since past and the tide had run out
again over the sands.  But the road was impassable
for any vehicle.  Tobias, lighting his pipe at the
stove, suddenly desisted to cock his ear.

There was a sound outside other than that made
by the gale and sea.  Lorna heard it, too.  She
sprang up, but Tobias was first at the door.  He
opened it with care, for fear the wind would suck in
and put out the lamp.

"Ahoy!" bawled a voice from the road.

"There's somebody in trouble out there, sure's
you're a foot high, Lorny," the lightkeeper observed.
"Fetch me my slicker.  Got to see what they want."

He was out in half a minute, answering the hail
in stentorian tones.  The girl held the door open a
crack to peer forth.  She made out the bulk of some
object in the roadway before the lighthouse door;
but the wind whipped the flying sand into her face
and she was forced to withdraw.

By and by there was a fumbling at the door.  It
was flung open and there appeared the wind-blown
figure of the detective, his long rain-coat flapping
about his legs.  From outside Tobias bawled:

"You'll have to back around and run down to
Ez Condon's, Rafe.  His shed's the only shelter, I
cal'late, that there is for a car.  That's where Zeke
keeps his when he's up here to the light."

Tobias clumped into the house.  His face was
quite as grim as that of the visitor.

"You've heard of the bad penny, Lorna," the
lightkeeper said with sarcasm.  "Here it is.  Road's
all torn up and they can't get that car of Arad's
through to Clinkerport to-night."

"I am sorry to have to take advantage of your
hospitality, Mr. Bassett," sneered the visitor.

"I cal'late you be," returned Tobias dryly.  "But
that's your own fault.  You've made yourself sort
o' disliked around here, and I'm frank to tell you
so.  But I wouldn't leave a dog stay out such
weather as this.  And Rafe——

"Why, do you know, Lorna," he added, turning
to the girl.  "Rafe Silver's got his hand in a sling.
Broke his wrist, or something, trying to crank that
big car down there to the station.  The self-starter
wouldn't work.  Lucky old Cap Edgar is no slouch
of a bone-setter."

"Oh, I'm sorry!" cried the girl.  "But what about
the *Nelly G.*?" she added, her hands clasped, and
looking pleadingly from the lightkeeper to the detective.

The latter appreciated her emotion now.  He
answered in a much more sympathetic tone than he
had used when he was previously at the lighthouse.

"She is still out there, and is not, they tell me, in
immediate danger.  If the gale drops she will be all
right."

"But what's happened to her?" demanded Tobias.
"Don't they know at the life-saving station?"

"They made out her signals during the day.  She
lost her rudder, and they can't ship another in these
seas."

"Oh, sugar!  I should say they couldn't," agreed
Tobias.

"She may pull through all right.  They think her
skipper is hoping to get into Clinkerport."

"I cal'late," observed Tobias nodding.  "Well,
Lorny, I reckon we can take hope of grace.  If
Bob Pritchett can beat off these sands till he claws
around the p'int of the Twin Rocks, he'll make
Clinkerport Bay, of course."

The door was flung open again.  The little
mahogany-faced Portuguese staggered in.  It was
plain to be seen that something fresh had happened.

"What is it?" cried Lorna, rising.

Even the detective turned from the stove to look
at Rafe Silver.  The latter spat out a word in his
own tongue.  Tobias laid a quick hand on his
shoulder.

"Hey!  What's happened to you now?" he
demanded.  "That wrist of yours——?"

But Silver writhed away, holding his injured
hand well out of contact with Tobias.  "Not me!
Not me!" he shrilled.  "Out there!"

He pointed seaward.  The girl whipped about
and reached the seaward window before any of
them, jerking up the shade.

At the instant a red streak curved upward from
the surface of the sea, far out from the shore.
Another followed.

"Signal rockets!" murmured the lightkeeper.

"Oh, Tobias!" cried Lorna.  "From the
schooner?"

"That's what it is," muttered the detective.

Rafe was chattering to the lightkeeper in broken
English.  The old man seemed to understand him
fully.  He turned swiftly toward the stairs.

"It's the *Nelly G.*, all right," he flung back over
his shoulder.  "She's likely lost the sea-anchor they
put out, and there ain't nothing to keep her from
going on these rocks at last."

"Oh, Tobias!" gasped the girl.

"We've got to face it.  No use trying to dodge
the worst when it does come.  If Ralph is aboard
the schooner——"

"Oh, Endicott is aboard of her, all right," grumbled
the detective.  "I wish I was as sure of those
yeggs that helped him rob the bank."

He sat down by the stove and continued to warm
his hands.  Rafe Silver followed the lightkeeper to
the stairs and, in a moment, with a glance of disdain
at the detective, Lorna followed the Portuguese.

At the door of Miss Heppy's room she halted and
listened.  Nasal announcement of the old woman's
sleep could be heard, despite the gale without.
Lorna went on to the lamp room.

Standing at the edge of the broad window Tobias
held the telescope to his eye.  Although it was no
night glass, the broad ray of lamplight aided the eye
to descry objects out there on the tumbling sea.

Silver uttered a shout of amazement and pointed
with his uninjured hand before the lightkeeper could
get the telescope focused.

"Oh, sugar!" exclaimed Tobias.  "You seen her
first, did ye?"

Lorna ran into the room and joined the two men.
Her sharp eyes, like those of Silver's, descried the
tossing masts of the laboring schooner.  She was
heaving up and down upon the waves directly in the
path of the lamp's beam.

"Is it the *Nelly G.*?" she cried.  "Really?"

Before either of the men could reply another
scarlet streamer shot up from the surface of the sea,
describing a long curve and winking out at last, far
tip toward the hovering gray clouds.

"A rocket, by kinky!" gasped the lightkeeper.

"Ah!  What I tell you, my friend?" croaked Rafe
Silver.

The girl seized Tobias's arm.  She shook him a
little, sturdy as the old man was and firm upon his
feet.

"We must do something!" she cried.  "Tobias!
We *must*!"

.. _`"We must do something!" she cried.  "Tobias!  We *must*\!"`:

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   :alt: "We must do something!" she cried.  "Tobias!  We must!"

   "We must do something!" she cried.  "Tobias!  We *must*!"


"Oh, sugar!  What can we do," muttered the
lightkeeper, "if them life-savers can't get out to the
schooner?—and of course, they can't.  What did
Cap Edgar say, Rafe?"

The Portuguese shook his head till the rings in
his ears twinkled in the lamplight, and raised his
shoulders in a truly Latin shrug.

"What can heem do?" Silver sighed.  "He has
only ol' boat down theer.  The men, heem weeling.
But no can row against thees wind."

"That's just it," groaned Tobias.

"Then why don't they get the gear out and shoot
a line to the schooner?" demanded Lorna.  "Can't
they use the breeches-buoy?"

"Why, my dear," said the lightkeeper gravely, "if
you just stop and think you'll see that if the wind
is too strong for the boat, it's too strong to shoot a
line.  Couldn't noways reach out there, with even
a double charge of powder in the gun—nossir!"

The girl clapped her hands together in despair.
"There must be something that can be done," she
said.  "Are we all helpless?"

"Wal—I dunno——"

"*Think*, Tobias!  There must be some way to
reach them.  Think of Ralph out there."

"Oh, sugar, gal! don't you s'pose I be thinking of
him?  I ain't doin' much of anything else."

"If they only have motor lifeboat down theer to
Lower Trillion," said Rafe Silver, "they go out for
heem."

"Tobias, they've got one at Upper Trillion!" the
girl exclaimed suddenly.

"Oh, sugar!  So they have," the lightkeeper agreed.

Silver shrugged his shoulders again.  "They no
see her out theer from Upper Trillion station.
Amposseeble!"

"But haven't the Lower Trillion crew sent word,
do you suppose, to the Upper Trillion station?"
demanded Lorna.

The lightkeeper shook his head.  "You forget the
wires air down, Lorny.  That is why this here
detective and Rafe went over to Lower Trillion in the
car.  And now they can't get back to Clinkerport,
even if the telephone is working from there to Upper
Trillion."

"Oh, Tobias! are you sure they will not see those
rockets?  Ah!  There goes another."

"They ain't likely to.  The headland's between.
My soul and body! this is sartain sure an awful
thing."

The three were silent for a time.  Their vision
was fastened upon the plunging fishing craft.  Her
fore-topmast had been torn away.  There was still
some of her lower canvas set.  Doubtless Captain
Bob Pritchett and his crew were doing all they
could to keep the *Nelly G.* from broaching to.

But to make a better offing was impossible unless
the wind changed.  A sea-anchor would help keep
her head to the wind, but continually the gale was
forcing the schooner broadside on the coast.

"Mebbe they'd better have beached her down
there by Lower Trillion," Tobias finally said, but
shaking his head doubtfully.  "Anyway, that chance
is past and gone.  And ye can't really blame a
skipper for trying to save his ship—nossir!

"She's off the rocks now.  No two ways about
it.  What do you say, Rafe?"

"*Santa Maria!*" exploded the mahogany-faced
man with a final shrug.  "She is loss!  No help—no!"

Tobias looked quickly at Lorna.  The girl could
have become no whiter in any case.  But her eyes
flamed.  The lightkeeper was not astonished to hear
her say with conviction:

"I do not believe it!  There must be something
we can do to aid them.  Think, Tobias Bassett!  Think!"

"I give it as my opinion, Lorna," he drawled,
"that this here so-called absent treatment ain't going
to do that schooner or them that's aboard of her
much good.  We've got to do something more'n
thinking."





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.. _`DESPERATION`:

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   CHAPTER XXVIII


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   DESPERATION

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The trio went down from the lamp room again
and joined the detective in the kitchen.  That
individual evidently thought much more about his own
comfort than he did of the peril of the
storm-racked schooner and her crew.

Lorna wept no more; but the inaction rasped her
nerves.  Tobias's deep reflection made him look
preternaturally solemn—an owl-like gravity that at
another time would have amused her.

Rafe Silver muttered in his own tongue and
nursed his injured hand.  His bead-black eyes
continually shifted from one to another of the group.

Tobias filled his pipe from the pouch on the
mantel and then passed the tobacco to Silver.  The
latter produced a brown paper and dexterously rolled
himself a cigarette with his uninjured hand.  The
other man brought out a cigar, and all three
proceeded to smoke.  Tobacco is said to soothe the
nerves.  It did not soothe Lorna's.

Finally the lightkeeper spoke:

"I give it as my opinion that there ain't nothing
we can do just now.  There!" he added, leaning
forward to gaze through the single window that
gave a view of the sea.  "There goes another rocket.
The *Nelly G.* is gettin' closer.  If Bob Pritchett can
claw her around the end of the Twin Rocks, he'll
mebbe make safe harbor in the bay.  But if she
goes slam on the reefs——

"Wal, no use meeting trouble more than half way.
If she does hit, she does, and that's all there is to
it.  And if she does, the only way to reach and
help 'em is with the power lifeboat from Upper
Trillion."

"The breeches-buoy, Tobias?" cried Lorna.

"No, no, I tell ye, Lorna.  Not a chance.  Unless
the *Nelly G.* comes inshore on the next full sea.
And she ain't going to last that long.  Either she'll
be on the rocks or safe in the harbor long before
another tide.  At full sea she might be carried over
the outer reefs and lay so that a line could be shot
over her.  Otherwise the power boat is the only
hope.  That is sure."

"Oh, Tobias, they must see those rockets at Upper
Trillion!"

"Lorna, it's impossible.  Not from the station.
And none o' the crew is patrolling the beaches.
Cap'n Edgar's men air watching this schooner.
Shouldn't be noways surprised if they was out there
right now.  But none of the Upper Trillion crew
are coming down yonder to the other side of the
bay mouth to the key-box like they do when they
are on patrol.  Dickson P'int being so high, shut's
off all view of this here stretch of coast from
Upper Trillion.  And the telephone ain't working."

"Oh, Tobias!"

"I know, Lorny; I know," he said.  "But what
can I do?  The light can't be left untended—'specially
a night like this.  If somebody could get across
the bay and run to the Upper Trillion station——"

"We can, Tobias!  There is Ralph's *Fenique*"

"Yes, I cal'late she's there in the cove all right,"
he muttered.  "But who's going to manage her?  If
I could go, I am free to confess I don't know much
about handling that motor-boat.  If Zeke was only
here——"

He suddenly turned his gaze on Rafe Silver.
But the momentary flash of confidence in his face
faded almost instantly.

"Oh, sugar!" muttered Tobias.  "Rafe can't run
a motor-boat with a broken wrist."

"Tobias Bassett!" exclaimed the girl, getting to
her feet with decision.  "I can manage Ralph's
boat.  I can run the *Fenique* just as well as Ralph
can himself.  Ralph said so."

"Oh, sugar, girl! you couldn't get across the
bay to-night in it.  Alone?  Why, I wouldn't hear
to it.  No, indeed!"

"Somebody must go, Tobias.  Can't—can't *this*
man go with me?" and Lorna pointed to the
detective, who listened open-mouthed.

"What?  *Me?*" he gasped, quite horrified.  "I
could not think of such a thing."

"I bet you couldn't," observed the lightkeeper,
with disgust.  "I cal'late you air too precious to
have your hide risked where it might get scraped
a bit.  Humph!  Tell ye what, Lorny: You and me
will have to go."

At this decision she displayed instant satisfaction.
She seized her jacket and veil.  But Tobias was
looking at Rafe Silver.

"Rafe," he said, "I've got to depend on you if I
go with Lorny.  Somebody's got to watch the
light.  You savvy?"

"*Si, si!*  Captain Bassett can depen' on heem,"
and he struck his chest with his uninjured hand.

"If you need a man's two hands for anything,
ring *that* fellow in," and Tobias nodded scornfully
at the detective.  "If anything goes wrong here
and me gone, remember it means I'll lose my job.
And the good Lord knows," he murmured, "me
and Heppy's lost enough, seems to me—money and all."

The girl was already at the door; but Tobias
took his time.  He refilled and lit a lantern.  He
searched out a can of gasoline from the storeroom.
He burdened Lorna with a stout ash oar.  And last
of all he coiled a length of strong line over his arm.
He insisted that the girl be buckled into a lifebelt
and he put on its mate himself.

"We don't know what we're going to run up
against, Lorny.  This ain't no picnic we're setting
out on.  But I know you air full aware of that.
We may get through as slick as a whistle.  Then
again——"

"I am not afraid, Tobias," she said firmly.

"I cal'late you ain't," he said, looking at her with
pride.  "But I'm kind o' glad Heppy ain't down
here to see us start.  She sartain would have a
conniption!"

The detective did not offer to go out with them.
Rafe Silver, however, insisted on accompanying the
lightkeeper and Lorna down upon the sands.  The
radiance of the hand lantern revealed the
water-swept shore.  Toward the cove the damage by the
high sea had not been so great.  But, as Tobias
had prophesied, there were few boats left afloat in
the cove.

Here and there was a craft overturned high on
the strand—sometimes in a wrecked condition.
Tobias held the lantern above his head.  Its light
revealed something of what lay upon the heaving
surface of the sheltered basin.

"I see the motor-boat!" Lorna cried, knowing
exactly where to look for the *Fenique's* mooring
buoy.  "It is afloat."

"I should hope so," rejoined Tobias.  "There
wouldn't be much use in trying to get across the
bay without she was afloat.  Hey, Rafe! do you
s'pose that skiff yonder will hold together long
enough to take us out there to that boat of
Mr. Endicott's?"

The skiff in question had been tossed upon the
shore, bottom uppermost.

"Heem no broken, I t'ink," said the Portuguese.

"I cal'late you are right," said the lightkeeper.
He handed Lorna the lantern and put down his
other burdens.  "Come on now, Rafe.  Give us the
help of your hand that *ain't* busted.  Heave ho!"

Lorna flooded the skiff with lantern-light when
the men turned it over.  It was sound enough for
their purpose.  Tobias put his sturdy shoulder to
the stern and ran the light craft down to the water's
edge.

The waves surged in, almost to ordinary full-sea
mark.  The surface of the basin was not very rough.
What the bay was like beyond, they could only guess.

It was necessary for them to shout to each other
to be heard, for the waves broke over the reefs
noisily.  It was Tobias's gesture that instructed
Lorna to seat herself in the skiff, forward.  He ran
the boat out, wading into the sea half-leg deep, and
then scrambled in.

Seizing the oar he fixed it in the stern and began
to scull.  The waves were choppy and the skiff was
knocked about a good deal.  Tobias was a sturdy
old man and Lorna was too good a sailor to be
fearful.  She clung to the gunwale with one hand
and held the lantern so that its light was cast over
the bow.

In half a minute they picked out the bulk of the
motor-boat.  It heaved up and down on the turbulent
water, but had evidently shipped but little of
that element.  Ralph had put on the canvas cover
and battened it securely before leaving home.

"Stand by to grab that line that's trailing
overboard, Lorny!" bawled Tobias from the stern of
the skiff.  "See it?"

She nodded, for the wind was blowing so strongly
in her face that she could not verbally answer him.
The skiff swerved in toward the side of the *Fenique*.
The girl tossed the lantern over the rail, seized the
line, and scrambled inboard.  Then she turned and
threw the slack of the rope to Tobias.

"Oh, sugar, Lorny!" he exclaimed, as he came
aboard.  "You are just as good as ary boy.  I
always said so.  And if you can handle this motor——"

"I can, Tobias.  I assure you."

"Wal, like the feller said, I'm willing to try
anything once.  We'll make some sort of a stab at
getting under way.  It all depends on you, my girl."

Lorna made no reply.  While the lightkeeper tied
the painter of the skiff to the mooring buoy, she
undertook to get the cover off the machinery.  She
was shaking with nervousness, but she would not
betray this fact to her companion.  The whipping
of the wind almost tore the canvas from her hands
when she had it unlashed.  At another time Lorna
Nicholet might have let the heavy, wet cloth go
overboard.  But she was on her mettle now.

Her experiences afloat heretofore had been mostly
in sport.  On a few occasions (for instance, when
she and Degger had come near to death in Tobias's
dory and Ralph had rescued them) the girl had
experienced the seamy side of boat-sailing.  But she
quite realized that nothing she had previously faced
had equaled the present peril.

"We've got to fill her tank.  I know Ralph didn't
leave much gas aboard here," the lightkeeper
shouted.  "Now, lemme do that first.  Then you
can show me how to spin that wheel.  Say, Lorna,
you cast off the canvas of the steering gear.  My
soul and body! but you be a handy gal.  That's it, now."

The boat was pitching greatly; but Tobias seemed
as secure of his footing as though he were on shore.
Once Lorna was flung across the cockpit and
collided painfully with the bench; but she made no
outcry.

This was a moment of desperation.  Tobias faced
the coming conflict with the elements as though
utterly undisturbed by what the venture might bring
forth.  Fear of events seemed not to enter into his
thought.  But Lorna could not appear so calm.  Just
ahead of them, when she and the old lightkeeper
steered out into the open bay, death rode on the gale.

The motor hummed rhythmically.  Tobias stood
at the steering wheel amidships, holding the spokes
with iron hand, while Lorna crouched almost at
his feet.  They had not attempted to light any
running lights.  Collision with any other craft after
they got out of the cove was the last thing to be
apprehended.  Tobias's lantern was beside the girl
in the cockpit.  The old man's vision seemed to
penetrate the darkness and driving spindrift as
though he were argus-eyed.

In Lorna's stooping position she could see
nothing ahead.  When she cast her gaze astern all she
beheld was the foaming wake left by the propeller.
Such an angry welter of sea she had never before
been out in.

Suddenly the motor-boat yawed, and a wave
slapped against the upheaving hull, bursting over
the whole length of the craft.  The cockpit was half
full in a moment; but fortunately the mechanism
was built high enough to save it from being flooded.
Lorna was saturated above her waist.

Tobias righted the *Fenique* instantly.  He grinned
down at the girl after a moment.

"That was some sockdolager, heh?" he bawled.
"I vow to man! another one o' them and she'll be
down to her gunnels."

But this misfortune did not overtake them.  Lorna
knew by the increased height of the waves that they
were now opposite the unsheltered entrance to
Clinkerport Bay.  Here the waves rolled in
massively—great, round-backed combers that ran far
up the bay.

Tobias had to twist the bow of the motor-boat to
meet these swells; but once over the crest of one,
he ran the *Fenique* slantingly down the slope and in
the trough between the two great waves, like a
water-bug scampering along the crack of a kitchen
table.

Between every wave they made headway.  The
tall bluff of Dickson Point loomed out of the murk
ahead.  Tobias waved his hand when he saw Lorna
rise to look.

"There she be!" he bawled.  "Please the good
Lord we'll make it."

But he read, as her own lips moved, the anxious
question:

"I wonder what has happened to the *Nelly G.*
by this time?"

"Oh, sugar!  Don't you worry none about her
now.  We'll get the Trillion crew out and then if
the worst comes to worst they'll be right there to
pick Ralph and them other fellers off the
schooner—yessir!"

His assurance that they would be in time to aid
the crew of the threatened fishing schooner buoyed
up Lorna's heart.  She began to feel more
confidence.  They had come through so much already,
it did seem as though their venture must end
successfully.

She knew what the beach was below Dickson
Point, on the bay side.  Ralph never beached the
motor-boat there, for it was stony.  But they could
not stop for thought of this.  If the *Fenique* was
to be smashed upon her landing, so it must be!

Good fortune accompanied them, however.  A
breaking wave drenched Tobias and the girl as the
motor-boat came into shallow water.  In the
backwash of the wave the keel grounded slightly.  The
following billow raised the boat high and cast it
speedily up the strand.

"I give it as my opinion, Lorna," said Tobias in
a lull of the wind, "that this didn't do Ralph's boat
a world of good.  Ne'r mind.  Let's get ashore and
see what can be done."

Near the beach was nothing but some fish houses,
and they were all abandoned during this hurricane.
Back toward Clinkerport, perhaps a couple of miles,
was a house in which was a telephone.  But, as
Tobias pointed out, the wires might be down over
here as well as on the other side of the bay.

"I cal'late we've got to go over the hill to the
station.  Or mebbe you'd better stay here while I go.
It'll be a rough passage, Lorna."

"I can go quicker than you, Tobias Bassett," the
girl declared through chattering teeth.  "And I
would rather keep moving than stand here idle.
There is no shelter here."

"I'll bust in the door of Rube Kellock's fish
house——"

"I am going with you," interrupted the girl with
determination.  "Where is the path up the bluff?
Can you find it in the dark?"

"I cal'late," replied the lightkeeper.  "If you *will*
go, come on."

Their eyes were now accustomed to the darkness.
Besides, even on the gloomiest night there is always
a faint glow upon the water.  And the foaming of
the wave-crests cast some radiance all about.  When
Tobias once found the path, Lorna mounted to the
summit of the bluff much more quickly than he.

"Oh, sugar!" the lightkeeper panted, when he
finally caught up with her.  "You're just as quick
on your feet, Lorny, as a sheep.  I never
see——  Dad fetch it! what's that?"

As had the girl, he had first turned to look off
across the sea to the spot where they had last seen
the laboring fishing schooner.  A greenish-white
light began to glow low down on the sea, and inshore.

"It's the schooner, Tobias!" cried Lorna.  "Oh!
She is ashore!"

"I cal'late you're right," the old man breathed.
"Yep.  On the outer reef.  There!"

The girl shrieked, crouching at his feet and
hiding her eyes.  Tobias stared.  The growing Coston
light picked out the broken spars and the slanting
deck of the *Nelly G*.  The banker had gone broadside
on the submerged rocks not half a mile south
of the Twin Rocks Light.





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.. _`DAYBREAK`:

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   CHAPTER XXIX


.. class:: center medium

   DAYBREAK

.. vspace:: 2

Thirty-six hours previous Ralph Endicott had
boarded the schooner bound for the fishing banks
and had been obliged, because of the rising sea, to
cast Gyp Pellet's catboat adrift.  The *Gullwing* was
scarcely seaworthy, anyway, and Ralph had already
agreed on a price to pay the Peehawket boatman if
the old tub were lost.

Captain Bob Pritchett of the *Nelly G.* would not
have had his craft so far inshore with this rising
gale, it is true, had he not received Ralph's telegram
announcing the young man's delay, and that Ralph
would be somewhere off the jaw of Cape Fisher
awaiting the schooner's coming.  Nevertheless, it
was not Ralph's fault that the *Nelly G.* had got into
serious trouble.  He was not counted by the crew
as a Jonah.

It was one of those happenings that even the best
seamanship could not have avoided.  Not long after
nightfall, and while the *Nelly G.* was heading almost
into the wind but making good sea-room, a big,
gray wave rose up out of the unexpected quarter of
due east and smashed down upon the stern of the
schooner.  Her waist was filled and everything was
washed overboard that was not lashed or that did
not cling by main force.

The blow carried away the rudder.  And though
there was a spare one in the *Nelly G.'s* hold, it could
not be shipped in such a sea as this that held.  The
schooner was at once, and thereafter, at the mercy
of the gale.

Captain Pritchett got over a drag, or sea-anchor,
that kept the Nelly G.'s head to the wind for that
night and the day that followed.  Had the schooner
run before the wind she would surely have brought
up on the heel of Cape Cod.  As it was, tide and
gale forced her steadily, if slowly, inshore.  All her
company could hope for was a lull in the wind and
for clearing weather.

There was no fruit of this hope, as has been seen.
Toward evening another monster wave tore the
drag free.  The schooner's fate was then sure.
Captain Pritchett could not make the narrow entrance
to Lower Trillion Inlet.  The mouth of Clinkerport
Bay was too far to the north.  The schooner could
not claw around the Twin Rocks under such sail as
could be spread.

The expected finally happened.  It was not now
far from one o'clock in the morning when the
*Nelly G.* struck broadside upon the reef that lay
just under the sea-level, and canted over to port.

The imperiled ship's company knew well enough
that they could expect no help from the Lower
Trillion life saving crew, even if all the members
were on duty in this unseasonable gale.  No oared
boat could be pulled up the coast to the scene of the
wreck.  Between the ill-fated *Nelly G.* and the sands
was a wide stretch of rock-strewn sea in which the
tide boiled like water in a cauldron.  This space was
too wide for a line to be shot over it from the sands
to the schooner.

Not all of the fishing craft's nests of dories had
been carried away, but a boat could not live in that
turmoil of the sea.  The crew climbed the rigging
and lashed each other to the stays, waiting for
daylight and hoping only for the gale to cease.

A long-enduring storm such as this in winter
would have spelled death for many of the company.
But if the schooner did not break up at once they
might all cling until the sea went down and some
means then be found to rescue them.

The next full sea threatened disaster.  Even now
the surf broke against the hull of the wreck with
such force that it ground upon the rocks under the
strain of each recurrent blow.  At any moment the
framework of the *Nelly G.* might be torn asunder.

On shore the watchers had built a huge fire of
drift stuff.  The wearied fishing crew could see the
men and women, who had come to watch if they
could not aid, moving about in the radiance of the
leaping flames.  The sight of fellow beings cheered
the wrecked men to a degree.  They felt that they
were not deserted.  If no succor could reach them,
human sympathy did.

It was in the false dawn—that lighting of the sky
before the sun really illumines the horizon—that a
hail reached the dulled ears of the watchers lashed
to the rigging of the *Nelly G*.  As she was pitched
so far to port that their bodies overhung the leaping,
foam-streaked waves, they could not see over the
starboard rail of the wreck.  And to their
amazement the hail came from this seaward direction.

Ralph Endicott, as agile as any of the crew and
much quicker than the skipper, who was no longer
young, slipped out of his lashings and worked his
way swiftly down the stays to the rail.  Within a
biscuit-toss of the wreck lay a big motor lifeboat,
her belted crew with their faces lifted to him.

"Ahoy, the schooner!" bawled again a hoarse
voice.  "Don't you fellers want to be taken off, or
do ye cal'late on stayin' till she breaks up into
kindling wood?"

For an instant Ralph could not speak.  If he had
not been panic-stricken, he certainly was anxious.
And here was unexpected rescue at hand!

"Cap'n Pritchett!  Come down!  Here's visitors!"
he finally bawled.

Another of the party had swarmed down to the
rail.  He raised a stentorian bellow:

"Hey!  Here's the Upper Trillion crew.  I would
know Cap'n Boggs in a Georges's snow-squall.
Come on, boys!  We'd better go to breakfast with
them, hey?"

There was sudden and great hilarity.  These
brave fellows were used to facing danger in many
forms, and the unexpected chance for escape from
the wreck quickly assuaged their gloom.

The debarkation from the wreck was not so
simple a matter.  Already the crew of the schooner
had each a lifebelt strapped upon his body.  Now
a sling was arranged with a whipline attached
thereto, and this last flung to willing hands in the
lifeboat.

With her propeller holding her steady against the
force of the inrolling waves, the lifeboat was backed
as near the wreck as was judged safe.  One after
another the wrecked crew entered the sling and the
life savers drew them over to the motor craft while
their mates aboard the wreck payed out the line.

More than one of the passengers in this rude
contrivance was submerged in the leaping, hungry
waves; but there were no serious casualties until
the end.  Ralph Endicott was one of the last to go,
and Captain Pritchett himself aided the young man.
The captain insisted upon remaining till the last.
There was nobody to aid him in leaving the wreck.
With a line about his waist Captain Pritchett leaped
into a receding wave and was hauled into the
lifeboat unconscious and with a broken arm.

Fourteen men, including the skipper and the cook,
were thus rescued.  It was an event of greater peril
than can easily be imagined.  Nor was all danger
over when the full tally of the schooner's company
was in the motor-boat.

It was still so dark that the crowd ashore could
not see that the crew of the wrecked vessel had
taken their departure.  It was lighter out here at
sea than it was inshore.  The lifeboat was speeded
for the mouth of Clinkerport Bay.

Chilled and almost water-logged, Ralph Endicott
crouched with the other members of the rescued
fishing boat's crew in the surf boat.  The dash
through the breakers at the entrance to the bay did
not excite the party, for they were merely wretched
and exhausted.  It was one of the crew from the
life saving station that hailed another motor-boat
sputtering toward the cove between Clay Head and
the Twin Rocks Light.

"Cap, there's that plucky girl and Tobe Bassett,
I do believe.  They are just getting back from across
the bay."

"Who is she?" asked one of his mates.  "One of
the summer visitors, did you say?  Bassett was
plum' winded, and she ran all the way to the station
and told us that the schooner was on the rocks.
Some girl, that!"

"She's Mr. John Nicholet's daughter," shouted
the captain of the life saving station.  "Lives in
that big house up yonder on the Clay Head."

On hearing this Ralph roused himself.  These
men spoke of Lorna Nicholet.  In the increasing
dawn he saw and recognized his own *Fenique*.

The lifeboat swept on past the smaller craft.
Tobias, at the helm of the latter, shouted a cheery
word.  Both boats were beached about the same
time on the sands below the light.

Rafe Silver led the crowd of neighbors and
members of the Lower Trillion crew to meet the
disembarking fishing schooner's company.  The
moment Ralph got out of the lifeboat he hurried to
where the *Fenique* had bored her nose into the sandy
beach.

"I give it as my opinion, Lorny," Tobias Bassett
was saying loudly and cheerfully, "that we mebbe
ain't doing Ralph's boat any good, beachin' her this
way.  But I cal'late 'tis more important——  Hi!
Gimme your hand, gal.  D'ye feel all in?  Sho!  I
guess——Why!  here's Ralph now."

He had his arm about the swaying figure of the
young woman.  Lorna started forward, uttering a
little cry:

"Ralph!  Oh, Ralph Endicott!  Are you safe?"

"Tobias Bassett!" ejaculated the young man,
angrily, "do you mean to say you let her go out
with you in such a sea as this?  Man, you're crazy!"

"Now, now, Ralphie! don't let go all holts.  There
warn't no holding of her back when she knowed you
was out there in that haddocker.  And I didn't know
how to run this dratted engine."

Lorna had shrunk back against the sturdy figure
of the lightkeeper.  She suddenly remembered that
Ralph Endicott had played no lover's part toward
her, at least during these past months.

"You're—you're all right, Lorna?" he asked with
hesitation.

"Why, yes, Ralph.  Only wet.  I——"

Her speech was terminated abruptly by the
appearance of the detective.  He put a tentative hand
on Ralph's shoulder.

"So this is the chap I'm looking for, is it?" he
said.  "Do I understand this is Ralph Endicott?"

"Oh, sugar!" muttered Tobias, with disgust.  "I'd
forgot all about that feller."





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.. _`A SILVER-BANDED PIPE`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXX


.. class:: center medium

   A SILVER-BANDED PIPE

.. vspace:: 2

Instinctively Ralph Endicott drew away from
the shabby man, but stared at him curiously.

"I beg your pardon," he said.  "If you wish to
speak with me, come up to the house later.
Anybody will tell you where I live."

"Say, young fellow, don't you get flossy with me,"
snarled the detective.  "I been waiting for you some
time.  We want to know what you know about that
bank burglary."

"About what bank burglary?" repeated the young
man, and his surprise was so genuine that Lorna
sighed her audible relief.

"The Clinkerport Bank.  You know well enough.
Don't make it worse for yourself by denying knowledge
of it.  You've got to go to town with me and
see Mr. Arad Thompson."

"Arad Thompson?" Ralph repeated.  "At the
bank?  Why——"

The detective turned to shout to Rafe Silver:
"Hey, you Portuguese!  Get that car.  You can get
her around the hole in the road now.  Come alive!"

Ralph stared wonderingly from Tobias to Lorna.

"What does the fellow mean?" he demanded, as
the detective moved away to hasten Silver's movements.

"I cal'late you ain't heard the news, then," said
the lightkeeper slowly.  "The bank's been robbed."

"Well?  What has that to do with me?"

"I give it as my opinion, Ralph, that some folks
think you had a deal to do with it—yessir!"

"Nonsense!"

"Oh, Ralph! it is true.  That—that man is a
detective," gasped Lorna.

The young man reddened angrily.  He demanded:

"Why do they pick on me?  Tell me about it.
Where is the evidence?"

A good deal can be said in a few moments, and
Lorna gave the particulars of the discovery of the
robbery and the evidence pointing to Ralph's
complicity in it briefly and succinctly.

"Why, I haven't seen that address book of mine,
nor the penknife, for a week," finally said Ralph,
shaking his head.

"Where did you have 'em last, for sure?" was
Tobias's shrewd question.

"I—I——  Well, I lost them."

"You did, heh?  Do you know where you lost 'em?"

"Oh, I suppose so," grumbled the young man.

"Oh, sugar!" ejaculated the lightkeeper.  "Out
with it!  This here has gone too far for you to
dodge any questions, boy.  I tell ye folks really
think you know more'n you ought to about that
burglary.  Every little thing has got to be explained."

Ralph glanced at Lorna sheepishly.

"I got into a fist fight with a fellow out on the
road to Harbor Bar two days before I started to
join the crew of the *Nelly G.*"

"With Conny Degger!" murmured Lorna.

"Yes, it was with him," admitted Ralph.  "After
I got home I saw my watch chain had been broken
and the knife was gone.  The address book had
fallen out of my vest pocket, too.  When I went
back there the next morning I could find neither, of
course.  Right on the public road, you see.
Anybody might have picked them up."

"Oh, sugar!" rejoined Tobias before Lorna could
speak.  "*Any*\body wouldn't have left the knife and
the book right where they'd p'int suspicion at you as
robbing the bank.  But *some*\body would."

"Oh, Tobias!" gasped Lorna.

"Yes, I been having my suspicions right along,"
said the lightkeeper.  "Tell us something more,
Ralphie.  Why did you start for New Bedford, and
then come back to town again?  All these things
seem to p'int to trouble."

The young man, hesitating, flashed another
deprecatory glance at Lorna.  He cleared his throat.

"Why, you see, Tobias, I got a bunch of mail at
the post-office just before I boarded the train.
Among the letters was one from a—er——  Well,
from a person whom I knew to be in trouble.
Serious trouble.  Er—the person needed help at
once—financial help.  I could give that help by returning,
drawing some money I had in the Clinkerport Bank,
and sending it, registered, to this needy person.

"So, you see," Ralph continued, with more
confidence, "I did that.  I could not then get to New
Bedford in time to join the *Nelly G.* at the hour
Cap'n Pritchett had told me she would slip her cable.
I sent him a telegram explaining that I would try
to pick the *Nelly G.* up off the coast down yonder.
I went down past Peehawket on an empty freight
train, and found Gyp Pellet and his *Gullwing*."

"We know all about that, Ralphie," said Tobias.
"How you went out and was picked up by Cap
Pritchett.  But you can see yourself it looked
suspicious—'specially to the gossips.  Ho—hum!  Wal,
now, lemme tell you, I had my own suspicions—and
I have 'em yet."

"What do you mean?" Ralph asked, still scowling
in a puzzled way.  "I don't see who could have put
that book and that penknife there."

"Wake up!" exclaimed the lightkeeper.  "Lemme
tell you.  I heard that feller talking to Lonzo
Burtwell one day.  Burtwell's a bad egg if ever I see
one.  And that other feller is like enough under
Burtwell's thumb."

"Conny Degger!" exclaimed Ralph suddenly.

"Oh!  *That* is how he got that page out of your
address book," murmured Lorna.  But neither of
the men heard this observation.

Ralph's face expressed anger now, but no
uncertainty.  He looked over Tobias's head toward the
south.  The detective was standing by the road,
looking in the same direction.  In the distance
sounded the explosion of an automobile cut-off.
Rafe Silver had got the big limousine again into
action.

"Where is he?" asked Ralph with sudden decision.

"Where is who?" drawled the lightkeeper.

"Degger."

"I cal'late he and Burtwell air still at the Clinkerport
Inn.  They was, the last I heard.  If they are
at the bottom of this business, I give it as my
opinion that they are hanging around to throw dust
in the eyes of Arad Thompson and this here detective."

"What is the matter with that fellow?" broke in
Ralph, starting for the roadside.  "He can get that
car down here on the beach if he tries."

The blue car had stopped.  Rafe Silver got out.
Ralph hurried nearer and Tobias followed in his wake.

"I'll drive it for him," the young fellow said over
his shoulder to the lightkeeper.  "I see his arm's in
a sling.  I want to get to town as quick as I can.
If Dagger is still at the hotel——"

Tobias trotted to keep up with him.  "Dad fetch
it, boy!" he gasped, "I've got interest in this
business, too, I cal'late.  Hey, Rafe!  Get out'n his
way."

The Portuguese stepped aside.  Ralph whirled
the crank, and as the spark caught he leaped in
behind the steering wheel.

"Hey, you!" yelled the detective, suddenly waking
up.  "I want you!  Hey! you're under arrest."

But the only person near enough to join Ralph
on the front seat of the car was Tobias Bassett.  He
plunged in just as Ralph shot the limousine over
the guttered brink of the road and down upon the sands.

The big car jounced and groaned, but its engine
did not balk.  The detective ran after it for a few
yards, shouting for Ralph to stop.  But when the
car got back into the road he gave it up.

Lorna was left on the shore in a fog of amazement.
It was several minutes before she thought of
Miss Heppy.  Then she went back to the lighthouse.
The storm had been abating for an hour or more.

It was not yet half past five when the big
automobile swung into the head of Main Street.  The
round, red face of the sun was just breaking through
the drab cloud banks overhanging the sea.  Its first
beams washed the empty village in a rosy glow.
After the turmoil of the night the townspeople were
late in rising.

"What do you cal'late on doing?" demanded Tobias,
as Ralph halted the car in front of the hotel.

"See if those fellows are here yet.  If they're
not——"

"I'm with you!" exclaimed the lightkeeper,
alighting with alacrity.  "If they robbed the bank, why,
dad fetch it! they got all my and Heppy's savings,
too.  I never did like that Degger."

He was right at Ralph's heels when the latter
strode into the hotel office.  A yawning clerk stopped
in the middle of a mighty stretch, and, with mouth
agape, stared at the visitors.

"Are Con Degger and Burtwell here?" demanded Ralph.

"Why—why——"

"Are they?"

"Yes.  I just got 'em up.  The cook's getting
them some breakfast, for they are going out on the
clam train."

"Where are their rooms?"

"Right upstairs.  One flight.  At the rear of the
hall.  Number eight."

This staccato information followed Ralph as he
started up the stairs.  Tobias lingered long enough
to say to the clerk:

"They needn't hold the clam train for 'em this
morning.  And you tell the cook his breakfast won't
likely be eat by them two scalawags unless he serves
it to 'em in jail."

Puffing after his exertions, Tobias was right
behind Ralph when the young man reached the door
of number eight.  Ralph did not stop to knock, but
flung the door open.

Conny Degger and his friend were fully dressed,
even to their coats and hats.  Two strapped valises
stood at the foot of one of the beds.  The attitude
of the men showed that they were more than
ordinarily startled by the entrance of the visitors.

"Look out for that Burtwell, Tobias.  He carries
a pistol," called out Ralph, as he made for Degger.

As Ralph slammed Degger against the wall,
Burtwell made a motion toward his hip.  There was a
heavy water pitcher in the bowl on the washstand.
As Tobias came through the doorway he saw this
and grabbed it.

"Ye would, would ye?" he shouted, and, catching
the pitcher up and at full arm's length, he broke
the heavy piece of crockery over Burtwell's head.

The man crashed to the floor amid the shower of
broken crockery, and the subsequent proceedings—even
after the constable came to take both Degger
and him to the local jail—interested Alonzo
Burtwell not at all.

Tobias and Ralph Endicott carried the two bags
over to the bank, to which Mr. Arad Thompson had
been wheeled in his chair to meet them at this early
hour.  When the bags were opened the money taken
from the bank vault was found packed underneath
the clothing of Degger and Burtwell.

"That's a relief, Tobias," the bank president said.
"I've had the books examined, for I did not know
but one of the employees might be crooked, too.
This clears everything up."

It was plain that Burtwell and Conny Degger had
committed the burglary without other assistance.
Later the Bankers' Protective Association learned
that Burtwell was known in the West as one of the
most skillful bank burglars who ever "felt out" the
combination of a vault doorlock.  The writing of
that combination in Ralph Endicott's address book
had merely been an attempt made by Conny Degger
to throw suspicion on his enemy.

"And o' course," said the lightkeeper, as Ralph
turned the prow of the limousine toward the Twin
Rocks, steering carefully through the crowd of
townsfolk that had gathered before the bank, "the
rascal dropped your knife there where I found it.
I cal'late he is a reg'lar snake in the grass, that
Degger.  And to think of his trying to shine up to
our Lorny.  Oh, sugar!"

Ralph flashed the old man a sharp glance.

"What do you think, Tobias?  Do you suppose
Lorna really cared for the fellow?"

"Humph!" was the lightkeeper's non-committal reply.

"For I tell you what it is," the young man went
on with earnestness.  "I've been thinking a good
deal about it lately——"

"Humph!" said Tobias again.  "About it, or
about her?"

"Why, confound you, Tobias Bassett, of course
I mean I've been thinking of Lorna.  And I think a
whole lot of her.  But she doesn't care enough
about me——"

"Oh, sugar!" drawled Tobias.  "I should say not.
Risked her life and all.  *Would* go with me in that
motor-boat to get them life savers.  Ran all the
way to Upper Trillion when my old pumps plumb
give out.  No, no!  Of course she don't think
nothing at all about you, Ralph."

"Well——"

"And when she knowed for sure you was aboard
that haddocker and it was in danger, she didn't get
down on her knees and pray for you by name—oh,
no!  I cal'late I dreamed that!"

"Tobias!"

"Oh, sugar!" observed the lightkeeper with scorn
in his voice.  "I cal'late you are purt' near as blind
as a bat, Ralph Endicott.  Yessir!  That gal loves
ye so hard it hurts—jest like I said she would under
proper encouragement."

"Lorna?" murmured Ralph, his eyes suddenly suffused.

The car swerved and Tobias grabbed the driver's arm.

"Hey!  Do ye want to have us in the ditch?  She
won't like ye no better with a broken neck.  And
me—I cal'late I want to live a leetle longer.  In
spite o' Hephzibah Bassett I mean to have some
good out o' our recovered savings before I die."

"If she does love me," Ralph went on, "we'll get
married right away and I can save her from all the
privation she might suffer now that the Nicholets
have lost their money."

Tobias suddenly groaned.  He turned in the seat
to face his companion.

"I give it as my opinion that I'm an awful sinner—the
good Lord forgive me!  I did it for the best.
And Lorna never would have found out she loved
you, nor you that you loved her, if ye each hadn't
thought t'other was in trouble."

"What do you mean?" asked Ralph, puzzled.

For a second time the old lightkeeper made his
confession.  Ralph showed at first nothing but
wonder.

"And she isn't poor at all?" he finally asked.

"Not so fur as I know."

Ralph Endicott suddenly burst into laughter.
"You old fox!" he shouted.  "I believe you were
right.  I never did think so much about Lorna till
I began to worry over her losing her fortune.  You
are a wonderful psychologist, Tobias Bassett."

"Huh!  Me?  There, now, Ralph, you needn't
call me such names, even if I did tell a couple of
whoppers to you and Lorny for the good of your
souls.  You ought to thank me."

Before they arrived in sight of the light another
car purred up behind them.  The chauffeur of this
was Jackson, the Nicholets' man.

"Cap'n Bassett!" he shouted, "is Miss Lorna still
over at the light?"

"I cal'late," replied Tobias.

"Will you take a letter that I got at the
post-office just now for her?  I know she must be
expecting it.  Oh, Mr. Endicott! is it you?"

He had run his car up beside the limousine.  He
drove on the right side, and so easily handed the
missive to Ralph.

"I know she's looking for it," Jackson repeated.

"Very well, I'll give it to her," said Ralph.

He looked a second time at the handwriting on
the envelope.  Then he put it into his pocket.
He withdrew the letter from his pocket again
when, an hour or so later, he and Lorna were
walking across the sands toward the path to the summit
of the Clay Head.  Ralph offered the letter to her
with a little hesitation.

"Oh!  For me?"  Then she saw the postmark,
"Charlestown, Mass.," and blushed.

"I think I recognize that handwriting, Lorna,"
Ralph said.  "It is that of a girl named Cora Devine.
I do not know why she should write to you unless
you opened the correspondence.  Is it so?" he added
gravely.

"Ye-es," admitted Lorna.

"I do not just know what your desire was in
writing to Miss Devine.  If it was to learn what
my interest in her is, I will tell you that.  She was a
Cambridge girl—a mill girl.  Silly and showy.  You
know the kind.  She got into trouble with—with
one of the college fellows, and lost her job.  Then
her father was harsh to her.  You know how many
of that sort of people are, I suppose.  They are
strict with their children when it is too late."

"And who was the man, Ralph?" Lorna whispered.

"Well—I'm not much for telling tales out of
school.  But now that he has gone so far and is in
jail, I may as well tell you that it was Degger."

"Oh!  And he told me you were mixed up with
Cora Devine, Ralph."

"I was."  And Ralph smiled briefly.  "He treated
her like a dog.  I had a chance to help her.  I
merely lent her money.  She worked and paid me
back—every cent.  Then I managed to make her father
reverse his decision, and Cora went back to live at
home.  They moved to Charlestown to escape gossip.

"Now, just lately, the old man has been ailing
and they discovered that to save his life he must be
operated on.  Cora wrote to me and asked me for
money to help.  She says she will pay it back.  I
believe she will——

"Why, Lorna!  you are tearing that letter up
without reading it."

"I don't need to read it."

"But you would see by what she writes that I tell
you the truth," he urged.

She allowed the bits of paper to flutter away
across the sands.  She turned her piquant face
toward him so that he might see her smile and the
light in her eyes.

"I need nobody to guarantee your word, Ralph
Endicott," she said softly.  "I know you are one
man without guile."

.. vspace:: 2

The old-fashioned fall flowers in Miss Heppy's
garden (those which the high sea had not torn
away) made brilliant patches of color upon the
bleached sand before the lighthouse.  Tobias o' the
Light sat on the bench beside the door nursing a
well-colored pipe.

Out of the open kitchen door floated a delicious
odor of frying doughnuts.  Miss Heppy, frying
fork in hand and with glowing countenance,
presided over the kettle while the heap of brown rings
and twists grew higher in the bowl on the stove shelf.

"Heppy," her brother said reflectively, removing
the pipe from between his lips to look at it, "I
cal'late I will buy me that silver-banded pipe Si
Compton's got in his store case, after all."

He said it tentatively, and then cocked his ear
for her reply.

"Tobias Bassett! air you a plumb fool?"

"Not so's you'd notice it I ain't, Heppy," he
rejoined, grinning.

"I think you be.  You don't need a silver-banded
pipe no more than our old cat needs two tails."

"Oh, sugar!  I dunno.  A cat with two tails
would be something dif'rent, I do allow."

"You was born looking for trouble," his sister
declared.  "For love's sake! ain't you satisfied?  We
got our money back safe.  Now let it be there——"

"To git stole again, mebbe?" he muttered.

"Better be stole than be frittered away, like you
want to.  You don't show any sense."

"Not any?" he asked slyly.  "Not even when it
comes to matchmakin'?  Was I afraid to step in
where you said angels was scare't to tread?  Tell
me that, now!"

Miss Heppy was for the moment silenced.  Tobias
chuckled unctuously.

"And I killed two birds with one stone, didn't I?
Four on 'em, to be exact.  Don't talk!  If I hadn't
started that story about the Nicholets and Endicotts
going stone broke, would there ever been a double
wedding last week in the First Church of Clinkerport,
with Miss Ida and the professor getting
hitched, and Ralph and Lorna follerin' suit?

"Oh, sugar!  I give it as my opinion neither
wedding would have come off if it hadn't been for me.
I'm some little—er—well! whatever it was Ralph
Endicott called me.  I cal'late on lookin' up that
word in the dictionary some day.

"Anyway," he concluded, "you got to agree,
Heppy, that I'm a good matchmaker.  Those two
young folks was drifting apart just as their uncle
and aunt did.  And 'twas me got 'em back on the
right track.  Ain't it a fact, Heppy?"

His sister had come to the door the better to hear
his self-congratulations.  She brought a big brown
doughnut on the fork and this she dropped into his
hand as she smiled down upon him.

"I dunno, Tobias.  Maybe you was pretty shrewd
that time, take it all around.  I know Lorna is going
to be dreadful happy with her man.  And Miss Ida,
too.  Well, I dunno.  Maybe you do deserve that
silver-banded pipe," she said.

.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center small

   THE END.

.. vspace:: 6

.. pgfooter::