“Yes, about that. I’ve got a special line here from the lighthouse, and earlier in the evening the button lighted up and the bell began to ring. I answered it, but didn’t get anything or hear anything. I thought somebody must have just knocked it off and forgot about it, so I’ve been buzzing every once in a while. You say Timothy is missing, eh?”
“Yup. Guess you’ll have to get the police on the wire and hustle ’em out here. Is there a lighthouse keeper anywhere around that can be sent out here?”
The voice on the other end of the wire hesitated for a second and then replied: “Yes, the retired keeper lives here, and I can get ahold of him. Guess I better get him on the job until Timothy is located, eh?”
“Sure thing,” the captain concluded. “And get the police out here on the jump, will you, bub?”
The night operator agreed to do so at once, and the captain hung up the receiver. He explained the situation to the boys and then proposed that they look further.
“I don’t think he is anywhere around,” he said. “But we’ll look all over the place. No use in missing anything. All I hope is that he hasn’t met with any foul play. I’m going to look through these rooms again. Suppose you fellows look around the grounds, only don’t go too far away.”
The boys went out of the door as the captain once more looked through the rooms of the station. Jim and Don walked out to a shed in the back of the lighthouse grounds and Terry walked away alone, toward the end of the rock upon which the lighthouse stood. He was soon lost in the darkness and Don and Jim forgot him in their interest.
A single shed, in which they found a rowboat and some canvas and rope, was at the back of the lighthouse and the boys made a thorough search of the place, but found no clue. They followed the spur of rock back toward the mainland until they came to low and marshy ground. Then, remembering the captain’s warning, they walked back toward the lighthouse, skirted it and walked out on the point of rock where it ended abruptly in the ocean.
Several minutes later the captain, standing in the middle of the floor of the bedroom, heard them enter. Don poked an anxious head in the doorway.
“Say, Captain Blow,” he said. “Isn’t Terry in here?”