"Dad said he was traced as far as Claymore and there the trail vanished. Claymore isn't very far from this coast."
"That's right. He may have wandered down to these caves."
"How about the shooting and the mysterious lights we were warned about?"
Frank laughed.
"Oh, as to that," he said, "I think Captain Royal has just been having a little fun at the expense of the people around here. Perhaps he is trying to keep people from finding out too much about him."
"Well, we'll find out all we can, anyway. He can't scare us."
Having decided to investigate the eccentric old gentleman further, the Hardy boys rolled themselves up in their blankets and went to sleep. Frank hardly dared hope that his surmise was correct and that in Captain Royal they had discovered the missing college professor, but he was convinced that the old man was not a sailor, in spite of his claims, and the circumstances of the exclamation "by jing" and the untied shoelaces, slender as the clues were, led him to believe that they were at least on a trail worth following.
When the boys awakened next morning they found the sea hidden by a dense fog. It was damp and cold and the weather put all idea of further exploration of the coast out of their heads.
"I'm not going to wander among the rocks in this fog," declared Chet emphatically. "If it got worse we'd have a fine time finding our way back here."
"Looks to me like a good morning for fishing," said Biff.