If Captain Harlow had cruised around in the hope of picking up the motor boat, he was quite as likely to be in the vicinity of Carys' Ledge, as else-where, and not until Sidney had assured him that there was no gun on board the West Wind, did Captain Eph entirely dismissed the matter from his mind.
As a matter of fact, at that very moment Mr. Peters and Uncle Zenas were discussing such a possibility, the cook insisting that it was only reasonable to suppose Captain Harlow would stand off and on in the vicinity of where Sidney's boat had last been seen, until there was no longer any chance the lad could be afloat.
"Of course Sonny's father would know how much gosolene there was in the boat's tank," Mr. Peters finally said, hoping to convince himself that the appeals for aid had not come from the West Wind, "an' he'd understood that the craft, if she was kept at sea, would be swamped mighty soon after the power gave out."
"I reckon you're right, Sammy," Uncle Zenas said with a sigh, "an' yet if yonder vessel is of any size, I can't make out why she should be near this ledge, unless it was a case of huntin' for something."
And as the crew of the light-house thus discussed the possibility that the signals of distress might have a terrible meaning for the lad whom they had learned to love so well, the new day came slowly, revealing a wind-lashed sea which rolled angrily over the ledge as if striving to compass the destruction of the tower, while a dense veil of fleecy particles, blown into wreaths and clouds by the gale, enveloped the light-house as by a fog.
Captain Eph extinguished the beacon light, and as he did so it seemed to Sidney that in some way the light keepers had deserted those who were battling for life amid the icy waters.
"The light can do the poor creatures no good, Sonny," the old keeper said as if he read the thought in the boy's mind, "for since daybreak they couldn't even see the reflection of it on the snow."
"And you haven't been able to so much as think how we might help them?" Sidney asked in tremulous tones.
"Look down on the ledge, Sonny, an' say whether, even if it was possible to lend a hand, we could get outside?" Captain Eph replied as he pointed to the window, and after the lad obeyed he drew back with a faint cry of terror.
The sea so entirely covered the rocks that nothing could be seen save the huge waves which broke into foam as they rolled over the ledge, or beat against the tower with a thunderous roar.