“I knew I’d catch you. Well, you’re not handsome, not when you pucker up your forehead that way, anyhow. Now, here we are on our way to the lighthouse, and here’s where we get out and walk,” she went on. “I suppose we’ll have to wait until morning if the captain is trimming his lamp,” she finished, locking her car and then following Babs through the deep sand to the little path that led along the beach to the lighthouse.
A big, shaggy, friendly dog rushed out to them.
“Captain in?” Babs asked the dog.
“Whoo-of!” barked the animal playfully, licking Babs’ hand as an after thought.
“Yes, he’s in,” said Cara. “I see his foot. See it sticking out there in the bushes?” she directed, for the porch of the lighthouse was surrounded by a stubby growth generously called bushes, and they could see the outlines of a shoe among them.
There was the scuffling of a chair as the girls reached the funny little home-made porch.
“Well, now,” declared the captain moving in his chair but not rising. “Here you both are! How do? See, I’ve a game leg and can’t get up,” he explained. “Slipped on the third step the other night. Ouch!” he groaned as he moved the “game leg” unintentionally. “There ain’t nuthin’ worse,” he declared still groaning.
“Hurt your foot?” Cara managed to say. “That’s too bad, Captain. You need both your feet to climb up to the light.”
“Don’t I though? Find a place to sit down among those books. I’ve been readin’ my head off, me and Mac” (he patted the dog affectionately) “and it’s tough being stuck in a chair with a pretty sea like that rolling under your very nose.”
“Yes, it must be,” agreed Babs. “But Captain Quiller. I’m sorry to be in a hurry, but I have to be,” she sort of apologized. “Can you tell me where Nicky has moved to?”