“The Old Light,” said Captain Jeb, hoarsely,—“all that’s left of it. Last Island has gone under, as you said it would, Neb,—clean swallowed up. And the boy—” (the speaker gulped down something like a sob). “Looks as if the Padre will never see his little lad agin.”
XXII.—The Lost And Found.
There had been an extra Mass at the little church at Beach Cliff on the morning of the storm. Father Tom Rayburn, an old classmate of the pastor’s, had arrived, and been welcomed most cordially.
“I’m off to an old camping ground of mine—Killykinick,” he had explained to his host as they sat together at breakfast. “One of our Brothers is there with some of St. Andrew’s boys, and my own little nephew is among them.”
“Ah, yes, I know!” was the reply. “They come every Sunday to the late Mass. And, by the way, if you are going out into those ocean ‘wilds,’ you could save a busy man some trouble by stopping at the Life-Saving Station (it’s not far out of the way, as I suppose you’ll take a sail or a motor boat); and I promised two of those sturdy fellows who are groping for the Truth some reading matter. I thought a friendly talk at the same time would not be amiss. They have little chance for such things in their lonely lives. But my duties are quadrupled at this season, as you know.”
“And the ‘wilderness’ is in my line,” said Father Tom. “Of course I’ll be glad to stop. I used to haunt the Life-Saving Station when I was a boy; and I should like to see it again, especially when I can do a little missionary work on the side,” he laughed cheerily.
And so it had happened that while Dan and Freddy were hauling in their lines and delivering breakfasts along the shore, one of the trig motors from the Boat Club was bearing a tall, broad-shouldered passenger, bronzed by sun and storm, to the Life-Saving Station, whose long, low buildings stood on a desolate spit of sand that jutted out into the sea beyond Shelter Cove. It was Uncle Sam’s farthest outpost. The Stars and Stripes floating from its flagstaff told of his watchful care of this perilous stretch of shore that his sturdy sons paced by day and night, alert to any cry for help, any sign of danger.
Father Tom, whose own life work lay in some such lines, met the Life-Savers with a warm, cordial sympathy that made his visit a most pleasant one. He was ready to listen as well as talk. But Blake and Ford, whom he had come especially to see, were on duty up the shore, and would not be back for more than two hours.
“I’ll wait for them,” said Father Tom, who never let a wandering sheep, that hook or crook could hold, escape his shepherd’s care; and he settled down for a longer chat of his own wild and woolly West, which his hearers watching with trained eyes the black line in the horizon, were too polite in their own simple way to interrupt. Their guest was in the midst of a description of the Mohave Desert, where he had nearly left his bones to bleach two years ago, when his boatman came hurriedly up with a request of speedy shelter for his little craft.
“There’s a storm coming up I daren’t face, sir,” he said. “We can’t make Killykinick until it blows over. You’ll have to stay another hour or two here.”