“What makes you think so?” asked one of the government officers.
“Look at how this stone pile, which they intended to use as a base for their lantern, is disturbed, and pulled apart,” went on the assistant lighthouse keeper, as he flashed his torch on it. “I’ll wager, boys, that when you saw it, with that contrivance atop by which they hoped to fool some vessels, this stone pile was well built up; wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Blake, “it was.”
“Because,” went on Tom Cardiff, “it would have to be so to make their light steady, to give the impression that it was one of the regular government lights. They were going to work a shutter, you boys say, to give the impression of a revolving light, and that would make it necessary to have a firm foundation.
“And yet now the whole top of this stone pile is torn apart, showing that they must have ripped out whatever they had here to hold the lantern. They got away in a hurry, is my opinion.”
“And I guess we’ll all have to agree,” put in the life saver. “The question is—where did they go?”
“And that’s a question we’ve got to answer,” added Tom Cardiff. “We’ve got to get on the trail.”
“Why so?” asked the life saver. “If you’ve driven ’em off, so they can’t try any of their dastardly tricks to lure vessels ashore, isn’t that all you want? You’ve spoiled their game.”
“Yes!” cried Tom Cardiff, “we’ve spoiled it for this one place, but they’ll be at it somewhere else.”
“What do you mean?” asked Joe.