“Oh, we wouldn’t think of asking you,” put in Blake. “We can easily walk it.”
“Some day I’ll take you out fishing,” promised the man. “And so you’re here to get moving pictures; eh? Well, I don’t know much about ’em, but you couldn’t come to a nicer place than this spot on the coast. And you only have to go a little way to get right where the real surf comes smashing up on the beach. Of course, as I said, we’re so land-locked just here that we don’t see much of it, even in a storm. Moving pictures; eh? I’d like to see some.”
“I guess you can be in them, if you want to,” said Blake. “I heard Mr. Ringold say he had one drama that called for a lot of fishermen.”
“Me in moving pictures!” cried the old man. “Ho! Ho! I wonder what my wife’d say to that. I’ve been in lots of queer situations. I’ve been knocked overboard by a whale, I’ve been wrecked, and half drowned, and almost starved, but I’ve never been in a picture, except I once had a tintype taken—-that was when I was married,” and he chuckled at the remembrance. “These movin’ pictures aren’t like tintypes; are they?”
“Not much,” laughed Joe, as he and Blake moved off in the direction of the lighthouse, calling a good-bye to their new friend. They had told Mr. Hadley, in starting out that morning, that they might not be back until late, for Joe had a half notion that he would try to find the lighthouse that day.
“I wonder what I shall say to him, when I first see him, Blake?” Joe asked, as they trudged along.
“Why—er—I hardly know,” replied his chum. “I never found a lost father, myself.”
“And I never did, either. I guess I’ll just say: ‘Hello, Dad; do you know me?’”
“That sounds all right,” said Blake. “He sure will be surprised.”
The walk was longer than they had thought, and when noon came they still had some distance to go. As they were hungry they sought out a fisherman’s cottage, where, for a small sum, they had a fine meal. Starting out again, they turned an intervening point of land about three o’clock, and then came in view of a lighthouse, located on a pile of rocks, not far from the high-water mark.