en his boy and girl
were young----"

"Girl! Was there a girl?" cried Blake. "Has Joe a sister, too?"

"He had--whether he has yet, I don't know," went on Mr. Stanton. "I'll
tell you all I know.

"As I said, Nate Duncan seemed to have had lots of sorrow, and he told
me how, after his wife died, he had placed the boy and girl in charge of
some people, and gone off to the California mines to make some money.
When he come back, rich, the children had disappeared, and so had the
people he left 'em with. He never could locate 'em, though he tried
hard, and so did his half-brother, Bill. But Bill was different from
Nate, so I understand. Bill was a reckless sort of chap, while Joe's
father was quite steady."

"That's right," spoke Blake, and then he related how Joe had come to get
a trace of his father.

"Well," resumed Mr. Stanton, "as I said, Duncan came here, and he and I
got along well together. Then there came trouble."

"Trouble? What kind?" asked Joe.

"Trouble with wreckers, lad. The meanest and most wicked kind of trouble
there can be on a seacoast. A band of bad men got together and by means
of false lights lured small vessels out of their course so they went on
the rocks. Then they got what they could when the cargo was washed
ashore."

"But what has that got to do with Joe's father?" asked Blake.

"Too much, I'm afraid, lad. It was said that the light here was allowed
to go out some nights, so the false light would be more effective."

"Well?"

"Well, Nate Duncan had charge of the light at night after I went off
duty. And it was always when I was off duty that the wrecks occurred."

"Do you mean to accuse Joe's father of being in with the wreckers?"

"No, lad. I don't accuse anybody; I'm too old a man to do anything like
that. But ugly stories began to be circulated. Government inspectors
began to call more often than they used to, inspecting my light--my
light, that I've tended nigh onto twenty-five years now. I began to hear
rumors that my assistant wasn't altogether straight. He was said to be
seen consorting with the wreckers, though it was hard to get proof that
the men were wreckers, for they pretended to be fishermen.

"Then come a day when, with my own eyes, I saw Nate Duncan walking along
the beach with one of the men who was said to be at the head of the
wrecking gang. I could see that they were quarreling, and then Nate
knocked the man down. He didn't get up right away, for, as I said, N