gnizing the voice as that of the man with the white mustache, as he
always thought of him, and not as his stepfather.

In fact, he had long since repudiated any relationship whatever with the
man, and regarded him as a stranger who had come into his life without any
wish of his own, and whom he would willingly put out of it, and be
satisfied never to see or hear of again.

"But weren't you in here the other night when I signaled?" asked the other
man, who was rowing. "You answered and told me to come in."

"Me?" with a laugh. "I tell you I was not. I don't know the way in any
more than you, though I know that there is one."

"But I saw lights, and I got flashes from some one on deck, in the regular
code, too."

"They were from the deck of this yacht I told you of, and I will show her
to you if you are patient. Go easy, though, for we may come in sight of
her at any moment."

"But how about the signals I got? How could any one know I was out there,
and how would they know the code?"

"They got you by accident, perhaps, and then were smart enough to take
your signals and answer them. I know a boy who is clever enough for that.
He is on the yacht, too. She has a lot of schoolboys who are on a trip to
these seas. They were carried in here by a tidal wave, and now cannot get
out, not knowing the passage."

"Well, I don't know it myself, and I never would have come in only for
finding a pilot who knows the ins and outs of all the islands in the
Caribbean, but if I noticed any lights when I came in I must have thought
they were yours."

The men rowed on out of sight, for Jack did not care to lean over too far,
partly from fear of falling and partly because he might be seen if any one
else should happen to pass that way.

There had a vessel come into the bay, then, and she was now probably up
the cove out of sight, and the man in the boat with the other was her
captain.

"That is the man whose vessel I signaled the other night," thought Jack.
"Rollins must have come over to this side and met him. They know each
other, it seems. Birds of a feather flock together."

Not caring to expose himself to the risk of being seen by the men when
they returned, Jack now crept back to the other side of the rock and began
to descend carefully, Percival being at length able to help him.

"Well, Jack," said the latter when his friend was safe on the ground, "did
you discover anything!"

"Yes, I did," and Jack told him briefly w