ower. And while it's not a particularly imposing
looking sort of building, it's a very important light. It was when they
came to build that light, they found out what Chesapeake Bay can be
like. Aside from some of the really big lighthouses like Minot's Ledge,
Smith's Point gave as much trouble to build as any lighthouse on the
United States coast."

"Why?"

"Bad weather and natural difficulties," said the other. "My father was
the designer, and because Mother was dead, Father and I used to be
together all the time. I was a small shaver of twelve years of age at
the time so I was right in the thick of it."

"Tell the yarn," pleaded Eric.

The lieutenant smiled at the boy's eagerness, but filled his pipe and
began.

"Right opposite Smith's Point," he said, "on the Virginia shore, the
tides and currents at the mouth of the Potomac River and at the entrance
of Chesapeake Bay have built out a shoal which, if you remember your
chart, you will recall juts out in the bay over nine miles from the
land. The same tides had scoured Smith's Island on the other hand--port
side going out of the bay, but there are some nasty rocks in the
channel. It's a tricky spot, that Smith's Point Shoal, and many a good
vessel has gone to pieces on it.

"It was the wreck of the barque _Mary Louise_ that drew public attention
to Smith's Point. She struck the shoal and went down with all hands.
Less than two hours after she sank, a steamer came along and hit the
wreckage. The steamer was so badly injured that it was only by a good
deal of luck and clever handling that her captain succeeded in beaching
her and saving all the passengers. The Lighthouse Board had made several
recommendations for the erection of a lighthouse at that point, and when
public attention had been focussed to this danger by the disaster, it
was easy enough to get the appropriation through Congress. So the money
was set aside and Father was given the contract of designing and
erecting the lighthouse.

"By the end of the next month a huge unwieldly foundation caisson was on
the ways at a shipyard in Baltimore. I was just a kid at the time, but
the queer shape of this interested me right from the start. It was like
a bottomless box, thirty-two feet square on the inside and twelve feet
high. It was so thick that a tall man could lie down crosswise on one of
the walls and stretch out his arms to the full, and then there would be
several inches beyond the tips of his finger