"Company! A heap of company you are! When I'm awake you're alseep and snorin' and--"

"I never snored in my life," was the indignant interruption

"What? YOU'LL snore when you're dead, and wake up the whole graveyard. Lonesome!" he continued, without giving his companion a chance to retort, "lonesome ain't no name for this place. No company but green flies and them moskeeters, and nothin' to look at but salt water and sand and--and--dummed if I can think of anything else. Five miles from town and the only house in sight shut tight. When I come here you told me that bungalow was opened up every year--"

"So it has been till this season."

"And that picnics come here every once in a while."

"Don't expect picnickers to be such crazy loons as to come here in winter time, do you?"

"I don't know. If they're fools enough to come here ANY time, I wouldn't be responsible for 'em. There ain't so many moskeeters in winter. But just LOOK at this hole. Just put on your specs and LOOK at it! Not a man--but you--not a woman, not a child, not a girl--"

"Ah ha! ah ha! NOW we're gettin' at it! Not a girl! That's what's the matter with you. You want to be up in the village, where you can go courtin'. You're too fur from Elsie Peters, that's where the shoe pinches. I've heard how you used to set out in her dad's backyard, with your arm round her waist, lookin' at each other, mushy as a couple of sassers of hasty-puddin'. Bah! I'll take care my next assistant ain't girl-struck."

"Girl-struck! I'd enough sight ruther be girl-struck than always ravin' and rippin' against females. And all because some woman way back in Methusalem's time had sense enough to heave you over. At least, that's what everybody cal'lates must be the reason. You pretend to be a woman-hater. All round this part of the Cape you've took pains to get up that kind of reputation; but--"

"There ain't no pretendin' about it. I've got brains enough to keep clear of petticoats. And when you get to be as old as I be and know as much as I do--though that ain't no ways likely, even if you live to be nine hundred and odd, like Noah in Scripture--you'll feel the same way."

"Aw, come off! Woman-hater! You hate women same as the boy at the poorhouse hated ice cream--'cause there ain't none around. Why, I wouldn't trust you as fur as I could see you!"

This was the end of the dialogue, because Mr. Payne was obliged to break off his harangue and dodge the stove-lifter flung at him by the outraged lightkeeper. As the lifter was about to be followed by the teakettle, Ezra took to his heels, bolted from the house and began his long tramp to the village. When he reached the first clumps of bayberry bushes bordering the deeply rutted road, a joyful cloud of mosquitoes rose and settled about him like a fog.

So Seth Atkins was left alone to do double duty at Eastboro Twin- Lights, pending the appointment of another assistant. The two days and nights following Ezra's departure had been strenuous and provoking. Doing all the housework, preparation of meals included, tending both lights, rubbing brass work, sweeping and scouring, sleeping when he could and keeping awake when he must, nobody to talk to, nobody to help--the forty-eight hours of solitude had already convinced Mr. Atkins that the sooner a helper was provided the better. At times he even wished the disrespectful Payne back again, wished that he had soothed instead of irritated the departed one. Then he remembered certain fragments of their last conversation and wished the stove-lifter had been flung with better aim.

Now, standing on the gallery of the south tower, he was conscious of a desire for breakfast. Preparing that meal had been a part of his assistant's duties. Now he must prepare it himself, and he was hungry and sleepy. He mentally vowed that he would no longer delay notifying the authorities of the desertion, and would urge them to hurry in sending some one to fill the vacant place.

Grumbling aloud to himself, he moved around the circle of the gallery toward the door. His hand was on the latch, when, turning, he cast another glance over the rail, this time directly downward toward the beach below. And there he saw something which caused him to forget hunger and grievances of all kinds; something which, after one horrified look to make sure, led him to dart into the light chamber, spring at a reckless gait down the winding stair, out of the tower, rush to the edge of the bluff, and plunge headlong down the zigzag path worn in the clay.

On the sand, at the foot of the bluff below the lights, just beyond reach of the wash of the surf, lay a man, or the dead body of a man, stretched at full length.

CHAPTER II

MR. JOHN BROWN

Once before, during his years of service as keeper of Eastboro Twin- Lights, had Seth seen such a sight as that which now caused him to make his dash for the shore. Once before, after the terrible storm of 1905, when the great steamer Bay Queen went down with all on board, the exact spot of her sinking unknown even to this day. Then the whole ocean side of the Cape, from Race Point to Orham, was strewn with ghastly relics. But the Bay Queen met her fate in the winter season, amid a gale such as even the oldest residents could not remember. Now it was early summer; the night before had been a flat calm. There had been no wreck, or the lifesavers would have told him of it. There would be no excuse for a wreck, anyway.

All this, in disjointed fragments, passed through the lightkeeper's mind as he descended the path in frantic bounds and plowed through the ankle-deep white sand of the beach. As he approached the recumbent figure he yelled a panted "Hi, there!" He did not expect the hail to be answered or even noticed. Therefore, he was pleasantly disappointed when the figure rolled over, raised itself on one elbow, looked at him in a dazed sort of way and replied cheerfully but faintly, "Hello!"

Seth stopped short, put a hand to the breast of his blue flannel shirt, and breathed a mighty sigh of relief.

"Gosh!" he exclaimed with fervor. Then, changing his labored gallop for a walk, he continued his progress toward the man, who, as if his momentary curiosity was satisfied, lay down again. He did not rise when the lightkeeper reached his side, but remained quiet, looking up from a pair of gray eyes and smiling slightly with lips that were blue. He was a stranger to Atkins, a young fellow, rather good looking, dressed in blue serge trousers, negligee shirt, blue socks, and without shoes or hat. His garments were soaked, and the salt water dripped from his shoulders to the sand. The lightkeeper stared at him, and he returned the stare.

"Gosh!" repeated Seth, after an instant of silence. "Jiminy crimps! I feel better."

The stranger's smile broadened. "Glad to hear it, I'm sure," he said, slowly. "So do I, though there's still room for improvement. What was your particular ailment? Mine seems to have been water on the brain."

He sat up and shakily ran a hand through his wet hair as he spoke. Atkins, his surprise doubled by this extraordinary behavior, could think of nothing to say.

"Good morning," continued the young man, as if the meeting had been the most casual and ordinary possible; "I think you said a moment ago that you were feeling better. No relapse, I trust."

"Relapse? What in the world? Are you crazy? I ain't sick."

"That's good. I must have misunderstood you. Pleasant morning, isn't it?

"Pleasant morn-- Why, say! I--I--what in time are you doin', layin' there all soaked through? You scared me pretty nigh to death. I thought you was drowned, sure and sartin."

"Did you? Well, to be honest, so did I, for a while. In fact, I'm not absolutely sure that I'm not, even yet. You'll excuse me if I lie down again, won't you? I never tried a seaweed pillow before, but it isn't so bad."

He again stretched himself on the sand. Seth shook his head.

"Well, if this don't beat me!" he exclaimed. "You're the coolest critter that ever I--I--"

"I am cool," admitted the young man, with a slight shiver. "This stretch of ocean here isn't exactly a Turkish bath. I've been swimming since--well, an hour or two ago, and I am just a little chilled."

He shivered again.

"Swimmin'! An hour or two? Where on earth did you come from?"

"Oh, I fell overboard from a steamer off here somewhere. I--"

Another and emphatic shiver caused him to pause. The lightkeeper awoke to the realities of the situation.

"Good land of love!" he exclaimed. "What am I thinkin' of? Seein' you this way, and you talkin' so kind of every-day and funny drove my senses clean out, I guess. Get right up off that wet place this minute. Come up to the house, quick! Can you walk?"

"Don't know. I am willing to try. Would you mind giving me a lift?"

Seth didn't mind, which was fortunate, as his new acquaintance couldn't have risen unaided. His knees shook under him when he stood erect, and he leaned heavily on the lightkeeper's arm.

"Steady now," counselled Atkins; "no hurry. Take it easy. If you've navigated water all alone for hours, I cal'late between us we can manage to make a five-minute cruise on dry land. . . . Even if the course we steer would make an eel lame tryin' to follow it," he added, as the castaway staggered and reeled up the beach. "Now