nformation of
the Maine coast at that point, and if a ship once grounded on the shoals
while a storm was raging its hours were numbered.

In the distance, with the sun playing on it and the sea gulls swooping
about its top, it seemed something slender and ethereal. It was only
when one was close at hand that its real strength and solidity could be
appreciated.

It was built on a solid rock foundation that sloped down into the sea
many feet distant from its base. The tower was circular in form so as to
offer as little surface as possible to the wind from whatever quarter it
might blow. The walls at the bottom, where the force of the waves spent
itself, were many feet thick, but they grew thinner as the tower rose in
the air. At the top was the enormous light of many thousand candle
power. It was the alternating kind, and every fifteen seconds it threw
out a ray that could be seen by mariners for many miles.

The lighthouse stood about a mile from the mainland, and all the
household supplies had to be brought over by Lester or his father from
the little village of Bartanet. Whatever was needed for the light itself
came at stated intervals on the government cutters that cruised along
that section of the coast.

The boys, under Lester's guidance, had long before this explored every
portion of the lighthouse and wondered at the marvels of the machinery
that set the light in motion and kept it going automatically through the
night. Brought up in inland towns, all this was new to them, and their
curiosity and interest were insatiable.

Now as they watched it growing larger as they drew nearer, they shared
the delight and pride of Lester in the noble structure of which his
father was the guardian.

"Isn't it glorious?" demanded Fred.

"Think of the lives that have been saved by it," said Teddy.

"And will be saved by it during the next hundred years," added Bill.

"I wonder if poor Mr. Montgomery saw it on that last cruise of his,"
pondered Fred.

"He must have, if the smugglers really came this way," answered Lester.
"That was only about nine years ago, you remember Ross said, and the
lighthouse has stood for twenty years."

"Has your father had charge of it all that time?" asked Bill.

"No, he was appointed about twelve years ago."

"Then he must have been here at the time the gold was stolen," said
Teddy eagerly. "I wonder if he heard anything about the matter."

"I never heard him speak about it, but I shou