er, Ruth!" called Tom, at last. "We must
fasten the boat before we run."

"And where will we run to?" demanded Helen.

"To the light, of course," returned her chum.

"Give _me_ the hitch-rein!" cried Jane Ann Hicks, snatching the coil
of line from Ruth's hand, and the next moment she leaped from the deck
of the catboat to the wharf.

The distance was seven or eight feet, but she cleared it and landed on
the stringpiece. She threw the line around one of the piles and made a
knot with a dexterity that would have surprised her companions at another
time.

But there was no opportunity then for Tom, Helen and Ruth to stop to
notice it. All three got ashore the moment the catboat bumped, and they
left her where she was and followed the flying Western girl up the wharf
and over the stretches of sand towards the lightkeeper's cottage.

Before their feet were off the planks of the wharf Jack Crab's boat
collided with the _Jennie S._ and the man scrambled upon her deck, and
across it to the wharf. He left his own dory to go ashore if it would,
and set out to catch the girl who--he considered--was worth five hundred
dollars to him.

But Jane Ann and her friends whisked into the little white house at the
foot of the light shaft, and slammed the door before Crab reached it.

"For the Land of Goshen!" cried the old lady, who was sitting knitting
in her tiny sitting-room. "What's the meaning of this?"

"It's Crab! It's Jack Crab!" cried Helen, almost in hysterics.
"He's after us!"

Tom had bolted the door. Now Crab thundered upon it, with both feet and
fists.

"Let me in!" he roared from outside. "Mother Purling! you let me git
that gal!"

"What does this mean?" repeated the lighthouse keeper, sternly.
"Ain't this the gal that big man was after this morning?" she
demanded, pointing at Jane Ann.

"Yes, Mrs. Purling--it is Jane Hicks. And this dreadful Crab man has
kept her out on the Thimble all this time--alone!" cried Ruth. "Think
of it! Now he has chased us in here----"

"I'll fix that Jack Crab," declared the plucky old woman, advancing
toward the door. "Hi, you, Jack! go away from there."

"You open this door, Mother Purling, if you knows what's best for
you," commanded the sailor.

"You better git away from that door, if you knows what's best for
_you_, Jack Crab!" retorted the old woman. "I don't fear ye."

"I see that man here this morning. Did he leave aught for me?" cried
Crab, after a moment. "If he le