nd the wear, so it is called Luna
Land, but children make it Looney Land," he explained. "A couple of huts
in there, but no place for you girls to go visitin'," he finished, as if
divining the plan already shaping itself in the minds of Grace and
Cleo--a trip to Looney Land.

"Why Looney Land?" asked Cleo. "Queer folks out there?"

"Dunno as any folks is out there, but places get named somehow, just
like they get trees, no plantin' just come that way. Looney Land doesn't
mean anything that I know of except the moon seems to set over there.
But one thing I do know," and he made this very plain, "it's a good
place for girls to keep away from."

Grace and Cleo exchanged glances. It occurred to each that the forbidden
land was very apt to become attractive, but neither said so, nor asked
how Looney Land was to be reached.

"You have awful storms in winter, don't you?" asked Cleo, fingering an
oil skin coat, and noticing the big shiny hat that hung with it on a
wooden peg. "And I suppose you have wrecks occasionally."

"Yes, more than we enjoy," replied Captain Dave. "Had a bad one two
years ago. See that little pole stickin' up out there beyond the pier?
That's all that's left of the Alameda, and a fine vessel she was, too."

"Lives lost?" asked Grace mechanically.

"Oh, yes indeed, yes indeed," replied the captain. "Some folks around
here yet that was thrown ashore from that wreck. I mind one light haired
woman, and a youngster--little girl. We took them in here from the line,
you know how we swing the rings out on the line, and draw the poor
things in? Well this woman was so frozen we could hardly get the child
from her arms. She died next day, just as we got her to the hospital."

"What was her name--the girl's name, I mean?" asked Grace, interested
now that "life" had been discovered in the specter of the wreck.

"Oh, some simple name--don't know as I recall it rightly. They usually
tag on another. We have quite a few folks pass in and out of this
station in thirty years--I've been here more than that, and I don't keep
no record of my visitors. They are mostly glad to come and glad to go,"
and the captain lighted a fresh pipe, by way of turning over a new leaf
in his story.

"I suppose there were the usual papers for the little girl from the
wreck," prompted Cleo. "They always turn out to be somebody of account,
lost at sea and found years later on land. You know how stories have a
way of shaping themselves,