The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast Part 30

"Now one more pull, and we'll have 'em safe!" yelled the captain a little later, and with a mighty haul his men bent to their task.

"There they come through the last line of surf!" yelled Joe, pointing to the buoy containing the two shipwrecked persons.

"If only the rope holds," murmured his chum.

Even as he spoke there came a cry from the two men who had been sent to watch that the anchor in the sand did not drag.

"It's coming! It's coming out!" shouted one of them.

"Sit on it! Hold it down!" yelled the captain. "Into the water after 'em, boys! Come on, ye old seadogs!"

There was a snap--the rope had parted, but so near to the beach were the two that the life-savers waded into the foam and spume, and grabbed them, holding them safe.

They were hauled to the beach, on which huddled the others who had been saved from the wreck.

The lone woman had been taken in charge by the feminine members of the theatrical troupe, who led her toward their boarding house. They said they would soon have hot coffee ready for all the sailors.

"Get 'em out of the buoy!" cried the captain, as the two last rescued were seen to be well-nigh insensible. They were a.s.sisted out, and sank helpless on the sand.

"Pretty far gone," remarked a life saver. "One must be the captain, I reckon."

"And the other," began Harry Stanton, keeper of the Rockypoint light; "the other--why, if it isn't Nate Duncan, who used to be my a.s.sistant!

He came out of the wreck--Nate Duncan!"

CHAPTER XXV

A NEW QUEST

From where he was standing by a group of the rescued sailors, Joe Duncan heard what the lighthouse keeper said. The lad rushed forward.

"Nate Duncan!" he repeated, as he gazed at the two men, who were just beginning to revive under the application of stimulants. "Which one of you is Mr. Duncan?" he asked, eagerly.

"I--I am," faltered the younger of the two men. "Why, who wants me. Oh, it's you, Harry Stanton," and he looked at the lighthouse keeper standing near him. "I--I can explain everything. I----"

"It wasn't I who asked," spoke the lighthouse keeper. "It was this lad here," and he indicated Joe. "Your son."

"My son!" cried the rescued man. "Are you sure--can it be true. Oh, is it possible? Don't disappoint me! Are you my son?" and he held out his hands to Joe.

"I--I think so, father," spoke the boy, softly. "I--I have been looking for you a long time."

"And I have, too, Joe; yes, you are my boy. I can see it now. Oh, the dear Lord be praised!" and there was moisture in his eyes that was not the salt from the raging sea.

"But--but," went on Joe. "I thought you went to China. I wrote to you at Hong Kong."

"I did start for there, Joe; but the vessel on which I sailed was wrecked, and this craft, bound back for San Francisco, picked us up. So I didn't get very far. Oh, but I have found my boy!"

The others drew a little aside while father and son, so strangely restored to each other by the fury of the sea, clasped each other close.

"Now, friends," said Mr. Ringold, bustling up; "those of you who are wet through had better let us take care of you. We have room for you all, and I'll send word to any of your friends if you'll give me the addresses. Your wreck, in a way, has been a great thing for me, for I have obtained some wonderful moving pictures of it and this rescue. It will make a great drama. So I want to help you all I can."

By this time the captain of the vessel had been revived and with his wife and crew was taken to the theatrical boarding place, where the women busied themselves getting warm drinks and food, and the men changed into dry garments loaned by the fishermen and the others. Soon after the last one came ash.o.r.e the wreck broke up and sank.

"Well, of all the wonderful things I ever experienced, this is the most marvelous," declared Mr. Duncan, as he sat with his son's hand in his.

"I am wrecked twice, and come back to the same place I ran away from, to find Joe waiting for me."

"It is wonderful," agreed Joe, wondering how he was going to bring up the subject of the wreckers.

"Yes, this is the very place I left in such a hurry, a few months ago,"

went on Mr. Duncan.

"Would you mind telling me why you left so suddenly?" asked the lighthouse keeper, solemnly. "Of course it's none of my affair; but I might say it concerns you mightily, Nate Duncan. Can you prove your innocence?"

"Prove my innocence! Of what charge?" cried the man.

"Oh, father, of course we don't believe it!" burst out Joe, unable to keep silent longer; "but Hemp Danforth says you were implicated with him in wrecking boats by means of false lights!"

"Hemp Danforth says that!" cried Joe's father.

"Yes. Tell me--tell all of them--that it isn't so!" pleaded the lad.

"Of course it isn't so, Joe."

"But why did you leave so suddenly, and why did the officer come for you the next day?" asked the lighthouse keeper. "It looked bad, Nate."

"I suppose it did," said Mr. Duncan, slowly. "But it can easily be explained. I was mixed up with those wreckers----"

"Father!" cried Joe.

"But not the way you think, son," went on the former lighthouse worker quickly. "Hemp Danforth and I had a quarrel. It was over some business matters that he and I were mixed up in before I learned that he and his gang were wreckers.

"We quarreled, because he tried to defraud me of my rights, and I had to give him a severe beating. Perhaps I was wrong, but I acted on impulse.

Then I heard that Hemp, to get even, had accused me of being a wrecker, and he had his men ready to swear to false testimony about me; even that I let the light go out, which I never did.

"I knew I could not refute it, especially at that time, and as something came up that made it necessary for me to leave for China at once, I decided to go away. I realize now that it must have looked bad, especially after the charge against me. But now I am ready to stay and face it. I can prove that I had nothing to do with the wrecking, and that as soon as I learned that Hemp and his gang were concerned in it I left them. If we can get hold of Hemp I can easily make him acknowledge this."

"You can easily get hold of him," said Blake. "He and his crowd are all in jail. They were caught in the act of setting a false light."

"And I don't believe you'll even have to prove your innocence," said Mr.

Ringold. "They'll be convicted, and their evidence will never be accepted. You are already cleared, Mr. Duncan."

"My name cleared--and my son with me--what else could I want?" murmured the happy man.

"But, Dad," asked Joe, his face showing his delight that he could now use that word. "Why did you have to leave so suddenly?"

"To try and find your sister, Joe."