Page:Bedford-Jones--Boy Scouts of the Air at Cape Peril.djvu/196

 into the boat and began to finger the oars. Presently, releasing them, he began to play his flash-light around the bottom of the boat. Suddenly his eye was caught by a dull object. On closer observation, it proved to be an unusually large key of somewhat antique pattern.

"Where in the mischief did this come from?" he asked himself as he took it in his hand. "Looks like one I've seen before." And then, with a sudden flash of memory, "I know I've seen it before. It's the key to the Cape Peril lighthouse. If it's not, it sure is powerful like it."

The unusual size and make of the lighthouse key had attracted the boy's attention on the occasion of his visit to Cap'n Buffum.

"By golly! that's funny," he kept repeating. "How the mischief?" He turned the key over and over in his fingers, but the longer he examined it the more convinced he was of its identity with the one he had noticed before.

"Maybe old Buffum's skipped—or maybe—I know, maybe that old woman's come and kidnapped him."