Page:Ruth Fielding at Lighthouse Point.djvu/105

Rh strange girl. And yet she seemed to know nothing at all about the games and the exercises which were commonplace to the girls from Briarwood Hall.

There was a patch of wind-blown, stunted trees and bushes covering several acres of the narrowing point, before the driving road along the ridge brought the visitors to Sokennet Light. While they were driving through this a man suddenly bobbed up beside the way and the driver hailed him.

"Hullo, you Crab!" he said. "Found anything 'long shore from that wreck?"

The man stood up straight and the girls thought him a very horrid-looking object. He had a great beard and his hair was dark and long.

"He's a bad one for looks; ain't he, Miss?" asked the driver of Ruth, who sat beside him.

"He isn't very attractive," she returned.

"Ha! I guess not. And Crab's as bad as he looks, which is saying a good deal. He comes of the 'wreckers.' Before there was a light here, or life saving stations along this coast, there was folks lived along here that made their livin' out of poor sailors wrecked out there on the reefs. Some said they used to toll vessels onto the rocks with false lights. Anyhow, Crab's father, and his gran'ther, was wreckers. He's assistant light-