Page:Silver Shoal Light.djvu/101

Rh "You haven't a bathing-suit on, you know," Jim remarked, as he brushed the sand out of Garth's hair. "Suppose that I hadn't picked you up with such truly lightning-like rapidity? We'd have had to hang you out on the gaff to dry! What are you laughing at?" He retrieved Garth's hat from the edge of another wave, restored it to its proper position, and gazed after his son with a whimsical tenderness.

Behind the white beach of the tiny island that Jim called Hy Brasail, a low, sloping bluff rose from the sand. It was crowned with short grass, gray-green in the salt air, and dotted with beach-peas in purple bloom. There was sea-stock, too, lifting sturdy flowers, and a low scrub of sunburned huckleberry bushes. Here and there, cropping from the shallow soil, slabs of the worn gray rock lay bare. On the shore that fronted the open sea the surf leaped and thundered against sheer rocks; but on the landward side little waves tiptoed smoothly up the sand, curling gently around the skiff.

"We usually build a fire on the beach and have lunch there," Jim said; "then we go up on the rock afterward. Pipe all hands to gather driftwood, Bo'sun."