Page:The Pacific Monthly volumes 1-3.djvu/591

 voted himself to asking and answering questions. The sloop was bound down the coast to Coos Bay. She had encountered rough weather off the Columbia river bar, and had been driven far out of her course. To the young lady, his daughter, the voyage proved most trying She was not a good sailor. If, therefore, accommodations could be secured, he wished to leave her ashore until the return of the sloop a fortnight later.

The landlady of the "" had a room to spare, and by the time the water casks were filled, arrangements had been completed which resulted in the transfer of the fair traveler's luggage from the sloop to the "hotel." The father bade his daughter an affectionate adieu, and was rowed back to the vessel, which at once weighed anchor and sailed away in the golden dusk of the summer evening.

Muriel, that was the name she gave, Muriel Trevenard, was a delicate-looking, fair-haired girl still in her teens, very sweet and sunny-tempered. She seemed to take kindly to her new environment, accepting its rude inconveniences as a matter of course, though all her own belongings testified to the fact that she was accustomed to the refinements and even luxuries of civilization. She spent many hours each day idling with a sketch block and pencil in that grassy hollow in the hill, seaward from the town, or strolled upon the beach or over the wind-swept uplands. The fortnight lengthened to a month and yet no sign of the sloop, or any sail rose above the horizon to southward.

"You've no cause to worry," said the landlady. "Your father's safe enough. No rough weather since he sailed, and as for time—a ship's time is as uncertain ass a woman's temper, I've heard my own father say."

"Oh I am not anxious," replied Muriel, "not in the least."

It was in August that a party of pleasure-seekers came over the Coast Range and pitched their tents in the grassy hollow. They were a merry company, and they were not long in discovering Muriel.

"Such a pretty girl," exclaimed Cora May, who was herself so fair that she could afford to be generous. "I am sure she does not belong to anybody about here. We must coax her to come to our camp."

But the girl needed little coaxing. She found these light-hearted young people a pleasant interruption, and she was enthusiastically welcomed by all, young and old alike. She joined them in their ceaseless excursions, and made one of the group that gathered nightly around the camp fire. There was one, a rather serious-minded youth, who speedily constituted himself her cavalier. He was always at hand to help her into the boat, to bait her hook when they went fishing, and to carry her shawl, or book or sketch block, and she accepted these attentions as she seemed to accept all else, naturally and sweetly.

The Cape Foulweather light had just been completed, and the house upon the bluff above Newport was deserted. Some member of the camping party proposed one Sunday afternoon that they pay it a visit.

"We have seen everything else there is to see," remarked Cora May.

"It is just an ordinary house with a lantern on top," objected Muriel. "You can get a good view of it from the bay. Besides it is probably locked up."

"Somebody has the key. We can soon find out who," said Harold Welch. "And we haven't anything else to do."

Accordingly they set out in a body to find the key. It was in the possession of the landlady's husband who had been appointed to look after the premises. He said he had not been up there lately, and seemed surprised after a mild fashion that anyone should feel an interest in an empty house, but he directed them how to reach it.

"You go up that trail to the top of the hill and you'll strike the road, but you won't find anything worth seeing after you get there. It ain't anywhere like the new light."

With much merry talk and laughter they climbed the hill and found the road, a smooth and narrow avenue overshadowed by dark young pines, winding along the hill-top to the rear of the house.