That was a wonderfully interesting drive for the little girls. The man seemed to know quite as much about Block Island as Captain Ozias Littlefield. The road took them within sight of the West Side life-saving station; but they did not stop there on this occasion. They drove on past the stone cottage and the strip of stone wall built by the last Indian who lived on the island. His forefathers had owned Block Island in the beginning and called it Manisses. This last Indian had built stone fences all his life and built them so well that they would never fall unless the island suffered an earthquake shock. There were a good many gates to open and shut during the drive, for the party passed through private property most of the way to the lighthouse. They viewed all that was visible of the ancient wreck of the _Killies_, and the black reefs and dashing waves along the south shore of the island looked dangerous even to the little girls. "What an awful thing it would be if a ship sailed right in here and bumped its nose on these rocks!" Edna exclaimed. "I wouldn't want to see _that_." "I guess the folks couldn't jump ashore from, the ship, could they?" queried Carolyn. "Not very well," their friend and host agreed. "That is why they have life savers all around the island. The life savers help to get people off the wrecks--when there are any wrecks." "My goodness!" Edna gasped. "I shall be scared to go home. Suppose the steamboat is wrecked? Why don't they have railroads running to this island? Then there would be no ships wrecked here." "Why, how you talk, Edna Price!" said Carolyn. "They can't build railroads on _water_!" "One of these ox teams would be safe to ride over here on, wouldn't it?" chuckled their host. "But there isn't any _street_," cried Carolyn again with emphasis. "Why, that's just as ridiculous as Edna wanting a railroad built!" "Perhaps it is," admitted her friend meekly. They came at length to the wind-blown downs and the lighthouse. The face of the bluff here was very steep and rocky. The Atlantic billows rolled in ponderously from the open sea and dashed their spray in places half way to the brink of the bank. Out at sea many great sailing ships as well as steam-propelled craft went past--coastwise ships and those European-bound and returning from distant ports. There were naval vessels in sight, too--several submarine chasers and a destroyer or two; while in the distance a smudge of smoke against the sky, the children were told, marked the swift passage of a dreadnaught. Then their friend took them to the lighthouse, the keeper of which treated them very nicely indeed. He allowed them to climb to the lamp room and showed them all about the working of the great lantern. They went out on the gallery, too, and the keeper let them look through his glasses at a triangular white spot which he said was the riding sail of the lightship on Nantucket Shoals, thirty miles from the island.