Later on, in fragments, Darry learned the whole story.  It was all very wonderful, and yet simple enough.

The old man whom he remembered so well, and who had told him to call him uncle, was in reality a brother of his mother.

He had quarreled with his sister Elizabeth’s husband, after abusing his kindness, and to cancel what he called a debt, had actually stolen the only child of the man he had wronged and hated.

An old story, yet happening just as frequently in these modern days as in times of old, for men have the same passions, and there is nothing new under the sun.

Everything that money could do was done to find the man and the little boy he had kidnapped, but he proved too cunning for them all, and although several times traces were found of his being at some foreign city, when a hunt was made he had again vanished.

So the years came and went, and the child’s mother was left a widow.

Hope never deserted her heart, though it must have grown fainter as time passed on, and all traces of the wicked child-stealer seemed swallowed up in mystery.

Paul had known of her great trouble, and it was the remarkable resemblance of Darry to a picture he had seen of his uncle Rudolph as a boy that first startled him.

Then came the story about the waif, and this gave him strong hopes that by the wonderful favor of Providence he had been enabled to come across the long-lost boy, his own cousin.

Their happiness was subdued, for there had been lives lost in the storm, a number of passengers and crew having been swept from the deck of the steamer by the giant waves before the coming of the life savers.

As the storm subsided by noon, our little party, increased by Abner’s presence, was enabled to cross the still rough sound in the staunch motor-boat of Paul, and to Nancy’s amazement appeared at her humble little home.

She heard the story of Darry’s great good fortune with mingled emotions, for while she could not but rejoice with him in that he had found a mother, still, in a way, it seemed to the poor woman as though she had been bereaved a second time, for she was beginning to love the boy who had come into her life to take the place of Joe.

Still, the future appeared so rosy that even Nancy could not but feel the uplift, and her face beamed with the general joy as she bustled around and strove to prepare a supper for her guests.

In the village they had heard news.

Jim Dilks and several of his cronies were in the hands of the United
States authorities, having been arrested on serious charges.

Later on they were convicted of using false beacons in order to lure vessels on the reefs for wicked purposes, and of robbing the dead cast up on the shore.

A more serious charge could not be proven, though few doubted their innocence.

Darry, or as he was compelled to call himself now, Adrian Singleton, being summoned to give evidence, helped to send the big wrecker to his well-earned solitude by telling what he had seen on the night of the last storm, and as some jewelry was found in his possession, which was identified by the wife of a passenger who lost his life, and whose body was washed up on the beach later on, there was no difficulty in securing his conviction.

As for his profligate son, he was not long in following the elder Dilks to confinement, being caught in some crime that partook of the nature of robbery, and was sent to a reformatory, where it is to be hoped he may learn a lesson calculated to make him a better man when he comes forth.

Since these happenings took place only a few years back, young Jim is still in confinement; his boon companions Sim Clark and Bowser vanished from Ashley and doubtless sought congenial surroundings in Wilmington, where they could pursue their destiny along evil lines until the long arm of the law reached out and brought them to book.

True to his word, Paul saw to it that Abner Peake was placed in charge of the big farm he owned, not a great distance away from Ashley, and here the former life saver and his family have every comfort their simple hearts could wish for, so that they count it the luckiest day of their lives when the cabin boy of the lost brigantine, Falcon, was washed up on the beach out by the life-saving station.

About once a year Abner visits his old chums out on the beach, spending a couple of days in their company and reviving old times, but on such occasions they often see him sitting by himself under the shelter of some old remnant of a former wreck, his calm blue eyes fixed in an absent-minded fashion upon the distant level horizon of Old Ocean, and at such times no one ventures to disturb him, for well they know that he is holding silent communion with the spirit of poor little Joe, who went out with the tide, and was seen no more.

Somewhere upon that broad, lonely ocean his little form has found a resting place, and so long as he lives must Abner drop a tear in his memory whenever he sets eyes upon his watery shroud.

But the Peakes are happy, and the twins are growing up to be buxom children.

There is another little laughing Peake now, a boy at that, and at last accounts Darry ­it is hard to call him by any other name ­heard that he is destined to be christened Joseph Darry Peake.

After all, Paul and Darry did have a chance to spend some part of the winter cruising together on the sound, although our hero later on decided that he must start in to make himself worthy of the position which was from this time to be his lot, and enrolled at an academy where his fond mother could be near him, and have a home in which he might find some of the happiness that fate had cheated him out of for so long.

No one who knows the youth doubts that he has a promising future before him, and many prophesy that he will eventually make a more famous lawyer than his father was before him.

Often Darry loves, when by himself, to look back to the days that are no more, and at such times he thinks with gratitude of the friends whom a kindly Providence raised up for him in his time of need.

Among these he never fails to include Captain Harley, the skipper of the Falcon, whose widow Darry had communicated with while he was still under the roof of the life saver’s home, and whom he later on met personally, as she came on to hear all he could tell about her lost husband.

And the brave life savers on that desolate Carolina beach have not been forgotten by the grateful mother of the boy they had adopted, for during each winter there always comes a huge box filled with such warm clothing as men in their arduous and dangerous profession greatly need.

At Christmas holidays Darry, Paul and Mrs. Singleton make it a point to spend a week at Ashley, during which time they live again the stirring scenes of the past, and find much cause for gratitude because of the wonderful favors that were showered upon them in that locality.