"Ever so many wrecks," said Dab, "and they keep a sharp lookout. There
used to be more before there were so many light-houses. It was a bad
place to go ashore in, too,--almost as bad as Jersey."

"Why?"

"Well, the coast itself is mean enough, for shoals and surf; and then
there were the wreckers."

"Oh! I understand," said Ford. "Not the Government men."

"No, the old sort. It was a bad enough piece of luck to be driven in on
that bar, or another like it; but the wreckers made it as much worse as
they knew how to."

They were all listening now, even his sisters; and Dabney launched out
into a somewhat highly-colored description of the terrors of the
Long-Island "south shore," in old times and new, and of the character
and deeds of the men who were formerly the first to find out if any
thing or anybody had been driven ashore.

"What a prize to them that French steamer would have been!" said Annie;
"the one you and Ford took Frank from."

"No, she wouldn't. Why, she wasn't wrecked at all. She only stuck her
nose in the sand, and lay still till the tugs came and pulled her off.
That isn't a wreck. A wreck is where the ship is knocked to pieces, and
people are drowned, and all that sort of thing. The crew can't help
themselves, after that. Then, you see, the wreckers have a notion that