Rose had promised to be careful, and she had been.  She had noticed the locket after supper and when she came out in the evening to dig in the sand with Russ.  But now it was gone, and just where she had dropped it Rose did not know.

“And now my lovely locket is gone!” she sobbed.

“Never mind!  I’ll get it for you,” said Daddy Bunker.

Russ and Rose stood still as he had told them to do, and now they saw their father coming toward them waving his pocket electric light.  He usually carried it with him to peer into dark corners.  It would be just the thing with which to look for the lost locket.

“Did you remember where you had it on you last?” asked Daddy Bunker, as he came close to Rose.

“Just before Russ and I started to dig with the clam shells to find the gold,” she answered.

“Where was that?” her father asked.

Russ and his sister pointed to where two little piles of sand near some holes could be seen in the moonlight.

“That is where we dug for gold,” said Rose.

“But we didn’t find any,” added Russ.

“You may now, if you dig—­or to-morrow,” said their father.

“Really?” inquired Russ.

“You may dig up Rose’s gold locket,” went on Mr. Bunker.  “I don’t believe there is any other gold in these sands, even if Sammie Brown’s father did find some on a desert island.  But if Rose dropped her locket here, there is surely gold, for the locket was made of that.  Now don’t walk about, or you may step on the locket and bend it.  I will flash my light as I go along, and look.”

Daddy Bunker did this, while Rose, standing near her brother, looked on anxiously.  Would her father find the piece of jewelry she liked so much?  It was hard to find things, once they were buried in the sand, Rose knew, for that afternoon Cousin Ruth had told about once dropping a piece of money on the beach, and never finding it again.

“And maybe my locket slipped off my neck when I was digging the deep hole,” thought Rose; “and then I piled up the sand and covered it all over.”

Daddy Bunker must have thought the same thing, for he flashed his light about the sand piles made by Russ and his sister.  He did not dig in them, however.

“We won’t do any digging until morning,” he said.  “We can see better, then, what we are doing.  I thought perhaps the locket might lie on top of the sand, and that I could pick it up.  But it doesn’t seem to.  You had better come in to bed, Russ and Rose.”

“But I want my locket,” sighed the little girl.

“And I thought I could find it for you,” said Mr. Bunker.  “I think I can, in the morning, when the sun shines.  Just now there are so many shadows that it is hard to see such a little thing as a locket.”

“Will it be all right out here all alone in the night?” asked Rose.

“Oh, yes, I think so,” her father said.  “As it is gold it will not tarnish.  And as no one knows where it is it will probably not be picked up, for no one will be able to see it any more than I. And I don’t believe many persons come down here after dark.  It is rather a lonely part of the shore.  I think your locket will be all right until we can take a look for it in the morning.”