BESIEGING THE LIGHT-HOUSE. 397 



and the plunder of their foray were scattered around 

 them. The dense hedge of palmetto with its fan leaves, 

 and the matted cane, bent over them, screening them 

 from the wind, and though on the pulses of the gale they 







could hear the sobbing of the distant sea, they were 

 secure from the tempest and from want, laughing low 

 with humor, smoking their pipes, drying their leggins and 

 stretching and basking like cats in the genial warmth and 

 light of the fire. They too saw the bright flash of the 

 light-house, as it stepped to its place in the heavens as did 

 Herod the star over the cradle of Bethlehem. With their 

 harshly uttered accents of surprise, they started to their 

 feet and peered out from the foliage on- the light they 

 thought had darkened forever. The whole temper of 

 their meal was changed, and with diverted glances and 

 low conference they ate their food and glowered at the 

 star that shone so placidly in the horizon. 



Still another party, besides the sailor on the sea and 

 Indians at their camp, saw that star take its accustomed 

 place in the dark. 



Mike was coming down the same lagoon when the 

 far-floating specks of the Indian canoes caught his eye, 

 and drove him to cover. He hid his little craft in the 

 palmetto bushes on the land, and squatting beside it with 

 his hound, the two watched the savages pass and land 

 on the beach opposite to him. There were three canoes 

 that was the same number he had been tracking, 

 there w.ere no women with the party that again tal- 

 lied, but here were eight men, and there had been 



