TEACKma THE ENEMY. 373 



southward. We thought at first he had gone over to 

 the town, but a missing canoe showed he had taken to 

 the water. AYe mentally bade him farewell, and started 

 over to the Spanish town of St. Augustine, and were 

 soon pacing its narrow streets, under the moss-grown 

 walls of the old fort, builded, as saith its inscription, by 

 Field Marshal Don Alonzo Fernando Hereda, of noble 

 fame. 



In three days Mike stood under the moss-grown walls 

 of the cypress trees that bastion the southern shores of 

 Lake George, builded and mossed when Hereda's fort 

 was in the quarry. He had retraced the course he had 

 brought us in descending the river. Over the broad 

 water of Lake George he passed like a gull before a 

 northerly wind, holding up his blanket for a sail, and 

 made the orange tree j^oint where the St. Johns enters 

 the lake from the southward. 



Following the St. Johns beyond Lake Monroe, he 

 passed in the night, and unobserved, the company of 

 soldiers we met in descending the river. Their camp- 

 fire was bright on the beach, and he could hear the sen- 

 tries challenge as they marched to and fro under the 

 stately trees, according to what Mike thought their 

 unnecessarily ostentatious rules of camp government. 



'' Ilulloain' like that in the woods when they ought to 

 be hidin' away," said he to himself, as he noiselessly 

 floated by ; " that's all some folks knows." 



Mike was like a good many quiet people — he liked his 

 own company, and would talk to himself, little by little, 



